OurBiggerPicture

It was mid March before we ventured beyond a three hour radius of Quito. We hovered around the capital city waiting for a couple of small parts to be FedEx’d to the Toyota Dealership there. We killed time hiking in the mountains a few hours north, just above Otovalo, and then ventured down to Cotopaxi National Park. We’ve been to Ecuador before and we covered all the highlights then. The Galapagos, Amazon jungle, Otavalo market, and Quito. Now we are here after 15 months on t

Our departure from Baranquilla was delayed by a few days. John got hit with some strange flu bug. Or what we thought was some strange flu bug. He had body aches, fever, and was really weak. He rode it out in the Sheraton Hotel (our oasis hotel chain on this trip) in the fetal position. Two days later, after we set up camp in the mountains on the Caribbean Coast, I went down too. We think that we both got hit with the Zika virus that's been spreading through Latin America with

By the time we got to the Osa Peninsula, jutting off the Pacific Coast just above Panama, we have crisscrossed the entire expanse of this country. We have seen so much beautiful wildlife in the national parks, but driving slow and meandering around, I see this country differently than I did before. Much of what we see out the window is not rainforest and monkeys - its pineapples fields, banana plantations, miles of palm oil plantations, patches of bald mountains…and cows. Thi

Costa Rica is said to be a great country for adrenaline junkies. We’ve had a few adrenaline rushes since we got to Costa Rica, and not all of them have been pleasant. The first one was during our border crossing from Nicaragua into Costa Rica. A few days before we crossed, we read about a guy who had overstayed his vehicle permit in Peru by one day - and the border officials impounded his motorcycle. He was in a mess trying to get it back; red tape, fines, lawyers, etc. I sa

The coast north and south of San Juan del Sur is undeveloped, wild and beautiful. Tiny villages spread out from the beaches, with cattle, pigs and chickens roaming the dirt roads. The town of San Juan del Sur has grown up from a small fishing village to ground zero for Nicaraguan surfing. It is has Victorian clapboard houses, a few decent restaurants and a steady stream of young international visitors. A cruise port is getting built on the edge of the crescent beach here so w

Paula and I entered El Salvador on Saturday, July 18th. We had a smooth border crossing with our friends Janice and Gregor, and were thankful they advised us to take a less busy crossing with them on the CA 8 instead of the busy PanAmerican crossing. Our rigs at the border entering El Salvador...a little underwhelming which was just fine for us. Janice and Gregor were checked inside and out. Our guy only looked at our VIN. There is no rhyme or reason at these borders. And we

We haven't moved much in the last two weeks. Although we planned on spending an extended period of time in Sayulita, there wasn't any camping available when we rolled into town. So we turned around and headed back up the coast to a sleepy little town called Lo de Marcos. There are a surprising number of RV parks there, so we picked the last one at the end of a road called La Parota, and moved in. It's full of retirees down here (mostly Canadians), as there were in Baja. They

(by paula. photos by John) Today marks one month on the road for us. It seems like we just left; yet we have seen so much. After Playa Coco, we spent 3 nights in Loreto at the Riviera Del Mar campground. It was a perfect place in town to camp. I had been on a kayaking trip out of Loreto 15 years ago and while it has grown, it is still a quaint overgrown fishing town with good restaurants and a clean, pretty waterfront. We did laundry, shopped for groceries and spent practical