Flor de Sacuanjoche
The Flor de Sacuanjoche (a frangipani) is the national flower of Nicaragua. The trees flower around May each year and I finally saw my first tree in full bloom on Isla San Fernando in the Solentiname Archipeligo. Love the smell!

The Flor de Sacuanjoche (a frangipani) is the national flower of Nicaragua. The trees flower around May each year and I finally saw my first tree in full bloom on Isla San Fernando in the Solentiname Archipeligo. Love the smell!

Another regular visitor to the garden around La Mariposa Escuela de Español is the Blue-crowned motmot. This guy looks a lot like the Turquoise-browed motmot (also called the Guardabarranco – the Nicaraguan national bird) but is distinct. The head colouring is different but the easiest way to tell them apart is through the look of…
Well, the big day finally arrived! After far too many farewells, I’m now on my 12 month journey which currently looks like this: February – March 2016: perfecting my spanish at La Mariposa Escuela de Español in La Concha in Nicaragua. April – June 2016: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala July 2016: Cuba August – November 2016…
One of the many fabulous things about the Finca Esperanza Verde is the opportunity to spot a wide variety of wildlife. For example, if you want to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with hummingbirds – this is a wonderful spot! But hummingbirds (colibri) are not the only birds here – not by a long…
Last time I was in Nicaragua, I visited Matagalpa and ended up at the Finca Esperanza Verde – an ecolodge located about 45 minutes away further up in the mountains. At that time, Vivianne and Andrew had just taken over as owners and Max was a very small bundle of puppy fur. I couldn’t wait to…
OK – I know I’ve been here for 2 weeks for very few blog posts, but you won’t believe me if I try to explain how busy I am! A rundown of my day: 5am (ok, so I haven’t quite made it out of bed at 5am yet, but I’m getting closer! Currently 5:30am): wake…
My conversation teacher for the third week at La Mariposa Escuela de Español (we change conversation teachers each week) was Layda. In our first class, we started talking about interests and I found out she’d recently done a community course on beaded jewelry making. Given my love of jewelry I asked her more about it and she suggested that…