One more motmot photo…
Couldn’t resist – these birds (Blue-Crowned Motmots) are so beautiful!
Look who brought a friend to visit me this morning at La Mariposa Spanish School and EcoHotel. This branch is just outside my bedroom window.

Couldn’t resist – these birds (Blue-Crowned Motmots) are so beautiful!
Look who brought a friend to visit me this morning at La Mariposa Spanish School and EcoHotel. This branch is just outside my bedroom window.

After catching many glimpses over the past weeks, I finally had a wonderful view of a Guardabarranco, the national bird of Nicaragua, this morning. It was just outside my bedroom window at La Mariposa Spanish School and EcoHotel and I managed to get a fairly good picture of it (see below on the right). Many…
One of the really cool things to do in Matagalpa is visit the local chocolate factory (“El Castillo del Cacao” – “The Castle of Cacao”) on the outskirts of town. I actually did this independently (ie not on an organised tour) when I was here in 2013 (hence why this post is a little vaguer than…
One of the regulars on the activities schedule for La Mariposa Spanish School and EcoHotel is a trip to a nearby nature reserve: El Chocoyero – El Brujo. The reserve is the main source of Managua’s water supply and has several hiking trails and good wildlife watching opportunities. The highlight of the afternoon trip with…
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!
Every Thursday night, the Centro Cultural Antiguo Mercado de Masaya (ie the artesania market) hosts a cultural show of dancing and singing called La Verbena. Here you can see traditional Nicaraguan dances as well as some Nicaraguan singers, and it is attended by both locals and tourists alike. Once per month a trip to La Verbena is…
Getting around in Nicaragua is both easy and difficult. What is easy: there is public transport to pretty much everywhere and it is really cheap What is difficult: said public transport is slow as a wet week crowded as sardines in a tin without aircon (Nicaragua is a hot country, especially in April) without a bathroom (or bathroom…