6 La Paz, Mexico

Located less than 100 miles from Cabo San Lucas is the sleepy capital of Baja California del Sur: La Paz. It is here that we celebrated a white Christmas (sand not snow) with Katrina's family.

Flying to La Paz is not an easy feat. Though it has its own airport, getting there from the east coast requires at least two layovers to be affordable. Much easier and less expensive is flying to the tourist destination Cabo San Lucas's airport. From there, we took an airport shuttle to the San Juan del Cabo bus station to catch an Aguila bus to La Paz (they leave every hour or so). For the return trip, you also have the option of taking a Peninsula Ejecutivo bus directly to the Cabo airport from the La Paz bus station--a much comfier ride for only a few dollars more that we highly recommend.

Experiencing La Paz is best done on foot. Though the city is a sprawling grid, most of the action is contained to a condensed area. The Malecon, the paved promenade pictured above that stretches a mile or so along the coastline, marks the length of the compact city center. Many of the larger restaurants are located close to the water and as you walk uphill, you find many small taco stands and street vendors selling candy, mini donuts, and some of the most delicious churros we've ever eaten. Also downtown is the Mercado Francisco Madero where vendors display heaps of luscious fruit and vegetables, fresh fish and seafood. Directly in front of the Mercado was our favorite tortilleria; the tortillas de harina (flour) melt in your mouth.

La Paz is an absolute mecca for seafood-lovers. Between the two of us we ate shrimp, lobster, marlin, manta ray, oysters and salmon during our five-day stay. One of the best taco places in town is Bismarck-cito--but at night they only serve full entrees, which are nowhere near as good as the daytime taco fare. But one of the real culinary highlights of La Paz is La Fuente, an ice cream parlor that caused Pavlovian responses. They offer unusual flavors like corn, tequilla almond and lemon cream in delicious cookie-like cones.

Though La Paz is located on the water, there are no real beaches in town and locals do not recommend swimming in the bay. A 30-minute drive up the Pichilingue Peninsula takes you to many beautiful beaches, so originally we thought we'd rent a car. No luck: all eight or so rental spots in town were completely out of cars (we recommend reserving ahead of time if you want to go this route). We then found a local bus that goes to Playa Tecolote, but alas, the bus schedule is a bit more flexible in the winter months and after being told three different stories about departure times (from the same Aguila employee) we grew wary. Katrina's dad then found a cab driver who agreed to take six passengers in his compact cab and pick us up at a designated time for about $20 each way. Deal! Omar dropped us off at Playa Balandra, a beautiful beach in a protected cove where we played the day away.

The highlight of our stay was undoubtedly the day-long trip we took to Isla Espiritu Santo. We hired a motorboat, kayaks and snorkel gear through Marlin Adventures, and our guide Javier took us on an unforgettable excursion. Our first stop was when Javier spotted the fin of a whale shark and encouraged us to hop in. We thought he was joking, but apparently these huge creatures only eat plankton and don't have a taste for humans. So we broke out the snorkel gear and chased after him. John and Nicole actually touched the 20 foot beast (we found out only later that touching is not recommended) and we found that the real danger was some vicious agua mala--three of us got jellyfish stings. We also got to see some rollicking dolphins and a spouting whale on the boat ride.

Our next big stop was a rock formation off the coast of Espiritu Santo that is home to some 500 sea lions. We again outfitted ourselves in snorkel gear and got to swim with them! Absolutely amazing, but a bit scary as these large creatures get awfully close--especially the young ones that act like playful puppies (one took a major liking to Daniel!) The water was also teeming with exotic fish that would make any snorkeling trip even without their rambunctious sea lion neighbors.

Back in the motorboat, Javier took us to the stunning Playa Ensenada Grande in a northwest cove of Espiritu Santo where we ate the delicious marlin ceviche we'd picked up from Javier's aunt at Playa Tecolote on the way out that morning. The woman makes a mean ceviche! We then hopped in our kayaks and spent the remaining daylight hours exploring the island shores.

For most of our time in La Paz we stayed at Las Gaviotas, where the family rented a two-bedroom condo. The condos are very comfortable, each with its own private oceanview deck, and there is a shared swimming pool. It was great to have our own kitchen to cook with the delicious ingredients and fresh fish from the mercado.

Since we arrived before the reservation at Las Gaviotas began, we spent our first night in La Paz at Casa Jalisco. This was a very nice hotel--spacious rooms, bubblers of purified water on every floor, beautiful pool, and an exceptionally friendly staff that spoke excellent English. The one drawback is location: Casa Jalisco is approximately a mile and a half from downtown with not much going on in the immediate neighborhood.

Though La Paz is much further than many Mexican destinations, the longer haul definitely paid dividends in the end. We found La Paz to be the perfect Mexican mixture of one part idyllic beach, two parts seafood tacos and one part ocean adventure.

La Paz on Dwellable

13 Nicaragua

After deciding it had been much too long since we had left the country, we settled on a brief weekend trip to Nicaragua. Upon arrival at Logan we were joined at the American ticket counter by the New England Revolution who were on their way to LA for an upcoming match. While our flights were uneventful that day (the way we like it!), we found out on the news later that the Revolution were not as lucky.

We arrived in Managua, Nicaragua's capital city, after dark and quickly found our hotel shuttle. Along the road we saw numerous red and black Sandinista flags being waved as people were getting ready for celebrations marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution the next day. Our first and last nights of the trip were spent at the Intercontinental in Managua. The accommodations would certainly be considered deluxe by Nicaraguan standards, with spacious rooma, a pool, and a bar that served delicious cherry daiquiris. Thankfully, the hotel was practically free thanks to a great Orbitz flight plus hotel deal.

Still unsure of the safety of our surroundings, we gently settled in to our time in Nicaragua with a visit to a nearby mall that offered a number of restaurants. This mall was not too dissimilar from an American one on a Friday night, with teenagers abound waiting to see dubbed versions of Mamma Mia! and The Dark Night. Though we do love ABBA, we passed on the movies and settled on Tacontento for dinner and Tonas--Nicaragua's most popular domestic beer.The next morning we hopped a bus to Granada (pictured above) to get out of town before the Sandinista rallying, and presumably American villifying, really began. Riding a Nicaraguan bus is an experience in itself. There is no schedule--the buses leave as soon as they fill up with enough people. Along the way an agent stands at the open door of the speeding bus yelling out the destination, hoping to coax more passengers aboard.

Granada is best known for being the oldest colonial town in the Western Hemisphere, founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in 1524. Upon arriving in Granada we oriented ourselves by first visiting the Parque Central, the city's hub of activity. We refreshed after our bus ride with juices and a vigoron--a local favorite of yucca and fried pork skin. As we slowed our eating pace we were approached by a 12-year-old boy who pointed at our food and gestured to ask if he could have some. He sat down, finished off the plate, and told us the dish was "picante" and pointed to our juice. Before slurping down the last of the drink he was joined by his friend, who was not going to miss out on this fun. And thus, we made our first Nicaraguan friends: Kevin and Jonia!

Unfortunately they did not recognize our hotel name, but we knew it was south of the Parque Central, so we set off to explore. Two blocks later we were in the middle of the bustling city market, the street lined with vendors selling everything from fresh produce to homemade cheese to new white sneakers! We navigated our way through the busy streets, asking people for directions to the Hotel Terrasol, finally realizing we had gotten ourselves much too far from the center of town to be anywhere near our hotel.

Back at the Parque Central (pitctued above), we finally found someone who could direct us. For those of you who decide to stay at Hotel Terrasol--which we highly recommend--it is located three blocks west and one block south of the Parque.

The Hotel Terrasol is owned by a married couple, Victor and Katja, who built the hotel from the ground up just last year. They are wonderfully attentive and helpful; within minutes of arriving they directed us to many must-see sights and booked us on an afternoon boat ride on Lake Nicaragua to explore Las Isletas.

The archipelago is composed of 365 little islands off the coast of Granada that are said to be formed from a volcanic eruption by nearby Mombacho some 20,000 years ago . Our tour weaved in and out of the many islands with a few stops along the way. Our favorite stop was Monkey Island--residents of the neighboring islands rid themselves of these pests by transporting indigenous monkeys to a single island of exile. Since they can't swim, they're stuck there. As we sat in our boat watching the monkeys swing on trees, another boat of visitors arrived and two monkeys hopped right on board! One of them moved to an empty seat in the back and sat patiently waiting to go for a ride. The other (pictured above) was pushy and wanted food. Both took a good amount of coaxing to disembark the boat, and the pushy one put up a real, and momentarily terrifying, fight.

We spent our time on land visiting Granada's old cathedrals, museums, eating delicious food and drinking delicious Tona. The best view in the city is to be had at Iglesia de la Merced. For the price of one dollar you can climb the bell tower of the city's oldest church, built in 1538. To catch some of the sights we missed by foot, we took a horse-drawn carriage ride through Granada's colorful streets to the city's outskirts. Our carriage driver, Otilio, brimmed with pride as he described the sites and history of Granada. The only problem was his descriptions all came in Spanish, leading to many interesting exchanges between him and Patrick who speaks Spanish on a pre-school level. After one particular miscommunication where Patrick generically asked "personas entrada?" we ended up on a private tour of the closed and dark Forteleza la Pólvora.

We were sad to leave Granada after only a short time there. It is beautiful, charming, and most amazingly, wholly unspoiled. The people living there are some of the friendliest and most welcoming we've met in all our travels.

Managua, on the other hand, is one of the most depressed cities we have seen. It has yet recover from the catastrophic earthquake of 1972. Even the cross on the top of the historic old cathedral has been left broken. Managua is not safe to explore by foot, but there are guided bus tours designed for visitors. However, we found a surprisingly cheaper option--hire a taxi for a few hours! At a rate of $10/hour, our cab driver, Guillermo, took us all over the city, offering us his personal narrative in very good English. We saw Loma de Tiscapa crater lake, the 6,000-year-old footprints of Acahualinca, the official presidential palace, as well as the real, heavily-guarded mansion residence of President Ortega. We also saw the huge city plaza, still dotted with red and black flags, that had the day before been packed with tens of thousands of Nicaraguans rallying in honor of the Sandinista Revolution Anniversary.

On our last morning in Nicaragua, we scavenged the Mercado Roberto Huembes. Much larger than the Granada market, we got lost in the aisles of hanging raw meat and walls of T-shirts. We polished off a final plate of gallo pinto, a popular rice and bean dish served for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then returned to our hotel for final packing.

As we sat by the Intercontinental pool waiting for our shuttle, we brainstormed destinations we can cram in to our next year of travels. Stay tuned.....