Cheers,
xoxo
Vivi

A little town that keeps the charm of a classic style on the streets, houses and way to live. There is the ruins of Copan, from Mayas civilization, where I got myself lost (in a good way, of course) about the history of a such powerful and great culture that still leaving a message to us. I recommend to everybody who is interested in Anthropology, Archaeology or simply curios about our ancients.

Utila, Honduras

There I got my Open water diver course. The cheapest and sincerely the best place to make it happens! It is a very “diving” business island and for who likes a party (not much in my blood nowadays, actually), that is the place! Good vibe of divers and locals around the whole region. A paradise to be found, for sure!

For further touristic information soon you will find on: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Senhor-e-Senhora-Smith/

LINKS:

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/every-hour-is-happy-hour-in-belize/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/guatemalas-history-bubbles-beneath-the-surface/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/water-like-wine-in-guatemala/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/hondurass-trouble-in-paradise/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/lifes-a-beach-in-el-salvador/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/zipping-and-dipping-in-nicaragua/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/tourists-of-the-caribbean/

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/senhor-and-senhora-smith-in-colombia/

xoxo

Vivi

The adventure started at the border crossing, in between big trucks and people trying to sell us everything, including a sticker to passport that we thought was official (no, it was not).

After an amazing view of the lake from a small boat we took to get to the island of Ometepe, we were able to see one of the volcanoes that created it. Ok. Fried banana with cheese like nachos and there we were in the ferry to Isla de Ometepe. We could do our shopping for food on the boat if we wanted by the large amounts of vegetables and other food supplies on board, with us.

Aaron, our social part, talking to a local man, just yelled to me: “Hey Vivi, we got a lift to a hostel”. Great. Nothing to think about, just go!

The generous guy was actually the owner of a place we would stay and let’s say it was more than just a simple favor, however, it was worth it anyway.

The on the way to the place was in fact incredible. Sort of post card with the volcano, the lake, the remote small villages and the simple people around it. For while I had the taste of home in Brazil, when I had the chance to travel to the countryside, observing how life can be calm and easy. To complete the experience, we watched the sunset over the lake view.

The place we stayed was nice, full of old stories (as Aaron told in his weekly article in the Gringo Times) and a million dollar view. I discovered my favorite beer in Central America so far, Tona (to put the ~). We had a fantastic relaxing time on the island and to make it even more interesting, we were guests of a typical birthday party for a 15 year old girl. We left Ometepe with mojitos and “feliciaciones”.

Granada and Masaya – Nicaragua

Those little towns are basically very nice places to chill out and plan the rest of the journey. We were there to also see the  Mombacho volcano from so near that we can die of the Sulfato gas that comes from the crator. We also had an amazing experience on the cave.

Photos by Aaron Smith and Vivi Araujo

Video by Aaron Smith, produced by Vivi Araujo

For further touristic information, go to: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Senhor-e-Senhora-Smith/

Granada

Crossing the border from Panama to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, we both caught a flu because the bus was so cold. I can’t complain actually if I think about all those chicken buses we have caught around in the bloody heat. We stayed just one day in San Jose, in fact, passing by to go to Monteverde, where we could experience the cloud forest and some adventures that just a jungle can provide.

In Monteverde we spent two nights and we went straight to radical things like: ziplines and walking on suspension bridges. I was speechless by the number (18) of ziplines, the sizes and heights. The highest one was at 170 meters and the longest has a bit more than a kilometer.

The last one you do with your partner or buddy, in my case, Aaron, and we just had so much fun crossing the whole cloud forest like 2 birds in the paradise.

Costa Rica – La Fortuna

Leaving a radical spot in Costa Rica to another one, we went straight to see in La Fortuna the famous Volcano Arenal. We walked in the forest and at sunset watched from afar lava flowing down the mountain. We also had the chance to go to a hot springs, actually, a water park but with natural thermal springs, with infra-structure where you can have a drink in the pool. Aaron can’t complain of sometimes being a regular tourist!

Well done with Costa Rica.

For further touristic information go to: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Senhor-e-Senhora-Smith/

Video by Aaron Smith/ Production Vivi Araujo

Photos by Aaron & Vivi Smith

I posted the beautiful video edited by Aaron about San Blas Islands in Cartagena first content and now I am posting more photos of that incredible experience of sailing as well as a video of the Panama Canal besides the legendary photo of the group of the sailing boat!

Panama city is not much what we would spend too much time exploring since it seems Miami. Nothing against, just a bit a “deja vu” for us. We just spent a day to have a rest and it was time enough to see everything the city can provide, it means: the Panama canal.

For further turistic information go to: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Senhor-e-Senhora-Smith/

Photos by Vivi & Aaron Smith

Video of the Panama Canal produced by Aaron Smith

It is the continuation of some good moments in our last night in  South America, Cartagena, Colombia, before the sailing to San Blas with a video and photos produced by me and Aaron Smith. Enjoy them!

Video of Chivas BUS – Night life in Cartagena. – Fimed by Vivi & Aaron Smith

One of the motivations for me to go there was the famous book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Love in Time of Cholera”, which is one of my favorite love stories, based in Cartagena. I was able to see where the movie based on the book was filmed and I really felt in love again with Aaron walking by the places and the old market area.

How a Brazilian could not be passionate about the popular PATACÓN, a banana fried with cheese, that they call ‘express’ food (much better than junk food we are used to see as “fast”). Besides the amazing banana fast food, in all streets you go, you have street sellers of fresh orange juice and all tropical fruits you can imagine. It made us have a very healthy time.

We had decided to make Cartagena our own love story. So, in the first city of the Caribbean area, the last one of South America for us, we had to party as the locals do. We went to a local bus called CHIVAS. It was plenty of fun since the bus comes and picks you up in your hotel and you have locals playing music, with free rum with coke and empanadas. After the tour through the city in the musical bus, they leave you in the most famous club of the city. I just loved it!

It was good music, good drinks and good fun with the same people who were in the bus. Aaron bought a whole bottle of the infamous ‘Agua ardiente’ (seems cachaça but different) that you drink as tequila, with salt and lemon. I do not need to say that my after night was beside the toilet, my best friend for while. Just to make it better, the morning after the funny night dancing rumba, salsa and zouk, I had to take a sail boat from Cartagena to Panama. Uh, so boring! (laughs! To not say the opposite).

The sailing was an experience I’ll never forget. 6 days, 5 nights in the ocean, looking Cartagena and so, South America to disappear in the rising view. We were 11 people on the sail boat: I and Aaron; Shirley, an American lady in her 60’s with amazing stories of travelling and life; a lovely  British couple, Derrick and Mary, in their 70’s (they became an inspiration for me and Aaron); a lovely Dutch couple, Denise and Eduardo, in their 30’s (our second inspiration, since they are together for 15 years!); an young American couple; our young German captain, Henning and finally, the last but never the least, Fritz, the owner of the boat, an Austrian guy, in his 50’s, that I never will forget.

Fritz was full of amazing stories to tell us while he would cook fresh lobsters, crabs and some exclusive recipes of pancakes with rum, and fresh bread. He was a chef of 2 restaurants which he owed in the past and has travelled the whole world doing different things but basically just sailing. Most of the time he’d tease my Brazilian butt or the girls beautiful figures in bikini, but honestly, we couldn’t stop laughing at it.

I had the amazing experience as the richest people in the world to be in a very big sailing boat, eating food that we would pay a fortune in exclusive restaurants of NY, and swimming and snorkeling everyday around the San Blas islands where we stopped to have fun. San Blas islands are a complex of around 365 islands in the Caribbean sea, full of reefs and coral. The locals say: “It’s an island per day”. I hurt myself on coral on both arms but I did not care actually. Blood can go away but that experience, NEVER! Of course as a silly girl I am, I just got scared of bleeding too much into the water in the “shark’s time”(they normally swim around 4-5 PM to feed).

I was able to see islands that just in ‘windows save screen’ you see it. I was in paradise, sailing, as a real pirate, feeling that sensation of discovering lands, waking up in a different island everyday. I experienced during my shift of ocean watch a huge group of dolphins and I just yelled to the group: “DOLPHINS, DOLPHINS”…  Everybody went to the trampoline to follow those lovely, sweet creatures. I understood them as a sign of good luck.  They swam with our boat, showing off, jumping, giggling… I was over the moon watching them. In my second shift at midnight, I could see the darkness of the sky, where just stars were guiding us in our adventure. The darkness gave space to a FULL MOON that is almost impossible to describe. I was there, as a pirate, watching the ocean in my shift, with the darkness, the stars (so many more than normally we see in urban areas), the moon, the waves hitting the boat smoothly as a dream of my childhood. I was 2 hours of my shift dreaming awake with just the sound of the ocean. I was able to think about life and be grateful for being there. As Prince, the singer, once sang, you do not need to be rich to be lucky enough to be in the right place, in the right time, with the right person, to have the best that a exceptional life can have… I am lucky girl.

For further turistic information go to: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Senhor-e-Senhora-Smith/

Video produced by Aaron Smith

Photos produced by Aaron Smith and Viviane Araujo

San Gil is a great little town, where everything happens around the “plaza”. It is fantastic. Happy polite people, with a lovely face telling us that they would be ready to help when we need it so. It was a small town with a huge scene for adrenaline. First night, just able to sleep. Second day, early, rafting. We went to rafting into the Suarez river, where we were able to have level 5 (the ultimate one) of this kind of radical sport. It means, we could fall in the water and that is the reason the instructor gave us a bracelet with a telephone number and we had to sign a paper with our finger print, it means, we could die.

I accept my condition as “primeira vez”doing it and all what I knew is that I should follow the information William (the guide) said. “forward”;”back”;”right forward”;”left back”;inside”;”position”… Those words mean that the group in the left should paddle to the direction he demands to be as well as to jump inside the boat or get back to the position to paddle again. We got 2 waves of level 5 and it was pretty scary, I can tell. However, our team was so great (I, Aaron, a Canadian couple, two British brothers) that we did not fall in the river as our guide’s first thought. We had 2 stops to chill out and eat something. Our table? One of the kayaks (used for rescue needs) with fruits and bread and soft drinks. I love it. Checked and done!

For further turistic information go to: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Senhor-e-Senhora-Smith/

Rafting crew in San Gil – video produced by the colombiarafting.com company

Video of our Paragliding adventure – produced by Aaron Smith

Photos produced by Aaron Smith and Viviane Araujo

and

http://thegringotimes.com/news/rio-travel/lifes-a-beach-in-el-salvador/

IMPORTANT:

BECAUSE WE WERE IN  THE MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE IN GUATEMALA, I AM IN DELAY TO UPDATE THE BLOG. HOWEVER, I PROMISE THAT IN THE COUPLE DAYS, IT IS GONNA HAVE NEWS!

xoxo

Vivi