Our primary objective in Nicaragua was to organise our United States B2 tourist visa and our Honduran visa, to allow us to cross Honduras into El Salvador. And so we made a bee line to the capital, Managua, from the border. On the way we visited Rivas to withdraw some money from the ATM, have our visa photos taken and […]
Costa Rica has a “Pura Vida” (pure life) philosophy and abolished its army in 1949 to allow the country to invest more in social programs like education and healthcare. It is a very popular country to visit, but an expensive one! From the border with Panama we made our way to the beautiful, but swelteringly hot, Osa Peninsula and stayed […]
People (well, Jo!) have asked us for a tour inside Big Bertha. We have gone one step further and we have a short video (30 minutes) detailing Big Bertha. We hope you enjoy!
We flew into Panama expecting to have to wait a week in a hotel before picking up Big Bertha from the port. But the shipping stars were aligned and we got the call to come to port on our third day and so we were limited to one day of sightseeing in Panama City, but nonetheless, we liked what we […]
We have left South America! We had never been there before (except Francine’s very short Venezuelan visit, a long time ago) and we were not sure what to expect, but it has very much lived up to the hype – we have really enjoyed our nearly two year trip around this massive continent. Of course, there have been some ‘bumps’ […]
There is no road between South and Central America. Not a lot of people know that! Instead we have the Darién Gap; a 100km stretch of dense rainforest and swamp on the border between Panama and Colombia, making it the only overland break in the Pan-American Highway. So you’d think there would be a vehicle ferry. Er no. Instead we […]
We get asked all the time about the statistics behind our journey. When we started, we made a budgetary estimate as to how much our adventure would cost us and this has been pretty much on target. Budding adventurers may find this very useful in formulating their own plans. We published our statistics for Southern Africa here and it has […]
We are leaving Colombia (and South America)! We have enjoyed our stay here, prolonged as it was due to the normal shipping shenanigans. After leaving Mompox, one of the ‘colourful towns‘ we continued to the coast expecting to ship Big Bertha in short order, but then we received an email to say the Colombian customs were not working over Easter […]
Just north of Bogota there is a salt mine in the small town of Nemocón. We navigated through the narrow streets, parked up and went to investigate. The part of the mine we visited is no longer operational (unlike the mine Dave visited in Bolivia!), but other parts are still very active with a steady flow of lorries to and […]
Colombia has a number of beautifully preserved historical towns. We visited Jardin back in February and then went on to visit Doradal (Santorini) after leaving Guatape and then Barichara, Villa de Leyva and and Monpox after leaving Bogotá. They are all quite remote and getting to them involves narrow roads, and once there, it’s nearly always impossible to enter the […]