Costa Del Sol

Que Ondas Todos? (What's up everybody?)

We spent Sunday at the beach - Costa Los Blancos, a stone's throw from the better known Costa Del Sol. Our friend Sonia invited to pass the day at family's beach house so we made the easy one hour drive to paradise.

It's the first place we've been in El Salvador that we could actually walk on the beach for any distance...                                                                                  Sonia & Kathleen

After we all went for a dip we went shopping for fish! Sonia, Mario and Natalia took us to Paty the fish monger, only 100 meters from their house...

 it was incredible and we bought a couple pounds of freshly caught huge shrimp..

Paty's Shrimp

...and some great Red Snapper that Paty's folks filleted for us

Natalia with a TINY fish

All in all it was a beautiful day and we had a great time swimming in the ocean, away from the very smoggy city. Bye now

Belize

Mark had a work trip to Belize, so we went together to check out the smallest capital city in the world, Belmopan. It is so small - 7,000 inhabitants - that we didn't take a picture. There is not much to see, but now we can say we visited the smallest capital in the world!

We left Belmopan after Mark met with all the necessry people there, including the ambassador, a school friend of Obama's. Caulker Caye (pronounced key) is where we headed, to relax, take it easy, walk around, see the lovely Caribe, maybe snorkel or dive -- just generally vacate.

local sculpture

Caulker Caye is famous for , hmmmm, let's see - I think it's famous for a lot of rasta-looking folks who are very very very relaxed. I mean, very relaxed. The motto of the place is 'go slow' and so we did.


Our first night we stayed at Mara's Place. Most hostels are better. After being eaten alive, we switched hotels to a place with a lovely view. And screens. And room to turn around.

Kathleen outside Mara's - the best place to be in that hotel (sorry Mara)

The view from our second room - at The Barefoot Caribe

Snorkeling - look at all the pretty fish!

So our analysis of Belize is - a lovely, relaxed, and laid back atmosphere, great for diving or hanging around in the sun. We'll be back (for business) and may visit a different caye or explore some Mayan ruins... we'll definitely bring a good book.

Current Events

Happy St. Valentines and Presidents Day Everyone:

Kathleen just returned to El Salvador from 10 days in Chicago; anyone familiar with the Windy City knows it's not first on the list of winter vacation destinations - no, Kathleen was in town to assist her parents whose home was badly damaged in a pre-Christmas fire last December (that's their place on the top floor in the photo below).

Firemen enjoying the view one floor down - from the condo that burned

Needless to say Kathleen and her mom had a very busy week in Chicago punctuated by a winter storrm (par for the course) and not much down time.

In January we helped out with a Habitat for Humanity build in a rural area near the city of Sonsonate, about an hour from San Salvador. It was hard work but lots of fun with a big group of embassy folks. A couple of pix from the build:

Kathleen builds a septic tank!

Mark puts his training to work sifting













We're now solidly in the dry season in Central America - often threatens rain but definitely won't until May. Our Spanish continues to improve (Kathleen's is definitely better) so we're seeing one of our goals come to fruition. Our travel schedule looks quite active in the coming months - Belize shortly with Honduras and Guatemala hot on the heels. Stay tuned...

Leave us a comment, we want to hear from you!

Mayan Kingdom - Copan

Hola Everyone

We traveled to Copan this past weekend, one of the most famous and well developed archeological sites in the Mayan world (5th through 9th centuries AD (check out the link - Copan History) with our friends the Wetmores. It was a spectacular experience for all of us, everything from the 4.5 hour drive (don't totally trust your GPS folks there's a place for a map in everyone's kit) to the macaw sanctuary just outside the cool little town of Copan Ruinas where we stayed. Take a look at the pix and let us know what you think.

Road Hazards not typically found on the Kennedy or Stevenson!

Part of a flock of macaws on the path into the ruins - their cries kept us company all afternoon

The "residential" section of the ruins           

Our fellow travelers

Stela - tells the Mayan story

Mayan Face

Copan - Que Chivo!

Macaw Rescue

Nobody will ever see us - silly tourists

Hope you enjoyed this post - Copan is totally worth the trouble if you're into the history and want to explore the ancient world. More Later, bye!

El Boqueron

Hi Everybody

Today we "climbed" El Boqueron one of the closest volcanos that last erupted in 1917, then stopped by the beautiful Cafe Miranda on the way back for a coffee and to look at their zip lines.

         Kathleen on El Boqueron

             
Volcan Izalco from El Boqueron - Kathleen climbed through the lava field  up Izalco a few weeks ago. (click on the photo for a better view)

It was very windy on the volcano today, look at these pine trees!

Mark at Cafe Miranda

It was a great day - clear, crisp and even chilly up high. Hope you all like the pix!

Leaving Comments

Greetings All

We just realized that leaving comments on our blog was impossible for some of you due to our settings (the problem being neither of us is particularly technically proficient). We've corrected that little issue so commenting should be a piece of cake so GET TO IT!
XOXO
K&M

Happy New Year

Hi Everybody and Happy New Year! This post reflects a bunch of events out of order (sorry); since early December we've visited the San Francisco Bay area, Panama City, Panama (not Florida) and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (no pix of that part yet). Take a look at the pictures below - December was a busy little month for us!

In the picture above we are at the Gatun locks of the Panama Canal - hard to believe the size of the ships, almost like seeing the Sears Tower sailing by. We could have stayed here looking at the 100-year old canal all day long. Amazing place.

One of the ships with crew members - click on the photo to see how much fun they're having!

One of the gates as a ship goes "All ahead full"

Here's Kathleen at a famous place...

Fort San Lorenzo in Panama, at the mouth of the River Chagres - easy to see why the Spanish put the fort here

Exploring Ft. San Lorenzo

Mark at the Fort

Here's the train we rode from Panama City to Colon - a wonderful trip through triple canopy jungle, complete with crocs swimming in the lake.

This was Manuel Noriega's private watering hole before he got tossed out of office - now it's part of a Smithsonian nature conservancy project on the Amador causeway. We got to ride bikes! Yippeeee!!!

A peresozo de dos dedos (two toed sloth) earning his name in a tree at the Smithsonian project

Mark at Limantour Beach, California December 2009

Kathleen & Mark at Point Lobos, California