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!

Am trying to maintain fitness now that I’ve had to give up boxing to travel and am trying to get the whole self-motivation thing happening, something I find very difficult to do! My plan is to do one of the workouts from the 12 minute athlete 3-4 times/week and then some body-weight strength training on…
There are no Easter Eggs in Nicaragua… Nor hot-cross buns. However, there is an overabundance of Semana Santa Processions (Holy Week Parades) and Easter is much, much more than an excuse to eat far too much chocolate and bread-and-buttery goodness. There have been parades all week, but the main parades tend to occur on Viernes…
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…
Big day when I finally headed out of La Mariposa Spanish School and EcoHotel to start my travel adventures! The great news is that my formal spanish-learning journey is over – I am at the highest level of advanced spanish in both writing and speaking … almost bilingual 🙂 The rest is really…
Nicaragua is a country of volcanoes and right now, 5 of them are a lot more active than normal. The closest one to the Spanish school is Volcan Masaya – somewhere between 5 and 8 km away (as the crow flies) depending on whose map app you choose to believe (we had a couple…
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…