Who, what, where, when, & how

Map courtesy of Creative Commons / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

We’re starting to put together the broad outlines of the trip.  At a minimum, we’ve committed to dates as well as start and end points — plane tickets have been purchased!  Plans are as follows:

February 9: My leave of absence from work begins
February 11: We fly from Boston to Managua, Nicaragua
April 29: We fly from Belize City, Belize to Boston
May 4: Back to work and school!

Our starting point was set when I read about La Mariposa Spanish School, set in the hills above Managua.  We knew we wanted to start our trip with some Spanish immersion, and this place sounds incredible.  We’ll have one-on-one Spanish instruction in the mornings, three homemade meals a day, afternoon excursions, and evening activities — all while staying in rustic accommodations in a nature reserve in the rainforest.  There is great emphasis on sustainability and supporting the local community, so the food (including coffee!) is grown on site or locally sourced, everything is recycled, workers are paid a living wage, and profits go back into the community.  (Also, for Nadia: they have horses.  I’m sure she’ll pick up some Spanish from the stable workers.)  One weekends there are more extended hikes and excursions.  And all this for under $2000 a week for the five of us.

I got this card in the mail from my friend Sony the very day my leave of absence was approved.  Maybe I should ask Sony for some lottery numbers.

I got this card in the mail from my friend Sony the very day my leave of absence was approved. Maybe I should ask Sony for some lottery numbers.

After these initial two weeks, nothing is set in stone (except that we have to make our way to Belize at some point).  We’re planning on spending some additional time exploring Nicaragua, then heading south into Costa Rica.  I think for the most part we won’t have set plans, but will decide as we go.  (For those who know me well, I know this sounds hard to believe.  But even my planning skills have been defeated by the amazing wealth of things to do in this area.)

If time permits, we’ll continue south into Panama.  We’d love to take a boat ride on the Panama Canal, among other things.

Lastly, when we get to the point where we have about two weeks left on our trip, we’ll fly to Belize.  (Overland travel isn’t appealing because of the distances and unsafe areas involved.)  We didn’t originally plan on Belize, because it doesn’t border the other places we’re going, but the more we’ve heard about it the better it sounds.  It’s the home of the second-largest barrier reef in the world, so there’s amazing snorkeling.  (Nadia’s greatest wish in the past was to go to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, until she found out that there are poisonous snakes there.  (According to Lanie, there are also poisonous seashells.)  If you should happen to be discussing Central America with Nadia, ix-nay on the akes-snay, if you get my meaning.)  There are also world-famous caves and Mayan ruins.  For the most part these things aren’t found in many other parts of Central America, so off to Belize we go.

Thanks to those who’ve already given us suggestions.  Now that you know more precisely where we’re headed, we’d always love to hear more!

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