You can spend a fulfilling vacation in the state of Oaxaca and never actually leave the city of Oaxaca itself. There is that much to see and do. And buy. Ahem. The ex-convent of Santo Domingo is in the centro district, and like many other ex-convents around Mexico, this one has been restored and turned…
[I love Mexico. I think about it often, even as I travel elsewhere. Also, because I've been remiss in posting contemporaneously, you get these illustrated musings completely out of context to where I am right now. Such is the cruiser's mind.] When we spent a full month in Marina Chahue in Huatulco (Feb.-Mar. 2010), it…
Slowed The Fox down to less than 5 kt. so as to stay well offshore Golfo Dulce entrance until sunrise. Still 20 mi. offshore when we encountered a couple of local fishing boats: wood, ~45', unlit or with non-regulation lights, not picked up by radar. No mishaps. Sunrise: entered Golfo Dulce, anchored off Puerto Jimenez…
It's not difficult or expensive to travel by public transportation around Nicaragua, just logistically demanding. It happens that there is no single bus taking a direct route inland from Chinandega (the town nearest to Marina Puesta del Sol on the NW coast where we stopped in April) to León or Granada, two popular tourist destinations.…
One reason for visiting Marina Puesta del Sol in Nicaragua is that it's a secure place to keep your boat while traveling inland for a bit of turismo. Nicaragua's about the size of New York state, so travel from the coast to the big city takes only a few hours, even via public transportation. We…
During our whirlwind road trip around El Salvador in March, we saw lots of cool things. Things like volcanoes, Mayan ruins…and fresh pupusas like these, made with your choice of either corn or rice flour (my advice: try both). The best deal we found for pupusas was at one roadside stand we stopped at for…
We visited 5 sites of Mayan ruins while touring El Salvador, all of which were located in the central to northwest half of the country. We started with Cihuatan, the most extensive site with an estimated 25,000+ inhabitants; some believe it was the largest prehispanic Mayan city between Guatemala and Peru. It is the first…
[By the time you see this post, Dear Reader, The Fox will have left Marina Barillas on April 1 and will have (hopefully) visited anchorages in the El Salvador portion of the Gulf of Fonseca, then moved on to explore a bit of Nicaragua. However, for the past 2 months as we've traveled ever-southward, we've…
Here we go again. Having obtained a succession of two Mexican sportfishing licenses in the past two years, you'd think I'd be able to get a renewal online in less than two days. You'd be wrong. This year, CONAPESCA's online application* had a few bugs that were not there last year. Namely, its "Help Page"…