Having lived in Toronto and area for many years, I have never thought of myself as a tourist and therefore, usually avoided all tourist type of things. As I mentioned in the previous post, this trip was different. After the Blue Jays game I was walking along Front Street back to the Royal York Hotel and came across a tour bus that floats!

It is called the Hippo Bus and is run by Toronto Hippo Tours. The idea is basically you can take a tour bus around the downtown core and then do a little trip out on the water of Lake Ontario seeing Ontario Place and the marina etc.

If you are ever in Toronto and are looking for a unique experience I would highly recommend this. Sit as close to the front of the bus as possible for the best view and experience – especially when you are leaving the land and entering the water! (Oh, and make sure that the window is closed).

This is the first of (hopefully) many blog posts dealing with my trip to Spain. Unlike my other trips this one is purely for pleasure and exploration. My other trips have had an underlying purpose such as house sitting and/or dog sitting.

Normally when I fly anywhere I take the local airport bus shuttle service (Robert Q airbus) to Toronto International Airport and immediately fly out. As I mentioned in the opening this trip is different and I decided to travel to Toronto via train. I haven’t been on the train in Canada for nearly 2 decades and quite honestly I thought train travel was dead. Well I was wrong!

I was amazed at the number of people that take the train. It was basically full by the time we reached Toronto. Not surprising when you consider the price (which is really cheap if you book 2 weeks in advance) and that we seemed to stop at every hick town along the way to pick up new passengers. Apart from the frequent stops to pick up passengers, I loved the train. There was food/beverage service right at your seat (think airline stewardess) and free wifi. If the opportunity arises take the train – I know that I will.

The reason for the train was also that I had tickets to watch the Toronto Blue Jays play the Philadelphia Phillies at Skydome (now known as the Rogers Centre) on the Sunday afternoon. Having been a long suffering Toronto sports fan I know that the chances of actually getting to see a game in person where the home team wins is remote so I wasn’t expecting much.

I have always enjoyed the Skydome for a venue for sports games. The seating is great – lots of activity in the stands and the jumbotron is absolutely amazing. The game was better than expected – the Jays only lost by 1 run but it was exciting and they were always close to a victory.

It was nice to get back to Toronto. There is a life to this city that Sarnia just doesn’t have. I wouldn’t want to move back but it is sure nice to visit.

I have been traveling for the last few weeks and the number one problem that I have found is being able to send email while on the road.

Most places including hotels and internet cafes advertise that they have free wifi etc. What they don’t tell you is that they block port 25 which allows you to connect to your mail server (assuming that your local ISP even allows you connect from outside their network). They do this to stop people from using their wifi connection for sending out spam. The problem is that they also stop me from sending my email that is 100% legit.

After lots of looking online and talking to other digital nomads I have found a cheap and effective way to resolve the problem.

The solution is a company called SMTP2GO and they provide a quick and easy way to send email using their mail (smtp) server for as little as $1.99 USD per month and the whole setup takes less than 2 minutes.

The way that they do this is to use noon-standard ports to connect to the mail server. What this means is that instead of using the standard way to connect to the mail server (which many of the free wifi hotspots block), they use another route. This gets around the blocking and allows you to connect and send email just like you were sitting at your desk at home or office. In fact, once you have it configured there is no need to ever change it. It will work from anywhere.

It works with your normal mail program whether that is Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird or Outlook Express for example. They offer a 60 day, 100% money-back guarantee. Service is guaranteed or you get your money back.

Can’t go wrong with that!

Give it a try and you will get rid of one more frustration from the digital nomad lifestyle.

SMTP2Go website.

This is my last post about my trip to El Salvador this year. As you have been reading it was a very interesting and exciting place to visit and I can’t wait to go back and spend more time in such a beautiful country.

The last night that I was there, some of the local kids came by to say goodbye and we had our final supper together. Not that it was much. Just hot dogs, pop and some cake for desert. What impressed me was that they took the time to get together and come as a group to thank me for the basketball net and taking them to places that they would have never been able to go such as the Chalate Country Club and teaching them the finer points of gourmet marshmellow roasting.

If you ever get the chance to visit El Salvador, do it! The country is amazing. Tons of scenic places to visit, great beaches, very friendly people and, if nothing else, you will come away with a new appreciation of how wonderful this part of the world really is.

One of the things that I try to do when I leave from my trips to either Nicaragua or El Salvador is to leave something that will help the residents after I am gone.

On previous trips to Nicaragua, it has been 40,000 children’s vitamins or sports equipment for one the school programs. This trip to El Salvador was a bit different as I had no direct contact with any NGO or other support organization. After a bit of thinking I decided that a basketball net and some balls for the local school would be a good choice.

The difficult decision was to either buy a basketball net locally (i.e. in San Salvador – a 2 hour drive) or try and find a local person to make one for me. The easiest thing would have been to by it in one of large department stores in San Salvador and haul it up to the school in the back of the pick up. Not much benefit to the local economy with that method, so I decided to hire a local builder to make one. It was more expensive to do so but the benefits were more far-reaching. The local builder got a job, all of the materials were bought locally, so local business benefited, the school got a solid piece of equipment that I think is much studier than what could have been bought and the local kids got a piece of sports equipment that they can use year round. The balls were also bought form a local merchant (who gave me a discount when he learned why I needed 5 basketballs).

If you happen to be traveling somewhere think about what you can do to better the local community. Sure you may only be a tourist but what better way to remember a trip than with a donation to help improve the lives of those whose country you visited.

As I had mentioned in this post (nearly a month ago), we had checked into the Hotel Marina Copan in Copan Ruinas, Honduras after being rained out at the Copan Ruins. On the desk at the check in was a sign advertising a tour of a local coffee plantation for $25 per person which included lunch.

Having never been to a coffee plantation before and I couldn’t be sure when I would have the opportunity again, I booked three spots for us for the following morning. The hotel clerk made the reservations and told us to be in the front lobby at 9 AM the following morning to be picked up for the tour.

After a great breakfast we all gathered in the lobby and were met by our guide, Ricardo. He introduced himself in Spanish and asked if we wanted the tour in English or Spanish. We decided on English and headed for the bus. Well the term bus isn’t exactly appropriate, it was a mini-van fitted out for tours (i.e. full seating, air conditioning and windows all the way around). Getting in the bus I asked how many more we needed to pick up for the tour and he informed us that we were the tour! No-one else would be coming.

It took about 30 minutes to drive up into the mountains to the plantation called Finca Santa Isabel (where Cafe Welchez Coffee is produced). The start of the tour is at the nursery where the new coffee plants are nurtured until they are big enough to be planted on the mountain.

The next part of the tour involves getting back into the van and getting driven (thankfully) up the mountain to begin the walk down along groomed trails through the rain forest. This finca uses the shade-grown coffee which allows for the natural habitat to co-exist with the plantation. During the tour we saw plenty of wild birds and butterflies among the coffee plants as the plantation protects the natural trees as they are needed to produce the canopy of the rain forest, which produces the necessary shade. Additionally, herbal medicines are also grown between the coffee plants.

The tour was very informative and the guide’s English skills were excellent. He was able to answer any and all questions that we had. The plantation also had created 3 rest stops along the trails where the finer points of coffee production was explained by the guide and the use of large signs. This one explained the eco-system of the finca and how they are very aware of the effects of the finca on the environment and how the environment effects the coffee plant.

Halfway through the tour we were served lunch which was traditional Honduran food with coffee, of course.

After lunch, we toured the actual production facilities from were the coffee bean is sorted and fermented when it first comes off the mountain to the actual roasting and packaging facilities.

If you are like me you really don’t appreciate the hard work and effort that goes into a cup of coffee. I don’t look at a cup of coffee the same way now that I have been on the tour. If you ever get the chance to tour a finca that produces shade grown coffee don’t pass it up. The experience is amazing and with that new found knowledge you now know what it takes to make a cup of coffee.

Today is Blog Action Day 2008 and this year’s focus is on poverty. Poverty can be defined as lack of the common necessities that determine quality of life – lack of safe food, shelter, and clothing, lack of opportunities presented by education, health care, and community.

As many of you know I travel extensively in Central America and while I really enjoy the weather, the people and the relative cheapness of living there, there is another side to ‘paradise’.

What most people don’t see or see and ignore is the level of poverty in places like Nicaragua. Think about how your life would change if you were forced to live on twenty dollars per day. How could you pay rent, food, heat, hydro, cable, internet, clothes, gas for your car etc for just $600 per month? Impossible you say. Now imagine living on just $2 per day. That is what the majority of rural Nicaraguans live on. That $60 pays for everything the family needs for the month!

Poverty in Nicaragua is all consuming. It impacts every single decision people make from the obvious of what to eat and what to wear each day to the less obvious such as will your child ever go to school. While schooling is free to all in Nicaragua, the cost of supplies makes the opportunity unobtainable for a large percentage of the population. Only 9 percent of children in rural areas who start first grade will finish primary school because the family needs that kid to work to make enough money to feed the family. Hard to argue that schooling is important when you don’t have enough money to eat.

Now add the fact that the majority of the popluation is under 25 years of age and you can imagine the problems that Nicaragua will face in 15 years. The workforce will not have the education to compete in the world market place and never have the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.

There are plenty of organizations that address poverty in Nicaragua. One of my favorites is Kiva.org. They provide a way for you to directly impact the live of families in Nicaragua (and the rest of world) by loaning $25 to a business of your choice. Check them out and donate today.

Also see: 88 Ways to DO Something About Poverty Right Now

After getting rained out at the Copan Ruins we decided to find a hotel in the local town and get to the ruins the following day. We headed into town and found a very nice Honduran National Policeman that directed us to the Hotel Marina Copan.

This hotel is located just of the central square in the heart of the town. It was cheap – $115 a night for the three including a pool and wireless internet. There was a restaurant, bar and gift shop all inside the hotel so even if it was raining (and it was) we had no need to go out in search of food etc.

I recommend this hotel without reservation. It was very clean with big rooms and very comfortable beds. The pool is quite big for hotel in Central America and the restaurant and bar were very very clean and served excellent food. The staff were excellent and even spoke enough English to be understood and understood enough English for me to get my point across without having to butcher the Spanish language.

At check-in I noticed a sign on the desk that mentioned a tour of a coffee plantation that was run daily and I asked the clerk if he knew of this tour and how did I book it? He explained that it was a local operated tour and they picked us up at the hotel at 9 AM. He would also book it for us. Five minutes later we had the tour all booked and settled in a good night’s sleep.

Next post will be about our tour of the Finca Santa Isabel  coffee plantation.

Finally made it to the ‘Mother of all Mayan Ruins’ – Copan. After we left the Parque Arqueologico El Puente, it was only about another an hour and half to the Copan Ruins. We had timed it perfectly. Just as we were entering the parking lot the skies opened up and the afternoon rains commenced. I made a dash to the gift shop and to check out the restaurant while Isabel and Rico stayed in the truck. After about an hour it started to slow down enough for them to get out of the vehicle but we decided that even if we were lucky enough to not have any more rain, it was too late to do the site justice.

The guide that we talked to said that you should plan on a minimum of 2 hours just to view the ruins. In my earlier post I had a comment that Copan did not have a museum. That is incorrect. They do have one but we did not see it. I will explain why later in this post.

A decision had to be made. Do we skip Copan and make a run for the border or do we find a hotel and see the ruins the following day? We decision was an easy one. Find a hotel and see everything tomorrow. (I will do another blog post about the hotel that we stayed at).

The following afternoon we arrived back at the ruins. Paid for the ruins and the museum and found ourselves a guide. The guide was $25 for the three of us. We had our choice of what language we wanted to the guide to speak (English and Spanish among others) and got started.

The ruins cover a very large area and there are hundreds of statues and carvings on display along with many buildings and caves. Make sure when you go you have water and bug repellent as both are very much needed. Water due to the heat and the activity involved in getting around the site. Bug repellent due to the large number of mosquitoes and other flying annoyances. In the dry season, I would suspect that the bug population would be reduced to a level where they are just an occasional nuisance.

The guide was truly amazing and I am sure that without him we would have wondered around seeing but not understanding exactly what we were looking at and why it was significant. Well worth the $25 we spent and the tip we gave him at the end of the tour.

When we were getting close to end of the tour the rain started again and we ran to get a taxi to take us back to the hotel which caused us to miss the museum but to be truthful, by the end of the tour I had so much information crammed into my brain I doubt I would have been able to digest any more information. I would have been walking around looking but not understanding the significance of what I was looking at.

If you ever get to Honduras, it is worth the trip to see these ruins. You will not be disappointed.

Oh and if you ever wanted to be the best player on your sports team just be thankful you are not living during the Mayan period. The top player from the best team was sacrificed at the end of the tournament!

After a good night’s sleep and great breakfast in Santa Rosa de Copan, we headed off to see some Mayan Ruins. The first stop was about 2 hours away at a small site called Parque Arqueologico El Puente.

This site is much smaller than the world renowed Copan Ruins (which I will blog about next). Unlike the Copan Ruins there is a very interesting museum with lots of artifacts that had been discovered on this site. I have lots of photos in my photo album located here. (Search for ‘Parque Arqueologico El Puente’ to narrow down the number of photos.) This site served as a very good introduction to the Mayan culture and religion and formed a very solid basis for the much more amazing Copan Ruins.

As I mentioned above, this is a very small site with 3 main buildings and some smaller artifacts on display in plaza (see picture) but it should not be missed. Being small you are not rushed to get thru the museum nor are you under any pressure at all to rush from building to building. The are no restrictions on climbing the stone buildings and if you are up to it, the views are amazing and provide a totally different perspective of the site than one could ever get from the ground.