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

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

Like much of Central America, Nicaragua has a complicated history with the U.S. Most of us may remember the Iran Contra affair - the 1986 scandal in which the Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iran in order to fund the Nicaraguan soldiers trained by the U.S. to overthrow the Sandinista government under Daniel Ortega. I was in graduate school in the late 90’s, earning a Master’s degree in public policy, and Central America factored prominently in our foreign poli

We hung around in León for a few days to partake in the most unnatural of pursuits. Cerro Negro (Black Hill) is an active volcano about 45 minutes outside of the city. It is a relatively new one at only 161 years old. Because the cone is primarily made up of small grains of volcanic rock, it’s possible to ride or surf down the steep slope on a wooden sled. Supposedly this is the only place in the world where you can do this - go volcano boarding. I figured hey, we’re here so

As in Antigua, volcanoes surround us in Lake Atitlan. The lake is set in a gigantic bowl of deep blue water, with little villages dotting the coastline. At night we fell asleep to the twinkling lights of these villages. The middle of the night often brought light shows put on by electrical storms shooting around in the clouds. The volcanoes seem to stand sentry around the lake; their lightening bolts warding off evil spirits. We felt protected and safe here, right on the wate

Antigua is cradled by three massive volcanoes: Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. The volcanoes seem to rise up right from the edge of town. It is a city trapped in time; trapped between 16th century architechture and the modern day life inside its facades. Colonial-era mansions with brass knockers, elaborate tiled windowsills, and verandas carved hundreds of years ago when Antigua was still the capital. It felt medevil to us. In 1541, a landslide destroyed the city and it was rebu

We found ourselves on a quiet road heading up a volcano on the way to Oaxaca. By the time we hit this particular road, we have been driving in Mexico for close to 4 months and every arrival feels like cause for celebration. The toll roads stop us every 30 or 40 kms for more pesos and the free roads through towns slow us every 3 or 4 kms because of the topes (speed bumps). The forks in the road all seem to have the same (or no) highway numbers to cities that are unpronounceabl