Where Are We Now?

June 16 onward, back in Canada!

June 16 onward, back in Canada!

A quick update to let you all know we have made it back to Canada without incident. Other than a nerve-wracking 10 seconds of serious turbulence on our flight. We were picked up at YYC by my father-in-law and are staying with them, at Karen’s old home in Red Deer, about an hour north of Calgary. We’ll be here for a week or so, making up for some missed holidays and enjoying some home cooking that puts mine to shame. 🙂

Local Weather

June 16 onward, back in Canada!

A quick update to let you all know we have made it back to Canada without incident. Other than a nerve-wracking 10 seconds of serious turbulence on our flight. We were picked up at YYC by my father-in-law and are staying with them, at Karen’s old home in Red Deer, about an hour north of Calgary. We’ll be here for a week or so, making up for some missed holidays and enjoying some home cooking that puts mine to shame. 🙂

June 10-17: Cancun, Mexico

Our last stop before returning to Alberta is going to be Cancun, Mexico. It has been an amazing 19 months of living in and exploring almost a dozen Latin American countries. I have so many more stories, experiences, photos, and videos to share. I plan on continuing to post more as time allows, even after we are home.

June 1: Otavalo, Ecuador

We will be leaving Ecuador in less than two weeks. We’ve been in the same apartment for our whole stay here. That’s a record for us. Before we depart the country we are going to get out of Quito for a night and check out Otavalo, Ecuador. Why are we going there? Apparently, it has the largest outdoor market in all of South America.

March 14 – June 10: Quito, Ecuador

We booked four weeks at an Airbnb here in a fairly central location in Quito. The apartment has large rooms and big table we can set up our laptops on for work and school. Although our trip from Asuncion felt like it was primarily north, we moved two time zones west. That, combined with day light savings moved us three hours “closer” to Calgary. We are in the same time zone as the central time zone in North America.

March 9-14: Asuncion, Paraguay

We are heading back towards Canada now. The bus ride from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu was a big jump north. Asuncion is more of a lateral move on the map. We will spend a less than a week in Asuncion before we fly back to the equator. Getting to Asuncion was more of a hassle/adventure than we planned. We ended up back tracking quite a bit, but we made it. Sydney has said she wants to write about that. I might as well if I get a chance.

March 8-9: Corrientes, Argentina

Well we had a pretty good run of relatively trouble free travel through Latin America. It came to an end on Thursday when we arrived at the Corrientes International Airport for our flight. It is not a large airport and the check-in line was empty. I figured it was because we were there almost 3 hours before departure. No, it was empty because almost nobody wants to fly to Asuncion, Paraguay from Corrientes, Argentina. Whether it was just the four of us, or perhaps a few more had purchased tickets. Whatever the number, it wasn’t enough for Amazonas Airlines to bother with the flight, so they cancelled it.

March 7-8: Bus from Puerto Iguazu to Corrientes

This trip makes five consecutive bus trips for us. This was the fourth overnight bus. The ride was “only” nine hours, from 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM. If it was lights out after we departed and all quiet until we arrived, it might have been restful. It was not. They played a couple of movies, handed out a sandwich/snack at just after 10:00 PM. We stopped in Posadas at about 2:30 AM. People got on, people got off. A couple of military guys wanted to check bags. All that to say that when we got into Corrientes we were tired.

March 4 – 7, Puerto Iguazú, Argentina

Puerto Iguazu is a small city of 66,000 or so people and is the Argentinian jumping off point for trips to see Iguazu Falls. We will be visiting them over the next couple of days. We’ve heard they are spectacular.

March 3 – 4: Via Bariloche Bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu

Last night we were once again on an overnight bus traveling across South America. This time it was a 1,000+ km trip north of Buenos Aires to a little place called Puerto Iguazú. Puerto Iguazú is the city on the Argentinian side of three boarders. The other countries it borders are Paraguay and Brazil.

February 7 – March 3: Balvanera, Buenos Aires

Yes, we are still in Buenos Aires. And I am sorry, I did it again. I forgot to post an update on our change of location. We didn’t move too far from the Airbnb in Monseratt. We are also only a few blocks away from La Barca Hotel, where we stayed the first week we were in Buenos Aires. This time we selected an old building.

January 31 – February 7: Monseratt, Buenos Aires

If you are going to live in a big city, you need to do it near the heart of the city. Monseratt is close enough to the action that you can walk to most points of interest. For the ones further away, there are special tour buses that have different routes. You can hop on and off them to see the sights you are interested in. The place we stayed in last month was OK, but the neighborhood was just so much urban filler.

January 3-31: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sorry I am late getting this posted. It seems that no matter what your circumstances are, planned and unplanned events fill all the time in the day. We are not quite as central here as we were in the hotel, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. We’ve been planning on checking out the subway and buses.

December 27-January 3: La Barca Hotel, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Well we made it to Buenos Aires! The marathon bus trip from San Carlos de Bariloche wasn’t too bad. The hotel is in an old building, probably 100+ years old. The doors are 3 meters high and the ceilings at least a meter above that. The high ceilings are supposed help keep things cooler when it is hot out. We will be putting that theory to the test is a couple of days. The temperature is supposed be in the mid-30s Saturday. I know friends and family dealing with -20 degrees currently might not have too much sympathy for us. 🙂

December 26-27: Via Bariloche bus from Bariloche to Buenos Aires

Wish us luck! When this post publishes we will be on a 1,600 kilometer, 20 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires. The bus is going to be about as comfortable as a bus can be. The cama (bed) seats are wide and recline way back. There are curtains for privacy. USB ports to charge iPads. It’ll be be fine! 🙂

December 22-26: San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

Well we’ve made it to another country! After a longer than scheduled bus ride from Valdivia, Chile, we arrived in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina on Friday evening. This place reminds us a lot of Banff back in Alberta. There are beautiful mountains all around, many of them with snow on top still even though it is summer here. The water in Nahuel Huapi Lake is too cold to swim in, but it looks clean and blue. There are steady winds driving waves across it so the surface is choppy. This area has some of Argentina’s best skiing and is the home of its craft beer industry.

December 18-22: Valdivia, Chile

Valdivia is a about 850 kilometers south of Santiago. The city is located about 15 kilometers inland at the confluence of the Calle-Calle and Cruces rivers. The climate is cooler, the temperatures have been about 10 degrees lower here compared to Santiago. We even had some rain today!

October 18-20: Bellavista, Santiago, Chile

We have returned from three days and a couple of nights exploring part of Santiago. We left most of our belongings at our friend’s house in El Ajail and stayed at an Airbnb apartment for two nights in Barrio Bellavista. It seems like we keep finding the bohemian areas of cities south of the equator. The Bellavista neighborhood is known as Santiago’s bohemian quarter. The area has popular locations; the most noteworthy are Cerro San Cristóbal (St. Christopher’s Hill) and La Chascona.

October 4-December 17: El Ajial, Paine, Chile

We have made it to to our friend’s home on wonderful, green acre and a half south of Santiago. We needed to get adapters for the plugs on our computers and phones. Shopping took a while. Our phones’ SIM cards didn’t activate effortlessly as advertised when we put them into our phones. Our electronics are plugged in now, but it is late and I think everyone else went to bed some time ago. I’ll update this post with better information tomorrow or as soon as I can!

October 3-4: Santiago, Chile

We arrived in Santiago, Chile just after 11:00 PM local time so we booked a night at a hotel just 10 minutes from the airport. It was a nice little place in a quiet, gated community with heated beds that Lucas and Karen immediately took a liking to. They were a bit reluctant to crawl out from under the warm covers in the morning. It is going into Spring down here now, but it is a bit cooler than we have been used to the past few months.

September 26 – October 3: Lima, Peru

Lima, Peru – First stop south of the equator! We were up early on the morning of September 26 to catch a flight from Medellin to Bogota. A few hours later we boarded another flight to Lima. We arrived just as the sun was setting. The sky was overcast, so it got dark quickly and we didn’t see too much as we landed.

August 15 – September 26: Medellin, Colombia

You may have noticed we haven’t traveled very far in the past four months. What can I say, we like Medellin. We have settled into another Airbnb apartment. This time we are on Calle 29, a dozen and a half blocks north of Poblado. Poblado is a very popular neighborhood for  foreigners. That is not something that makes it attractive to us, we prefer more authentic Colombian experiences. But it does mean we could satisfy our desires for North America products, if we are willing to pay North American prices.

July 25 – August 15: Envigado, Colombia

We’ve arranged a lot of our accommodation on this trip using Airbnb. It has proven to be a great way to get long term, furnished places and we have met some really cool people along the way. Our current Airbnb apartment in Envigado is at the north end of city. Technically we are just outside of the El Poblado area in Medellin. But like many urban areas today, it is hard to tell where one ends and another begins.

June 8 – July 25: Medellin, Colombia

We crammed ourselves and our bags into a tiny little taxi this morning. It was a 30-minute drive from Itagüí to Medellin. Once there, it didn’t take us long to feel good about the place.

May 7 – June 8: Itagüí, Colombia

The drive through the mountains and down into Medellin from the airport was beautiful. So lush and green everywhere you look, except where the buildings and construction projects shoot up from the hillsides. We’ve had some heavy rain as we settle in for our first night in Medellin. This three bedroom place is in a much newer and taller building, but much smaller than our Bogota apartment. Hopefully we can be comfortable here. Time will tell.

April 1- May 7: Bogota, Colombia

Again, I am publishing in advance. We will arrive at this place tomorrow and have booked it for a week. We used Airbnb, we've have a pretty good experience with them since signing up in 2015. Hopefully our good fortune continues.

March 30-31: Panama City, Panama

We don't have much to say about this hotel yet. We check in tomorrow. Through the magic of technology I am creating this blog post the day before and scheduling it for publication tomorrow so everything is kept up to date on were we are. We are staying here just two...

March 29: Anton Valley, Panama

We've headed for the hills after several days near the beach. It is cooler up here in the mountains. Some of the roads to get up here were quite challenging. Our friend Michele has been with us in Panama for the past week+ and took some video of sections of the drive....

March 25-29: Santa Catalina, Panama

Sorry I didn't get this place posted when we were there. Santa Catalina is a somewhat remote little surf town on the Pacific coast a couple of hundred kilometers west of Panama City. Lots of cool people and restaurants. The place had a nice vibe to it. Unfortunately...

March 19-25: Panama City, Panama

We found this place on Airbnb. This is a very new condo development. They have built several buildings and are still working on some new ones. It is a nice place, but we realize now that we have arrived that it isn't as close to the action as we had hoped. The taxi...

March 17-19: San Jose, Costa Rica

We are staying here just two nights. It is an affordable hotel for us to stay in while take a last look at San Jose before flying to Panama. The hotel is noting special to look at, so I posted a picture of the old San Jose Post and Telegraph Office that we walked by...

Jan 22-Mar 17: Sarchi, Costa Rica

[Updated, Feb 2: We have Internet and it is reasonably fast. We've committed to staying here until March 10.] We arrived here by bus on Saturday to try it out for a week or so. We were told we'd have the fastest Internet connection available, since we had emphasized...

Jan 16-21: Monteverde, Costa Rica

We spent four and half hours on a bus from San Jose to get to Monteverde. It is a popular little town, nestled in the mountains with several nature reserves in the surrounding area. We arrived after dark and were greeted with crisp, fresh air and spectacular display...

January 15: El Cacique, Alajuela, San Jose, Costa Rica

Our flight back to Costa Rica was getting in a bit late, well after sunset, so we decided to just get a place close to the airport. Thankfully SJO does not have planes coming and going all night because as you can see it is definitely close to the airport. The driver...

Jan 6-10, 2017: Mérida, Ometepe, Nicaragua

Casita Punta de Guavas We rented this cottage on the shores of Lake Nicaragua for a long weekend. It is an increasingly popular spot for tourists and Nicas alike. Off the beaten path and quiet. It is easy to relax on the hammocks on the front porch as you look out...

December 29 – January 1: León, Nicaragua

We used Airbnb to find a place to stay in León that was not your run of the mill tourist hotel. We are staying in a room in a multi-generational family home. It is interesting to get a behind the scenes look into a Nicaraguan family's life. We used Airbnb to find a...

December 25-27: Granada, Nicaragua

We are taking some time away from our usual work/study schedule to see other places in Nicaragua. First up is a couple of nights in Granada. We found a great little casita rent for a couple of days so we can get a better look at this historic city. Located at Reparto...

December 15 – January 15: Managua, Nicaragua

We booked this place for a month on AirBnB. If all goes to plan it will be our base of operations in Nicaragua over the holidays. Click here to see the listing details.

December 12 – 15, 2016: Escazu, San Jose, Costa Rica

Escazu A condo we found on AirBnB for a few nights before heading to Nicaragua.

November 14 – December 12: Delicias de Cobano, Costa Rica

This was our first long-term residence on our trip. We were here for nearly a month from November 14 to December 12, 2016. We literally put this place on the map!  Google Maps that is. I submitted it and they accepted it. 🙂 The pool was put to good use and it will...

November 13, 2016: Liberia, Costa Rica

We found this hostel a few blocks from the bus station. We just needed place to catch up on our sleep before heading to our destination on the Nicoya peninsula the next day. We found this place a few blocks from the bus station. We needed a place for a siesta to catch...
Many of the places we have rented were found via Airbnb. We have stayed in some pretty nice places using them over the past few years. If you haven’t signed up yet and are planning a trip, you should check out Airbnb today.

Planning a Trip?

The more we travel, the more opportunities we find. We’ve found some good deals using booking.com over the past few years. Use this link and booking.com will give you 10% back on your credit card after your stay!

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