Recap -- Back from South America

"Curious, Outlandish Ways"

A tiresome day selling fruit in Leon, Nicaragua

"We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can 'show off' and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our own untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off. ... The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad."

---Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad

Catching up after our 31 day 8400 nautical mile trip from San Diego down to Peru and back.


Costa Rica

Shannon, not so sure about those mesh suspension bridges

Meh

Camo Butterfly

Passion Flower

Classic Costa Rican Cart for collecting coffee beans

Mural of the same
BTW Costa Ricans say that Juan Valdez drinks Costa Rican coffee.

Exotic Varieties at a Roadside Fruit Stand

Nicaragua

Lion in Leon

View of Leon's Parque Central from the Cathedral

Very Interesting Roof of the Cathedral

Hmmmm ... no comment

Volcanoes in the far background

The San Jacinto Mudpots

 It ain't no Yellowstone

Locals allow their children to play around the mudpots

Guatemala

Buggy ride around the Parque Central of Antigua, “Safest town in Guatemala”  (Sounds to me like Damning With Faint Praise), Cathedral in the background.

Vendors everywhere, of course

Arch beyond the arch.  Behind the town hidden in the clouds is a volcano.

 

Santuario del Santo Hermano Pedro, one of many churches in Antigua damaged or destroyed over the centuries by earthquakes.  Of course the Spanish overbuilt, planting a church in each and every neighborhood.

Many of them sit like this, broken, simply abandoned.  Looks almost like a Roman ruin.

Others, like the ornate and lovingly restored church and convent La Merced, remain beautifully intact.

Smoke from one of Guatemala’s 33 active volcanoes

View of the countryside, more volcanoes

Classic Guatemalan textile work

 Last Two Stops in Mexico

Manzanillo

Sport Fishing for the Pez Vela or Sailfish is big business here.
MS Statendam docked there behind the palm trees.

We explored the hillside neighborhoods of Manzanillo

Puerto Vallarta

Fun Sculptures all along the Malecon

And Cra-cra Pastimes for the Adventurous Tourist