On the way to Chichi market I got chatting to English Fernanda & swapped travel stories - good, bad & scary including one of an American lady she met who was on a shuttle in South America that was stopped and all were robbed of their possessions.  They then went through their passports and took the Americans aside and beat them! Another good reason to be Australian! We arrived at the markets just after 10 (3 hour ride that went quick with the chatter) a...

I met English Vicky on the Ticabus that morning and we both took the shuttle from Guatemala City to Antigua together - well worth the $10USD for the convenience. Arriving in Antigua we wandered around getting lost for a bit before finally believing the locals directions and stumbling across Collette & Vinkos recommendation of Yellow House. We dropped of our bags, then organised with the in-house travel agency to get a shuttle the next morning to the ChiChi...

The Ticabus took us via Honduras and finished for the night in San Salvador, El Salvador - a whopping 14.5 hours after leaving Managua! Fortunately the bus was not full so had a seat to myself to spreadout, read & nap. It's by far the best bus I've used in Central America (not hard) but not better then the luxury leather seated beauty we rode on in Peru (that Hernan had kept hidden from us!) and did not have the comfy pull down calve rests that some of the ...

At the Ticabus terminal there was no English spoken but managed to get the right ticket for the next morning no problems - I had to use all the cash on me to pay for the ticket - leaving me with 7 cordobas - 35 cents! Close! I headed to the hostel Chris recommended which was on the same block as the Ticabus but the next corner. The place did not have a door or a bell - just a locked large driveway gate with razor wire at the top (you always know you're in a gre...

We arrive at Granada, and as this is Chris' second visit, I follow him from the bus to his recommendation of the Bearded Monkey Hostel. Along the way we meet Mike from Canada, who was also on our bus & a also a tout who wants to get paid for taking us to the hostel We arrive & check in and arrange to meet up again later for dinner. I ran into Tony & Paul from Omentepe as they had also recommended this hostel & arrived on the next bus after us. ...