San Diego Symphony gives us messy Beethoven
Those unsustained phrases
4 p.m., Jan. 22
Central America news & stories
Panama City: since I was in the area...
Where to explore if you find yourself in Panama City, Panama.
A relatively short distance from San Diego (just a few small countries south of Mexico) lies Panama, the final Central American nation before you hit South America. Yet, for a tiny country, the capital, Panama ...
Manchester: "No affiliation with anybody in Panama"
But plenty of "Manchester" names in offshore data release
On Monday (May 9) the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a database of almost 214,000 offshore entities created in tax and secrecy havens by a Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The data were leaked ...
Salvadoran grower visits Bird Rock Coffee
Trying to put a face on coffee
Local coffee enthusiasts got a rare glimpse into the supply side of specialty coffee when a farmer from El Salvador paid a visit to Bird Rock Coffee Roasters for a pair of Meet the Grower ...
Wrong in Playa Flamingo
Onboard a catamaran, the author has a couple cervezas and rethinks things.
Never in my life had I imagined myself on a catamaran. Every time I pictured one, I thought of shirtless fraternity brothers and blonde girls in bikinis. I imagined a boozy spring break in Florida. ...
Radio free Roatán
If life hands you lemons...go buy a radio station in paradise. Keith Miller discovered a few months ago that the shrinking local radio industry that had employed him for 25 years had shrunk him out ...
Diving at Big Corn Island, Nicaragua
Off the beaten path with Pirate Chema.
A vertical sign written out in white seashells stated we had reached the dive shop destination. It was with some reluctance that I shuffled up to the two-story weatherbeaten building. My last resort dive had ...
Granada, Nicaragua: Central America on the cheap
Travel tips for this colonial city, the oldest in the New World.
Nicaragua may be one of the continent's last untarnished jewels that hasn't been flooded with foreign tourism. Lying just to the north of Costa Rica, it can be managed on an extremely low budget. Getting ...
Bullfight in Zapote (video)
Ticos approach the sport a little differently.
Even from the bleachers, a safe distance from the corral, the bull looked dangerously close. A sea of young men surrounded the bull, and every time the animal flinched, waves of contestants rippled away in ...
Playa El Espino, El Salvador
Searching for surf, finding adventure on this tiny nation's Pacific coast.
Call me a spoiled Southern Californian, but until I visited Playa El Espino I had never been forced to walk through a herd of milling cattle (left) to get to the ocean. This small fishing ...
Apocalypse Now, Tico-style
Adventure and misadventure in Costa Rica's Arenal region.
“Never get out of the boat. Unless you were going all the way. Kurtz got off the boat.” ~ Captain Benjamin L. Willard, Apocalypse Now So there we were staring at the glossy brochure deciding ...
Bocas del Toro, Panama
Check out this Caribbean surf capital before the big money arrives.
A chill ran down my spine as we passed a burnt-out fuselage that sat rusting in the front yard of a home near the exit gate of the Bocas del Toro airport (left). It made ...
Mesmerizing Ometepe
Lush (and inexpensive) volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua.
Approaching the island of Ometepe is a bit foreboding. As the ferry moves nearer and nearer, it's too easy to invoke movie images of Jurassic Park or King Kong. The tops of the two volcanoes ...
Guatemala: My First Trip Abroad
Tikal, Lake Atitlan, Antigua and Rio Hondo.
Have you ever eaten a marshmallow melted by a volcano? Well, I have. Let me tell you how this happened. I’m eleven years old and I just took my first trip overseas to Guatemala. I ...
Belize's Baboon Sanctuary
Howling with Abraham.
Sometimes the beauty of Central America is its simplicity. A small sign on the west side of the road announces that you’ve arrived at the Belize Community Baboon Sanctuary. (A misnomer, Belize’s "baboons" are in ...
Volcano Boarding in Nicaragua
Ever been volcano boarding? Consider adding it to your bucket list – especially if you're in Nicaragua. Volcan Cerro Negro is 25 kilometers from the colonial city of León, Nicaragua. The country is populated with ...
