El Salvador - Amacuilco Hostel .. Lake Coatepeque -on lake, library, diving etc
Honduras
New Hostels in Tegucigalpa - Cheap one downtown
and an very expensive one in a rich safe suburb.
Hostel up the hill 250m from the Intercontinental
Hotel high rise building. Multiplaza the cities biggest shopping centre is
opposite the Intercontinental, it has all the stuff including supermarket and
late opening banks. Safe neighbourhood about 4Km from downtown. Not much
atmosphere, expensive $13 dorm $9 for peacecorps.
Maybe a better bet is the new Tobacco Road Inn Hostel.
In the same complex as the Tobacco Road Inn ex-patriot bar. The owner also owns
the second hand English bookshop
Shakespeares Books, which he might set up in the same complex. It's 80
lempira including breakfast. It's 2 blocks from the main square, so I wouldn't
go strolling around at night, but with a bar in the same building you don't
need to. Tel 222 4081
Couldn't find anything to do in Tegucigalpa anyway;
one museum was not very interesting and the national museum is closed for long
term repairs.
Border crossing
Honduras to Nicaragua Expensive $11
It's $2 to leave Honduras then in Nicaragua you have
to buy a $5 tourist card and also pay\a $2 admin charge. ($4 outside office hours). They give you receipts for
everything. The charges have to be paid in US cash, so most people have to go
back to the cambio place which is on the Honduran side.
La Selva Negra reserve, wasn't too interesting
to me and now the accommodation is ridiculously expensive $20 when a normal
hotel can be $2.
Granada is "tourist city"
almost like Antigua ..hostels and Spanish schools. Hospede Central is a bit
better than beared Monkey cos dorms are cheaper and set back from noise and has
free tea and coffee.
Ometepe - Moyagalpa
- Hostel Central is OK, but there's no reeason to stay in town anyway.
Finca Magdalena, nice view
from balcony of this historic building, but has some disadvantages standard is
real basic, it's a 2Km walk from the bus and noise travels easily through this
wooden building. We paid $5 for guided walk up to volcano crater lagoon, but it
was an 8 hour slog in the steep muddy path in the rain, not many views nor
animals ... Stay in the hammock and read a book.
Around opposite side of the same volcano ..
Hacienda Merida - Albero the owner
understands the backpacker business better. Good
standard, right on the lake, the bus
starts and finishes at the gate. New deal is $10 a day dorm bed all you can eat free
coffee and juices. You can still do the old system sign your own chits and pay
at the end if you want. Good food, bicycles (go to San Ramon 110m
waterfall) and kayaks (take kitchen scaps across to feed monkeys on nearby
islands).
WWOOFing 2 places - Zopilote 3Km before Finca
Magdalena – Italian family really organised,
Around the other side of the volcano at Merida
1. Playa Volcan small hostel on the beach (www.playavolcan.tk) but the Hacienda Merida really outshines it
San Juan del Sur more expensive than rest of Nicaragua
cheaper than Costa Rica- small surfer type town with many more expensive restaurants. The new
hostel Casa del Oro was full with young Yankees even though it's dorm beds are
80C and other hotels are 50C for private rooms. Has 2 Spanish schools.
Border
crossing Nicaragua to Costa Rica -
they try to charge you a $1 municipal
tax, but the guy I was with said we didn't have to pay it. Go across to
the buildings 200m on the get stamped out and pay a $2 charge. Walk back to the
road and straight past the Nicaraguan entry building and 500m down the road to
the Costa Rica entry building. He asked me for my ticket, but said no more when
I told him I didn't have one, but had sufficient funds to buy a plane ticket. Buses
only every 3 hours (500Colones taxi to La Cruz for better hitching)
|
Fortuna and Volcan Arenal -
geared up to rich Americans who can do $25
tours. "you sit in the hot springs
and look at the lava sliding down the outside of the volcano", I was told Wow ! The first thing is you can't see the lava in the
daylight, secondly even at night the volcano is covered with cloud cos it's
the wet season. So don't pay the money for the
tour cos you probably won't see anything. There isn't a really well organized
backpackers hostel. So you have to organise stuff yourself. So here's my tips 1. Hotsprings Baldi hotsprings 4Km out of town
nice $10 free bus. Tobocan 12Km out of town is realy expensive $19 at the
gate $17 in advance across the road is another place for $10 some people paid $8 again free
buses. FREE HOTSPRINGS right at the side of Tobocan jump into the
river.... Also 800m up the road look out for cars parked by the side of road
and follow paths through trees to hot river. PS cos of the rain the water
isn't really hot. When can you see the lava ? The first night it was cloudy, we saw nothing, the second day was
coudy and rainy. From 6 it rained really heavily for 2 hours. Suddenly at
11pm the clouds had lifted, we could see the lava from town. Other people
hired a taxi for C 6000 for 2 hours and saw it from the North side which is
currently more impressive. I stayed a Cabina Adrianas
for $3 a basic room and she was really angry that the lonely Planet says
there have been thefts there and told me the Police would confirm there never
has been ...479 9474 3 blocks west of Alamo and 2 up.
|
San Jose www.galileohostel.com good clean, homey hostel $6
People tell me there is a good hotel called something like Tica Linda, 3rd calle, 10av $4 has kitchen
Turrialba www.oocities.org/verehcostarica free WWOOFing , good place 2.5 hour walk from bus
Caribbean coast Puerto Viejo and Bocas del Toro (Panama) were a bit boring to me more for the Yankee college crowd.
Border crossing Caribbean side : easy for me no problem , but people going into Costa Rica were being asked to buy a $5 bus ticket as proof as ticket out
Border crossing Pacific side : weird - the hassle here is the opposite it's from the Panamanians ;people entering Panama were told to Buy a round trip ticket back to San Jose for me no problem , but people going into Costa Rica are not (I Hope) yep no problems
Entering Panama border. They really pushed me to get a return ticket for $10 I came back 4 hours later the same guy let me in.