"Eighty Cordobas is your change, sir." "Danke," I replied in German. "Bitte," The kid's eyes went wide as he looked up at me. "Sprechen sie Deutsches?" "No, solimente Ingles," I answered in Spanish. "Hablas Espanol?" he asked. "No, ich nur Englisch," I replied in German. The kid, open-mouthed, ran off to his German father, the owner of Hotel Don Alfredo, in old town Granada, and spoke in a language that sounded neither German, Spanish nor English. I felt go...

 Over the past seven days, Ellen and I have spent more time on buses than most Canadians do in their entire lives. Ellen wanted to fly from the city of David, Panama to Managua, Nicaragua. The cost was $273.00. "But we won't see the people, experience the flair," I said. She relented and is now resting irritably in our room in the beautiful old Spanish colonial town of Granada. I hope she feels better when she wakes up.  The kooky thing about flying down ...

Our toothy smiles belied our hidden fears. The over-sized customs official stared intently as we presented our passports. After looking at both us, and our documents, for what seemed like an eternity, he said "That will be five dollars, please". We quickly paid, and he stamped our passports.Our Airbus had touched down at Cesar Augusto Sandino International Airport just outside the capital city of Managua, Nicaragua, on route to Costa Rica. Our boarding passes cl...

The charter airline we travelled on stopped at Managua, Nicaragua before continuing on to Liberia, Costa Rica. Our plan was to go to Nicaragua - air only. But for whatever reason there were no air only seats available to Managua. There were seats for Liberia, but not Managua. The answer to the previous question would be too crazy to even try and explain. Anyway, in 2001 the world of airline travel had not yet gone crazy. So, Elenka and I bought return tickets to...