Rainbow Mountain is very beautiful (see some photos below), and it only takes 1 day to see. I suggest going for the scenery even though there will be a lot of tourists and the hike is difficult because of the altitude. What I don’t know about is Red Valley. Keep reading for what I do know about it, but if you’re thinking about doing Rainbow Mountain, Google Red Valley first and see if it’s something you’d prefer to do.
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Manu National Park is part of the Amazon located in Peru. It includes diverse ecosystems such as lowland rainforests, cloud forests and Andean grasslands. There is a cultural region where you see some wildlife but not a ton, and there’s a reserve area where you supposedly see a little more wildlife. There aren’t a lot of tourists in Manu, so while you’ll see a few other groups, it isn’t swarming with gringos. I didn't exactly love it though... to put it nicely.
Horrendous has to be the only word for this tour. I have seen reviews of other tour companies that might not be as terrible, but this review is specifically for the official tour company of Cartagena. DO NOT GO WITH THEM!
Yep, we hiked some more volcanoes. Central America is just full of them! I actually never knew that until we came here. We did a 2 day trek with Quetzaltrekkers León. You can see more information on our specific trek here, but the summary is: We hiked up Volcán Cerro Negro and volcano boarded down (more on that later), and then we hiked through the Las Pilas – El Hoyo volcanic complex. We camped near a giant crater, and then the next day continued on to Volcán Asososca and swam in a crater lake before hiking through the jungle to get down.
Utila is an island off the coast of Honduras that a lot of tourists visit to learn to scuba dive. The other popular island in the same area is Roatán. We went to Utila to get our advanced scuba certifications because it was cheaper than what we found in Roatán. That being said, I heard from people while we were in Utila that Roatán has better snorkling / scuba diving because there are more fish and a more colorful reef.
Semuc Champey is so beautiful. It's a hell of an adventure to get there, but it really is gorgeous. If you go, I'd be sure to do the caves and the tubing as well if you have time just to make the trip all the way out there worth it.
We came to Guatemala with the main purpose of learning the basics of Spanish. The schools in Antigua are pretty cheap (only a little more expensive than in Quetzaltenango), and it’s still not too far (about an hour or an hour and a half) from the airport in Guatemala City (whereas I think that Quetzaltenango is about 4 hours from Guatemala City). It was $525 for both of us to have 5 days of one-on-one tutoring (from 8 AM – 1 PM with a half hour break at 10 AM), and that includes our lodging and almost all of our meals. Unfortunately, it didn’t include our beer :(
We got to visit my grandfather, Baba, in Payson, AZ (about an hour and a half from Phoenix and more mild weather). Payson is in the Tonto National Forest which has a lot of stuff to see / do, and the landscape is beautiful -- lots of cacti and big rocks. I love it! Payson is a small, quiet town, and it was very peaceful. We drove south from Payson to visit the Tonto National Monument and cliff dwellings of a group of people known by archaeologists as the Salado. We were only able to visit the Lower Cliff Dwellings because the Upper ones are only open from November - April. The Upper ones are more intact and larger, so maybe someday we'll get to visit those.
We saw the largest tree in the world, General Sherman. This sequoia tree is about 2,200 years old; weighs 1,385 tons; ; is 275 feet tall; and has a circumference of 103 feet. It's not the tallest or the widest living tree, but it has the most volume and weight which makes it the "largest" living tree in the world.
Yet another amazing national park. Yosemite has a lot of waterfalls and big rocks - both of which I love. We did the Mist Trail hike to Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls. You DEFINITELY need rain gear this time of year because with the snow melting, the waterfalls are just gushing. We got soaking wet! You can shorten the trail and only go to Vernal Falls, but since we did a pretty long hike, I got to 30,000 steps!
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About MeHi, I'm Sara Monica Patton. I love animals, traveling, and eating. Read more about me in my first blog post here. Categories
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