This ‘New Life in Belize’ blog is brought to you from poolside at the Villa de Palermo Resort in beautiful Nicaragua. Yup, we are on vacation! We take a fair number of mini vacations in Belize and we enjoy them all but this time we were eager for some new sights and sounds. The stars all came together just after Christmas and we booked the trip. We’ve been talking about exploring more of Central America. We have friends from Belize who recently moved to Nicaragua so that kind of put this country on our radar. And I am so glad for that!
Our first week here, we are staying in San Juan del Sur. World famous surf and beach bum town. This beautiful area is big time on the map for backpackers and aged hippies from all over the world but it’s also working very hard to attract a higher end (more money!) brand of tourist.
We are staying in a resort just a few minutes from town. We are way up on the hillside and the view is absolutely amazing! I’m not all that familiar with the Pacific ocean so I have to admit I was kind of surprised at how blue and clear it is. Now, it’s not the caribbean for warmth but I’m not complaining!
I’m going to step back a bit and cover our trip down. We flew with TACA Airlines right out of Belize City. TACA has daily flights to San Salvador and from there you can connect anywhere. We had a two hour layover in San Salvador and then it was straight to Managua. Really easy. By then we were late into the evening so we spent the night at a Best Western near the airport. The next morning we hopped a shuttle for the two hour drive to San Juan del Sur. Again...really easy!
The drive here was soooo nice. After more than four years living in Belize, driving on a smooth and well maintained road can almost bring me to tears! Nicaragua has beautiful roads!!! Strangely many of them are actually built with interlocking pavers....for miles and miles. Lots of black top and cement too but the pavers are very common and they look really nice. I’m a little embarrassed to say how many pictures of roads that I have on my camera...sniff, sniff!
The country side is much different than what I expected. We are less than half an hour from the Costa Rica border so I expected rainforest and jungle, much like home. But it’s not like that. They have what is called a tropical ‘dry’ forest. Lots of the trees are the same as Belize but none of the density of the jungle. It’s very noticeable in the humidity. Much drier here...not ‘northern Canada in the winter dry’... but not rainforest humid either.
We are staying in a resort just a few minutes from town. We are way up on the hillside and the view is absolutely amazing! I’m not all that familiar with the Pacific ocean so I have to admit I was kind of surprised at how blue and clear it is. Now, it’s not the caribbean for warmth but I’m not complaining!
I’m going to step back a bit and cover our trip down. We flew with TACA Airlines right out of Belize City. TACA has daily flights to San Salvador and from there you can connect anywhere. We had a two hour layover in San Salvador and then it was straight to Managua. Really easy. By then we were late into the evening so we spent the night at a Best Western near the airport. The next morning we hopped a shuttle for the two hour drive to San Juan del Sur. Again...really easy!
The drive here was soooo nice. After more than four years living in Belize, driving on a smooth and well maintained road can almost bring me to tears! Nicaragua has beautiful roads!!! Strangely many of them are actually built with interlocking pavers....for miles and miles. Lots of black top and cement too but the pavers are very common and they look really nice. I’m a little embarrassed to say how many pictures of roads that I have on my camera...sniff, sniff!
The country side is much different than what I expected. We are less than half an hour from the Costa Rica border so I expected rainforest and jungle, much like home. But it’s not like that. They have what is called a tropical ‘dry’ forest. Lots of the trees are the same as Belize but none of the density of the jungle. It’s very noticeable in the humidity. Much drier here...not ‘northern Canada in the winter dry’... but not rainforest humid either.
Of course, we have had to step out of our comfort zone with the language. This is not Belize where it’s OK and acceptable to speak english anywhere. We are actually having to blow the cobwebs out of our brains and put the little spanish that we know to work. I’m loving it. I don’t have many phrases but I’m adding words everyday. I find that if I try and smile and laugh and point I can get most things across. Honestly, I am having a blast with this.
On that note it’s time to get up and go for a walk. We over ate again. The food is very, very good here!