San Lucas Island is located near Puntarenas in the Gulf of Nicoya. It provides a very protected bay perfect to anchor and which we had entirely for ourselves. Howler monkeys can be heard at dawn and again at sunrise. It’s a beautiful island with a green, lush vegetation. A half hour hike leads one across the island to the other side.
Beautiful hikes at San Lucas Island
It was only during the day were a few boats with visitors arrived, who wanted to explore the brutal prison that was operated here until 1991. Only the worst prisoners were incarcerated here. The cell rooms are now empty with plenty of evidence about the brutality shown in many gratifies.
Walkway from dock to the prison
Despite the brutal history of the prison, San Lucas Island is one beautiful place with luscious green trees and bushes and several hiking trails.
Cell Block at San Lucas Prison
The prisoner Jose Leon Sanchez, claimed to be innocent of the robbery he was convicted, wrote the book La Isla de Hombres Solos about his time in this prison.
We anchored in a small bay outside Quepos and took a bus to town. Quepos is a lovely town with some restaurants and stores.
On the way to Quepos
Just south of Quepos, Costa Rica is the famous Manuel Antonio nation park, housing animals from sloths to various monkeys, frogs and snakes and many more. A must see for anyone in that part of Costa Rica.
One of the many hiking trails
The park is very well maintained and provides various little hikes throughout. Park ranger are happy to help and point out which animals are most likely to be seen on which hikes. Some of the hikes lead to the other side where a beautiful bay with beach awaits.
Beach at Manuel Antonio National Park
If we visited again, we would anchor off this little coast. There is supposedly a fee for anchoring, but well worth it to visit the park and far less swell compared to Quepos, for a comfortable stay.
Puntarenas lies in one of two bays on the pacific Costa Rican coast. It provides a sought after relief from the constant swell present along this coast. There are several bays and islands within this larger bay. Here we treat ourselves to a few days in a marina.
Entering the harbor of Puntarenas
It’s convenient to visit to San Jose from Puntarenas, although we weren’t impressed by the capitol. Since our batteries were suffering a slow death, it was a good place to buy new batteries. The marina staff was super nice and helpful in accomplishing the task.
Sunset in Puntarenas
While Costa Rica is pretty safe from hurricanes, heavy winds and vicious storms with heavy lightning are common. The other downside is the debris during rain season, which consists of large tree trunks that can hit our hull. Otherwise its a great time to be in Costa Rica, it’s not too hot and very green vegetation everywhere.
Got lucky, we caught a yellowfin tuna
On our way to Panama, we got lucky and caught a young Yellowfin Tuna.
After departing San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua we headed south towards Santa Rosa national park. This area is often plagued by heavy winds blowing from the Caribbean, called Papagayos. We were lucky, we had near perfect conditions.
As we entered Santa Elena bay, we dropped anchor in front of the entry to a lagoon which we would visit in the coming days. But first a dive into the water and on to a refreshing swim.
The following day we met up with our friends and went exploring the nearby lagoon. And after lunch we’re up for a hike in the afternoon. About an hour up a river bed, we found a small waterfall, just enough to take a bath.
After seeing enough of Guatemala City, it was time to move on to Antigua. A one hour chicken bus ride and 10 Quetzales ($1.50) is what it takes. The bus leaves at the eastern bus terminal in Guatemala City and ends its journey by the big, open market in Antigua.
Chicken bus culture is quite different from El Salvador, it costs a little bit more with clean looking and better maintained buses. With more bus stops, we added more passengers as a 3rd person squeezed onto 2 person seat row, with their 1/4 butt support from each seat. I had a young man almost sitting on my lap and leaning on my shoulder. The entire bus was at least 50% over capacity. I finally got the idea of what travel by “chicken bus” means.
Our ride to Antigua, Guatemala
Getting off the bus, I noticed the air extremely fresh and sweet with a gentle breeze, 73 degree makes perfect sense of the mountain city with 2500 altitude. I feel we are back to Kunming in China, Luzern in Switzerland. Walking toward the center, we are as curious and amazed as children in a wonderland, filled with hundreds of years of historical architectures and cathedrals with colors, scratchy paint and broken bricks, yet standing still greeting thousand of tourists with admiration.
Do not be disappointed by Old Town structure, you will find many of modern coffee shops, beer brewing companies and franchise like McDonald with Antigua version. McCafe cappuccino tastes as good as any other country we traveled, which I have not seen many in the US towns.
Antigua – Guatemala
I found women are beautiful either native Mayan or Spanish heritage, or mixed, they are exotic, colorful and dressed in natural woven fabric. These skirts are just simple pieces of fabric wrap up from waste to ankle secured by a belt either sleek looking leather or fabric with embroidery, that saves labor sewing work. Young mothers carry their small child in the front of their chest by a soft yet thick fabric, their back are straight, and the hair sleek and tied up above their neck, and their face and body look so relaxed without economic stress.
As this is tourist town, souvenir can be purchased in shops or walking individuals. With good negotiation skill you can bargain many goodie taking home.
Antigua offers wide range of food selection from street food to high end Westernized Italian steakhouse. Local vendors offer Guatemalan tray with rice, salad with option of shrimp, fish or chicken, it cost $2.5, however they usually hide the food in basket with towel covered.
we like xxx cost 30Q including good size of quarter wood fire chicken, beef or pork with two side dish options of potato, salad or rice, additionally complementary cold sweet drink with refill.
We are neither vegan nor vegetarian however we love the xxxx with simple restaurant offer $3 dollar glass of wine. We sat with many fascinating young european with their mother languages.
When you walk into these local bars, you will find many of them with contemporary design and artistic walls, tables and patios. We enjoy the xxx beer brewing company with the roof top open for bar, where you join local working class and tourists social life. Many romantic young kissing lovers, middle age couple holding hands and sipping a glass of red wine, fun colleagues and business groups after work hang out with their joyful laughters or group selfi. With soft American 70s and 80s music this top corner oversees the whole town.
Without much knowledge of local chicken bus operations at the moment, we followed the local travel agency advice, and started our next voyage with a scheduled shuttle to Panajachel, a key port villages of the Lake Attitlan. The shuttle took us 4 hours to get into the town while pouring rain with muddy road. Our Airbnb host picked us up from the restaurant called La Palapa.
We skipped Santa Cruz as the local port guide advised that the village is small size with limited restaurants. Directly fairy to San Marcos in rain with panga. Through the rain I see a beautiful scenery with huge straight rock in green plant, green water reflect xxx, remind me Mildford Sound in New Zealand.
Guatemala City offers modern, shopping, coffee shops and restaurants, as well as traditional old style city life. Walking around town seemed quite save if one does not wander too much into unknown territory. With just a little intuition and common sense, we felt immediately at unease once approaching a suspicious area. We loved the busy, open market in Guatemala City.
Puerto Penasco is our final destination of our 2017 season. We spend a few days exploring town, enjoy some awesome chicken and get the boat ready for haul out.
It’s gotten too hot for our taste and we feel tired and lazy in the constant high 90’s during the day and 80’s at night.
Hands On while securing the slings.
Our 40 foot boat looks tiny while on the lift that’s designed to haul out large shrimping boat.
The boat on blocks. Yard workers remove bottom paint to the fiberglass, she will receive brand new moisture barrier layers and environment friendly anti fouling coats.
Old paint is removed with special planers, today’s safest method (for workers and the environment) to remove toxic bottom paint. Although moisture levels were already low, she will have more than 2 months to further dry out.
La Paz is a great town for cruisers. It provides several marinas along with spacious anchoring options. The bay of La Paz is very shallow and many areas are unsuitable for most sailboats. Careful charting and planning needs to be done to navigate safely.
Once in town, a beautiful malecon with restaurants welcomes locals and visitors alike.
It’s romantic and warm atmosphere make us very comfortable, and we’re sure that we’ll spend some time here.
On our return trip from Manzanillo we stopped by Tenacatita for a few days, a beautiful bay just a few miles across from La Manzanilla. In this bay we were often greeted by jumping stingrays and dolphins looking for dinner. The nearby rocky coastline offers terrific snorkeling and diving opportunities.
