“We love, we love less” Central America

We love:

The beaches: it goes without saying that Costa Rica and Panama have an amazing variety of beaches, but we never suspected the thriving surfing communities of El Salvador and Nicaragua. We have had lots of fun giving surfing a go – and each member of the family has managed to catch a few waves and stand up at least once – some more often than others, but we all tried!
The ice cool and cheap beers. Each country has their own national brew and as good ‘locavores’, we've made an effort to try them all…
The street food – El Salvadorien cheese and bean-filled pupusas heated on a plancha are up there with Mexican fish tacos as the best street food ever!
The friendly people, that never correct or comment on our raw Spanish and are generally very happy to meet us, admire the kids blue eyes and chat about the trip.
Hamacas! When its 38 °C or more, there’s not much else we can manage than lying in a hamaca, possibly combined with ‘We love’ item #2, and letting the cool breeze pass under, above and around.
Rediscovering places we loved while on our first trip in 2003 like Lago de Atitlan (Guatemala), Antigua (Guatemala), Granada (Nicaragua) or the beauty of Costa Rica’s jungle
A pre-9am cigar in Granada – chocolate-flavoured so it somehow counted as breakfast!
Coconuts - Fresh coconut water to drink straight from the coconut on the beach, coconut oil to use in our cooking or as moisturiser or whole coconuts to hack at with Florent's Laguiole - we have developed a passion for all things coco!
Other travellers and overlanders – we’ve met some awesome people over the last few months and have enjoyed discovering all their travel stories and what motivated them to hit the road.
Picar – our trusty travel companion that has taken us on some seriously dodgy roads and is still doing great!

We love less:

The roosters – seriously??!! Central American roosters have no idea of time – sometimes crowing in what seems like the dead of night, and they have no volume button! Many sleepless moments have been spent wishing we had a good axe…
The drivers – There’s no Canadian courtesy here, flashing your lights at someone means “Watch out, I’m pushing my way in”, rather than a polite “after you”, and the bus drivers are just plain crazy.
Other travellers – with the number of North Americans seeking some sun down here, sometimes it feel more like Central Gringo than Central America.
The insects – midges, 'no-see-ums', mosquitos, ticks, spiders, bees – we’ve been bitten by all of these but we live to tell the tale!
The lack of land border between Panama and Colombia – what could be a quick 500km trip between Panama city and Cartagena is an enormous administrative hassle to organise and a giant chunk of budget!