Januari 2024 - Teneriffa, Spanien - Del I

 In the windy and cold winter, we escaped to Tenerife for two weeks. This destination we hoped to be a good fit for our first time abroad with a little one of 11 months (A), with a not-too-long flight and not-too-warm temperatures, and a not-too-high flight price. With little experience of the Canary Islands, we picked Tenerife because of the plentiful hiking trails and green nature but though we didn't prepare much beforehand researching daytrips or destinations, it turned out to be a fantastic trip that really exceeded our expectations. In this post I'll do my best to summarize our first week which we spent at a guesthouse in El Tanque.

First, I'll have to mention our flight there which went smoother than expected. We were lucky that the plane wasn't fully booked, which meant that we had an extra seat to use. A was sleeping both at the start and end of the flight, and in between she was happy to sit on the empty middle seat and play, not so much with the toys we brought but rather with any non-toy she could find - the safety instructions card, the wifi instructions or a pack of tissues. After we landed we picked up our rental car (which included a child seat) and headed out to a grocery store to pick up some food, since we planned to mostly cook ourselves. However, we didn't take into account that it was Epiphany Day, and most of the stores were actually closed! Luckily we found a smaller store in one of the tourist areas in the south where we could stock up on some things before driving on to El Tanque. We arrived at Finca El Lance, an old winery turned guesthouse which we had booked on AirBnB. It was owned by an older Swiss couple who greeted us with a piece of a Three Kings cake and a bottle of wine. We had our own small cottage fitted with kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a yard, but the main treat was the common area of the Finca. It was situated on a steep hill and there were several little places with chairs and tables where you could sit and enjoy the view.

Our first full day we did a hike which started in El Tanque and went up to Arenas Negras. Since El Tanque is on the mountain side it was a very steep uphill to start with, but we were soon treated with excellent scenery both in terms of surrounding nature and views. One of the things we loved about Tenerife was that a single hike could take you through so many different types of nature. As was the case with this one, we started in a village, entered a mossy forest, transitioned into a pine forest (with the largest pine cones we've ever seen) and finally reached the volcanic area with black sand and little vegetation. This was probably one of the longest hikes we did, but we were super happy with it. Since A doesn't walk yet, she was happy to be carried in our Ergobaby carrier, with some occasional breaks on the ground to explore. She loves being outdoors and really liked the forests where she could just reach out a hand to touch trees and bushes that we walked past.

The second day, we drove down to the coast for a change of scenery. We started off visiting one of the Charcos, natural pools where you can take a dip in the ocean while somewhat sheltered from the often rough sea and big waves. We walked eastward to a village San Juan de la Rambla with another charco which seemed quite popular to visit (Charco de la Laja). We took a dip in the crystal clear water which was around 22C perhaps, and then went searching for lunch. This small village didn't have many restaurants, but we found a bar serving drinks and smaller dishes tapas style. They didn't really speak any English and hardly surprising, they didn't have many of the dishes that were on the menu. So I did my best with my duolingo-Spanish to order lunch for us and what we ended up with was this: grilled cheese served with honey and blueberry jam - this turned out to be a local specialty that you could find at basically every food place (and very tasty), tuna in tomato sauce - for some reason the woman I ordered from suggested half a portion, I have no idea why, which was unfortunate since it was really delicious, and a huge plate of fries with shredded ham and cheese, and mayo (papas locas). After lunch we went back towards our car, and along the way stopped at yet another pool - Charco Verde. This one was at the end of a steep path, but we were rewarded with a quiet spot were we were almost alone. It also seemed to be a few meters above sea level, which left it mostly untouched by the waves, and also shaded by the surrounding cliffs - a perfect place to go with a little one for a calm afternoon.

Charco Verde

The next day, we went back to Arenas Negras but drove part of the way to park at one of the many camp/grill spots and just do a roundtrip hike. When google maps picked the most direct route, however, it was one that was extremely steep. In general, when driving on Tenerife, nerves of steel are to recommend, but this path I would not wish anyone to drive on ever, as it wasn't really wide enough for two cars and it was steep enough that you could barely see where you were going. Once we arrived though, we enjoyed a nice hike which was quite flat, and sandwiches that we had made for lunch. When we got back in the afternoon, we started a nice tradition of bringing some snacks to one of the areas at our guesthouse with chairs and table to enjoy some spanish cheese and other things while catching the last of the sun before it disappeared behind the hills.

Arenas Negras

Day four was again spent hiking along the coast, an incredibly hilly hike but with such dramatic landscape that left us in awe several times. Always the coastline ahead of us was shrouded in mist from the crashing waves. Our destination this day was Puerto de la Cruz, a popular place to go to watch big waves crash against the rocks and houses by the coast. We found an excellent lunch spot at a restaurant on one of the smaller streets in town where we ate papas arrugadas - another local specialty with potatoes cooked in saltwater (so they become "wrinkled") served with two sauces, mojo rojo and mojo verde. On top of that, grilled mussels and prawns in sauce. On the way back we stopped for a while in the shade on a wooden deck where A could go exploring and we could rest our feet for a bit.

The next day we felt like taking a break from the hiking and enjoy some time at a charco, so we drove to Los Silos, an area with desert like landscape and plenty of cliffs and charcos. We spent most of the days at a small rocky beach that was right next to one of the more popular charcos, Charco Los Chochos. As the charco caught most of the waves and the tourists, we could enjoy a quiet time and A even enjoyed taking a dip in the cool water. We went for a walk along the coast as well, but it was very warm. To finish off the day, we drove to Garachico, a popular visit on the north coast. It's a cute town, and we did a bit of city sightseeing and treated ourselves to some ice cream.

Day six, our last day in El Tanque, we decided to drive up to Parque Rural de Anaga in the north east corner of the island. This was one of the places where, as we found out, you might want to apply for a permit. Several of the places on Tenerife that attract a lot of tourists require a permit, which is often free but you have to apply online weeks or sometimes months in advance. In the case of Anaga, the permit is only required for a specific hiking trail but luckily there are plenty of other fantastic hiking trails to pick from. We were also happy to park a bit away from the main parking lot which seemed to fill up quickly. We picked out a route along PR-TF 10 which led us to a viewpoint Mirador Aguaide (view on AllTrails). Amazing views both along the trail and at the viewpoint, so we were definitely not disappointed and we would actually have liked to spend more time in this area to explore. Just the forest itself is also really nice, as this is a big chunk of mostly untouched nature and the oldest forest on Tenerife.

Here ends or first week on Tenerife, the next post I will write about our second week spent in El Palmar. Cheers!

Mars 2022 - Costa Rica - Monteverde, La Fortuna

Traveling to Costa Rica went a lot smoother than we expected. We had started early in the morning, taking a taxi from Popoyo to the border, in order to be sure that we would make it all the way to Monteverde in one day. However, while we were waiting outside the immigration office to get into Costa Rica, we met an American guy who lived in the country - Joe - who offered to give us a ride. At first he said he would drive us part of the way to reduce the number of buses we would have to take, but in the end he drove us all the way to our hostel! The road we took, which I guess was not the most common route, included some very steep dirt roads and had us going high up in the mountains - lucky for us he had a really good car! - and we got some beautiful views. On the way there we also stopped by the side of the road and he bought a bottle of vino de coyol for us to try, which is apparently a local specialty in the region which we were only passing through on the way to Monteverde. It's a palm wine, though with little to no alcohol, and the taste was something that could be likened with kombucha.

extreme touristing in Santa Elena

Our hostel was a little bit outside of the town called Santa Elena, with a very long and steep hill leading up to it, so we definitely got some good exercise those days. Monteverde and Santa Elena are quite high up, and the area is famous for its cloud forests (which we also visited in Honduras). Walking around in the small town, it seemed we had all weathers at once, all the time. It was usually windy, rainy and sunny, and there would almost always be a rainbow in one direction or another.

Our first meal in Costa Rica we tried some local things off the menu: empanadas, chorreadas (fried corn tortilla with cheese on) and tortilla aliñada (something like a cornbased "pancake", served with sour cream) and guanábana (soursop) juice! The guanábana was a favorite for me, and something we only saw in Costa Rica and a few places in Panama. That first afternoon we also went to a famous ficus tree in town, which has grown to look like a bridge and makes for cool photos.

chorreada (left) & tortilla aliñada (right)

the famous ficus root bridge

The next day we took a shuttle to the Santa Elena nature reserve, where the entrance fee is about half that of the Monteverde national park. We walked all of the trails, about 10km in total, mostly with our heads tilted back to scan the treetops hoping to see a sloth, or the quetzal bird. We didn't. But the forest was beautiful, and we did spot a few capucin monkeys and some hummingbirds. We had planned to walk all the way back to the hostel since the shuttle back was only at specific times, but then we were offered a ride by a passing car, which we happily accepted.

For a late lunch, we went to a soda, which is the name for a local, cheap restaurant. We ate casado, which is a cheap set meal: usually rice, beans, fried plantain, salad, and protein, and also includes a juice or other beverage.

The next day while strolling towards a lunch place, Valle brushed something off his neck and we wore both stunned when we realized what it was - a small scorpion! Later we found another one in our room, and our hostel owner assured us that it's not dangerous. Still, not something you want crawling around your neck. 

We decided to hike up to a viewpoint called Cerro Amigos. Along the way, and at the top if the weather is clear, you could see all the way to the coast. The road up was really steep, and when we reached the top it was unfortunately engulfed in clouds. Then we found another trail going down which went through the forest, which we were happy to explore instead of going back down the steep car road. We were treatet with beautiful cloud forest, just like in the nature reserve (but without the entrance fee), where we were completely alone. We emerged from the trail inside a huge resort area so it would not have been possible to find the trail from the other direction unless staying at that resort.

While not being an official restaurant, the owner of our hostel who used to work at a restaurant for many years would offer to make pizza for a reasonable price if asked. Tired from a day of walking, and not feeling like going down that steep hill in the dark and chilly wind, we ordered one for our last night. And it was so good! The owner also showed Valle some tarantulas by the side of the road (which I opted not to look at).

From Monteverde we booked a shuttle to La Fortuna - the most popular way to travel between the two places, as it also includes a one hour boat ride on the lake. It felt quite chaotic as there were a lot of people getting dropped off by the lake and a lot of different boats, and we didn't know which company or agency we were travelling with. But somehow it worked out! La Fortuna is a bit bigger than Monteverde, and more touristy. We didn't like it too much, and it didn't feel like it offered anything unique. Some years ago, the volcano near town was still active and thus was the main draw to the place, but currently it is not, and the top of the volcano is almost always covered in clouds. There are also several sloth reserves or areas where they do guided tours to see sloths (and other animals of course) but they can charge about $50 for a 1,5hour tour. We did see one sloth in a tree from the street as we walked past one of those areas, but we didn't feel like spending that money. (We also saw a lot more sloths in Cahuita, which you can read about in the next post!).

We had been recommended to hitchhike in Costa Rica as an easy way to get around, but we're not really used to it (and perhaps too Swedish?) and soon felt a bit awkward. We did manage to hitchhike some of the way to El Silencio, one of the cheapest hiking areas. We walked all of the trails and had a pretty nice day. We encountered a tour group that had stopped on the trail as there was a jumping pit viper snake occupying the path. Apparently very dangerous, we all had to stand back and wait while the guide slowly and very carefully poked the snake with a stick to get it to move away. We also saw a family of coatis running across the trail. 

On the way back we stopped for a quick bath in some natural hotsprings, though it was quite crowded. The next day we mainly walked around town, and in the afternoon we visited El Salto, a small waterfall with a rope swing, which was free. While there are more things to do in La Fortuna, many of them were quite costly. While the hike was pretty nice, overall La Fortuna felt like a place we could just as well have skipped.

Mars 2022 - Nicaragua - Isla de Ometepe, Popoyo

Our next stop in Nicaragua was Isla de Ometepe, and island with two volcanoes tied together with a chunk of land. We spent a whole week on this island, first exploring, hiking, and kayaking, and then a few days to just relax. The first three nights we spent in Moyogalpa, the town where we arrived with the ferry. Our hostel was a bit like a homestay as we had both breakfast and dinner in the family’s kitchen. One of the days we rented a scooter and drove around the island, which was longer than we expected, and with pretty bad roads in some parts, but with beautiful views.

Our first hike was the western volcano, Volcán Concepción, 1610 m high. The return trip took about 6,5 hours, and we walked about 16km. First we went through the forest, steep and sweaty in the heat, stopping occasionally when our guide showed us different plants and their usages. Once we got about halfway up, we took a bit longer break. As we got above the tree line we were greeted by strong winds which cooled us down quickly, though we took care to apply some extra sunscreen as the sun was still very strong. The last part of the hike we basically walked straight up the volcano on the steep, rocky and windy path. The crater was very impressive, and we enjoyed the incredible view from the top as well as a small lunch before we headed back down. In the trees on the way down we saw some howler monkeys, a capuchin monkey and plenty of blue jay magpies.

The last four days we spent at Finca Mystica, a place a bit further into the jungle on the south part of the island, with cozy bungalows and great food. The shuttle we took between our accommodations was kind enough to stop at Santa Cruz, where the weekly Saturday market offered various food and snacks, many of them vegetarian or vegan, so we could buy a bunch to bring with us. In the afternoon, we decided to join some other people at our hostel going kayaking in the wetlands. While the wetlands area was beautiful and we got to see lots of birds, turtles and a caiman, we had to paddle pretty far to and from this very small area, where we only spent about 10 minutes. However, we had good company and once we returned to the kayak place we enjoyed a few beers and the sunset before we headed back to Finca Mystica.

The next day, it was time to hike the second volcano, Volcán Maderas, 1394 m high. Maderas is a very old volcano which is now completely covered in forest, and with a crater lake. This hike was very different from hiking Concepción, and unlike any other volcano hike we have done before. When we got to about 1000 m elevation, the trail became very steep. Landslides had put big trees across the path, and we had to climb over, under and squeeze through branches and tree trunks, and often having to use both hands to climb our way up towards the summit. It was a lot of fun, definitely one of the more adventurous hikes we’ve done! As we had heard that it was possible to swim in the lake, we let our guide lead the way down into the crater. The trail down was very muddy and it didn’t take long before the both of us had stepped on what we thought was solid ground and ended up with a mud-covered shoe. And so, we were looking forward to a dip in the lake to wash off the mud before having some lunch. However, it turned out that the lake consisted of about 70% mud and just a small layer of water on top. Our attempts to swim ended up getting us more dirty than when we went in! If you ever find yourselves doing this hike – don’t try to swim in this lake. It’s not worth it. Overall we really enjoyed the hike though, and after hiking two volcanoes in just a few days we were happy to spend some more days just relaxing.

cloudy cloud forest

view of Concepción

the non-swimmable lake

Apparently we timed our stay with the last Sunday rodeo of the season, an event where all locals gather and there is plenty of food, drinks and music. This was however the same day that we hiked Maderas, and as we are not big fans of rodeo we decided to stay in, drink some local rum, and rest our tired feet. Others who went told us of a fun, chaotic evening with DJs as well as brass bands playing at the same time – no doubt an interesting experience.

Around this time, as we had been considering how and where to finish our trip and when to return home, the flight prices suddenly went up a lot, and we had to hastily buy a very expensive flight ticket back from Panama City. We also started to plan out a few stops in Costa Rica and Panama, and booked our accommodations during Easter as Semana Santa, as it’s called here, is a big holiday and we didn’t want to risk waiting and finding everything fully booked.

Time for our last stop in Nica, for which we chose Guasacate – the northern part of Playa Popoyo. Most hostels here were either expensive or fully booked, but we ended up finding a place via AirBnB – Casa La Aventura - that had a few rooms as well as our choice, a van remade into a “double room”. As with most of the Pacific Coast in this region, Popoyo is a surf spot, but we chose it as a place to relax, walk along the beach and read books. 

The hostess at our place told us about a turtle sanctuary a bit further north, where she had been lucky enough to see hundreds of turtles hatch, so we decided to rent bicycles for a day trip there. We stopped in El Astillero on the way, a small fishing village, where we had some nice lunch, including tostones con queso (fried plantain with big chunks of cheese). The last part of the road to the sanctuary was very steep, and we arrived tired, warm and sweaty only to find out that there were no turtles there, and that the beach still required and entrance fee to be paid. We managed to find another beach nearby where we rested a bit, before starting again on the long ride back. At least we got plenty of exercise, but I would say it’s not worth the trip (especially on rental bicycles) without knowing for certain it’s turtle season. A day walking along the beach and cooking some dinner was a nice way to finish off our time in Nica before heading to Costa Rica.