--Now that we are in South America and don´t have people to meet at certain times, we don´t have much of a "plan", but will still try to keep you loosely updated on the big picture by telling you our ideas of when and where we may be somewhere.--
20 September: Nina
Not that anyone looks at this section anymore but here goes...
We will be in Ecuador until the end of September, maybe a tad bit longer. Then we would like to spend some time on the beach in Northern Peru, then down to Lima around the 17th of October because we have a very special meeting that day! After 7 years of sponsoring and writing back and forth with Anthony, I get to meet him in person, I am so excited! After that, who knows, we heard there are some famous Incan Ruins somewhere in Peru, so we may go tromp around there for a few days. ;)
29 August: Nina:
Well what do you know, the "plans" have changed. We decided to go back to Ecuador after this week of hostel sitting in Popayan, so roughly Sept. 7th. We would like to spend another week in Otavalo with the Marco and Yoli family and then visit my mom and dad's sponsored child who lives near Quito. After that, we will go to Southern Ecuador to Vilcabamba and then to Peru.
11 August, 2007: Nina
Haha, it's been a month! We do know now that we will be in Colombia until September 29th. The idea is to travel up north and then back down through a different route.
13 July, 2007: Matthew
We leave Mindo in the morning... headed for Baños. We are lined up with another school in Baños, and plan to be there at least a week if not two.
7 July, 2007: Nina
Another week in Mindo, Ecuador...
I think we are thinking about staying in Ecuador until our Visas expire.. which will be in September. We have begun entertaining the idea of visiting Columbia sometime between now and then....
22 June, 2007: Matthew
Uh yeah... great description below of the plan. Ok, to be only slightly more explicit - ¨this week¨ meant Otavalo, Ecuador. Which is about a two hour bus ride north of Quito. And we are planning to stay here through next week as well. After that we are thinking that we will head to Mindo, which is a little way west of Qutio. We are expecting to stay there a week, but if we can find a good study situation maybe a little longer. Ok, that is as far as the plan extends at this time.
18 June, 2007: Matthew
We plan to stay this week...
14 June, 2007: Matthew
Fly to Ecuador this afternoon.... but first we have a long (9 hour) layover in LA, and then a shorter layerover in San Jose, Costa Rica before arriving early afternoon in Quito, Ecuador. This might be a long day ahead of us. I think that we will stay through the weekend in Quito before making our way north to Otavalo. We have contacted a school which we hope to start classes with on Monday called Mundo Andino.
15 May, 2007: Matthew
May 16 Fly to Columbus, OH and my folks pick us up
May 19 Enjoy some time at Mike and Bonnie´s wedding
June 2 Enjoy Dave and Tammy´s wedding
June 5 Fly to the west coast
June 14 Fly to Quito, Ecuador
2 May, 2007: Matthew
May 2 Travel back up to David, Panama - stay the night
May 3 Bus up to Volcan, Panama and hike to Boquete... there is no road between.
May 4 Bus from Boquete back to David, pick up second backback and cross the border into Costa Rica
May 5 Continue travels to San Jose or beyond in our pursuit of Montezuma Beach by Sunday afternoon
May 6-11 Montezuma Beach, meet up with Andres
24 April, 2007: Nina
Here is a quicky on our latest plans
April 25-27 Travel through Costa Rica and to Panama City where we will meet our friends the Stantons. Yea!
April 27-May 3 Spend 5 days or so with Chris, Kalika, and Merik in Panama
May 3 through May 6 Mosey our way back up through Costa Rica, to the Peninsula de Nicoya where we will meet our friend Andres Moctezuma!
May 6 - May 13 Bum the beaches of Nicoya for a week or so, surfing, snorkling, and drinking pina coladas.
May 16 Return to the states for 4 weeks!
20 April, 2007: Matthew
So we are probably only going to Ocotal, Nicaragua April 21... as opposed to Esteli as mentioned below. It is only about an hour or so bus ride short of Esteli, it just seemed a little more interesting and off the beaten path. We are still in process with regards to which cities we will stop over in until Wednesday, but Wednesday is when we are hoping to be in San Jose, Costa Rica and heading for Panama... mas o menos.
19 April, 2007: Matthew
Although we are still shooting for Esteli, Nicaragua on April 21st, we are no longer planning to spend a week of school there. We will spend the week moving further south, and again hoping to make it to Chris and Kalika's place in Panama City by April 27th.
8 April 2007: Matthew
To clarify "travel towards and through Honduras" here is a bit of the run-down:
April 9-10 Omoa, Honduras
April 11-12 Lago de Yojoa, Honduras
April 13-20 La Esperanza, Honduras - for language school hopefully, if we can make contacts... it's a small place, I think that it will work.
April 20-26 Esteli, Nicaragua - again hopefully another week of language study.
5 April 2007: Matthew
So, as it turns out, "Semana Santa" or Holy Week is a huge holiday in Guatemala and much of Central America. We have had to plan around the crowds, and work with prices... so there are just a couple of updates for the plan, but really not too much. Mostly just the fact that we are hanging out in Livingston until after Easter, which is cool, we are liking it a lot here.
April 3-8 Livingston, Guatemala
April 9-15 Travel towards, and through Honduras. No working on the organic farm this time around... making effective contact has proved difficult, and there are many places that we want to see.
The rest is still pretty much the same... loosely.
10 March 2007: Matthew
Ok, so it has been a while since we have posted anything in the way of "plans", but as we are getting down to only two weeks left in Xela, it is time to start firming up what we want to do and see for the next stage of our journey. Here is the loose agenda that we came up with this morning (obviously it is highly subject to change):
March 25 - 28/29 Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
March 28/29 - 30/31 Antigua, Guatemala
March 30/31 leave for Tikal ruins, Guatemala (!!!) fly/bus? stay `til April 6
April 7-14 Copan, Honduras (work on organic farm?)
April 15 -22/23 Nicaragua (another week of language school)
April 23-27 travel from Nicaragua through Costa Rica to Panama
April 27- May 4/5 in Panama visiting Chris and Kalika
May 5/6 - 12/13 meet up with Andres in Costa Rica to spend a week at the beach and surf...
May 14- 16 make our way to San Jose, Costa Rica to fly back to the states for David and Tammy`s wedding
So there is the run down for now....
15 February 2007: Matthew
Our final day in Portland is going to be this coming Wednesday. We are planning to spend a couple of nights with family in WA before flying out of Seattle on Saturday. Are we really going to get all of the details attended to?
25 January 2007: Matthew
I will be finishing work at Gunderson on February 1st, and Nina will be finished with work by the end of January. We then have until February 24th to finalize preparations for our departure. We fly from Seattle to Guatemala City, where we will stay the night before taking a bus to Quetzaltenango, or as the locals call it, Xela (pronounced SHAY-lah).
We anticipate being in Quetzaltenango for about 4 weeks, studying Spanish at Celas Maya . While there we hope to explore Guatemala including the mountains, the tropics, ancient ruins, and of course, the local community where we will be living. After Guatemala, we will travel through Honduras and Nicaragua, and may possibly work on an organic farm for a week or so while passing through. Two of our other priorities while in Central America are to visit our friends Chris and Kalika, who are living in Panama right now, and our friend Peter, who is living in Costa Rica.
Our entire time in Central America will span between when we arrive in Guatemala on February 25th, until we fly back to West Virginia on May 17th. Our time in West Virginia will include the events of the David and Tammy's wedding (I'm the best man), Mike and Bonnie's wedding, and visiting friends and family.
On June 5th we fly to Seattle to spend a few days with the Hertzogs in Enumclaw, WA and then head down to Porland to visit friends for a few days there as well. This brings us to our final plane ticket that we have purchased up to this point, a flight which will be departing Portland and arriving in Quito, Ecuador on June 15th.
The South America piece of our trip is still very loosely planned for the most part, but our intentions are to spend some time in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. We will continue language study and really hope to get involved in the local communities. Further explorations may be made into Brazil and Chile - how else are we going to experience the extent of the Andes and the Amazon?!!
22 January 2007: Matthew
The big picture is for us to be away from Portland and traveling in Central and South America for up to a year. One of our primary objectives is to study Spanish, and to learn about the cultures and people that we encounter.
During the first 4 - 6 months we are planning to participate in family home-stays through language school, and after that we will be pursuing volunteer and other sevice opportunities. Our hope is to find situations where we will be able to do work exchanges for room and board, but this will not always be the case.