Activities in Central America
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FEATURED
Panama Canal Partial Transit Sightseeing Cruise
6 hours (Departs Panama City, Panama)
by Viator
See for yourself how the Panama Canal works as you transit the Miraflores Locks, one of three locks used along the canal. The construction of the canal was one…Not LP reviewed
from USD$144.99 - All activities
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Academia de Español Antigueña
A highly recommended school, only hiring experienced teachers. They can arrange volunteer work in hospitals for social workers, lab assistants and child care workers on request. Also supports an educational project in San Antonio Aguas Calientes.
reviewed
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Habla Ya Language Center
The reader-recommended Habla Ya Language Center offers both group and private lessons. Five hours of group/private lessons starts at around US$50/around US$75, though significant discounts are given for lengthier programs - 25 hours of group/private lessons is only around US$200/around US$300. The language school is also well-connected to local businesses, so students can take advantage of discounts on everything from accommodations to tours.
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Volunteering in Quetzaltenango
The Quetzaltenango area has many nonprofit organizations working on social projects with the local K'iche' Maya people and others that need volunteers. Volunteer jobs can range from teaching math to village children, to designing websites for indigenous organizations, to developing sustainable agriculture, to medical work in clinics, to working in orphanages for disabled children. For anyone in a giving frame of mind, the possibilities are endless.
You can volunteer part time for a week or two while also studying Spanish, or you can live and work in a close-knit indigenous village for a year. Obviously, the more Spanish you speak the better, but in a few weeks at one of…
reviewed
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Raggamuffin Tours
All-day trips to Turneffe Atoll cost BZ$150. Three-day sailing and camping trips to Placencia depart every Tuesday and Friday. Raggamuffin's has a reputation as a party boat.
reviewed
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Utatlán Spanish School
One of the town's many language schools. Described as young and energetic with plenty of parties and activities.
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Cooperativa Spanish School
Run as a cooperative (therefore guaranteeing fair wages for teachers), Cooperativa Spanish School comes highly recommended. A percentage of profits goes to needy families around the lake. After-school activities include videos, conferences, salsa classes, volunteer work, kayaking and hiking. The office is halfway along the path between the two docks.
reviewed
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Río Locos
reviewed
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Boquete Mountain Cruisers
This expat-owned outfit offers two daily tours through some scenic back-country roads in its open-air trucks. The first leaves at 08:30 and makes a number of stops in and around Boquete - highlights include coffee, basalt formations and waterfalls. The second tour departs at 14:00 and heads straight for the Caldera hot springs. Both tours last four hours. There is no booking office, so call for reservations; trips include pickup at your hotel.
reviewed
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Alton’s Dive Center
Longtime local shop – ‘Alton’ is Alton Cooper, Utila’s mayor until 2010 – with good equipment and a laid-back atmosphere. Courses include four night’s accommodation – in little, basic, cold-water rooms right at the shop – and two fun dives. The service can be a bit hit and miss. It also offers NAUI courses.
reviewed
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Spanish Panama
This immensely popular language school gets rave reviews from travelers. It has a similar structure to ILERI's: four hours of one-on-one classes daily and homestays with meals for around US$380 per week (long-term discounts are available). It also offers a 'backpacker special,' which includes classes with dorm stay for US$275 per week.
reviewed
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Scuba Coiba
Run by an experienced Austrian dive master, Scuba Coiba offers divers a chance to experience some of the spectacular marine life around Isla Coiba. Two-tank dives start around US$70 per person, though diving in the park costs more since the distance is much greater.
Scuba Coiba also offers day trips (around US$130) as well as two-day trips (around US$320) to Isla de Coiba, which include entry into the national park, lodging at the ANAM station on Coiba and meals; there's a two-person minimum for these trips. You can also get PADI-certified here for around US$230, and snorkeling gear is available for hire (around US$6 per day). The dive shop is located on the main road…
reviewed
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Kaqchikel Tours
Kaqchikel Tours is a well-run, locally owned outfit specializing in volcano ascents and other great-value hikes, with camping along the way on some trips. Two-day Tajumulco trips cost around US$40. Kaqchikel also offers full-moon ascents of Santa María (around US$15) and challenging two-day Santiaguito trips (around US$66 with a minimum group size of four), camping on a small hill as close as is safely possible to the active crater.
A three-day Quetzaltenango-Lago de Atitlán trek is around US$70, and a five-day Nebaj-Todos Santos jaunt across the Cuchumatanes mountains is around US$130. Prices include transportation, food, equipment and a guide.
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Canopy Tours
Canopy Tours provides a canopy tour with a 20-cable system about 500m past Sambo Creek, east of La Ceiba. The 20-cable tour (two to three hours) starts with a 35-minute horseback ride up a steep road to the first station and includes a stop at a natural hot springs where you can smear yourself with the possibly therapeutic, definitely sulfur-smelling mud there. Any east-bound bus from La Ceiba can drop you at the entrance; a cab there will cost around US$30.
reviewed
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Sabine’s Smiling Horses
Run by Sabine, who speaks English, French, Spanish and German, Smiling Horses offers a variety of treks including a popular waterfall tour (three hours). Her horses are in great condition.
reviewed
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Arena Caliente
Everyone loves this locally owned and operated shop, which rents boards and arranges inexpensive group transportation to the best breaks. It also offers budget surf packages where prices vary depending on your choice in lodging (or camping) and other options.
reviewed
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Honduras Caribbean Tours
Has tours similar to Garífuna Tours, but also sportfishing (per boat L$5491), trips to Lancetilla (L$550), Pico Bonito (L$1045) & Cayos Cochinos (L$1121) and rafting on the Río Cangrejal (L$1121). Enquire at Casa Azul Caribbean Café.
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El Nahual
A bit out of town, but runs some excellent, grass roots community projects in which students are invited to participate, such as teaching classes for underprivileged kids and maintaining an organic community garden.
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La Democracia
In a residential part of town, this highly recommended school arranges volunteer work teaching English to underpriveleged kids and building classrooms.
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La Moskitia Ecoaventuras
Run by Jorge Salverri, an expert birder and one of the most knowledgeable guides to La Moskitia. Call ahead.
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Costa Rica Ríos
Offers week-long rafting trips that must be booked in advance.
reviewed
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Proyecto Montezuma
Kerri Bowers and César Benavides of Proyecto Montezuma run an innovative volunteer program that not only gives to the community but also fosters cultural exchange, pays fair wages to its employees and gifts you something for donating your time and energy. You choose the project in which you’d like to participate, such as teaching local classes or removing trash from the beach and jungle (privileges that you will pay for). Or you can simply sign up for a sustainable adventure tour or surf lessons (two hours US$40) in and around Montezuma. Hit up the website for details.
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Diving Sites
Roatán has dozens of dive sites and most shops do a good job of making sure divers who buy multi-dive packages don't end up going to the same place again and again. If there's a site you are keen to try, don't be afraid to ask. At the same time, weather and water conditions dictate most site selection, and some dives aren't practical or diveable for days at a time.
Some favorites - among many, many others - include: Mary's Place: fissures in the coral form a deep, sheer-faced maze at this one-of-a-kind site. Winding through, you'll likely see jacks, lobsters and crabs, and huge schools of silversides; near the mooring, keep an eye out for seahorses. Mary's Place is near…
reviewed
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Cecocafen
Like the Ruta de Café without the luxurious haciendas, this community-based initiative for small-scale, sustainable tourism arranges visits and homestays in small coffee-producing villages. Cecocafen, three blocks east and one block south of the Museo de Café, not only arranges tours, but also supports women's groups and builds schools while it promotes Fair Trade coffee.
Although it can work with individuals, Cecocafen is set up for large groups, who usually contact them well ahead of time about visiting communally operated coffee producers, who work small family plots (averaging only five manzanas), such as Cooperative El Roblar, a women's organic coffee and…
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Roatán Institute for Deepsea Exploration
The Roatán Institute for Deepsea Exploration is the fancy name for an American kid with a homemade submarine, which he uses to take tourists into the deep-sea trenches just off Roatán’s north shore. This is one of only two operations in the world that take Joe Public deeper than 91m. And the Idabel, as the sub is called, goes much deeper than that – more than 610m down, for as long as seven hours. There is no vegetation after 91m (and no light after 520m) and only the strangest of life forms: bioluminescent sponges, swimming sea cucumbers, six-gilled sharks, all amid huge limestone boulders and fossilized coral formations. The sub’s creator, Karl Stanley, got into…
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Language Courses
Xela's many language schools attract students from around the world. Unlike Antigua, which has had a similar reputation for quite a bit longer, Xela is not overrun with foreigners, though there is a growing social scene revolving around language students and volunteer workers.
Xela seems to attract altruistic types, and most of the Spanish schools listed individually provide opportunities to get involved in social action programs working with the local K'iche' Maya. Prices for the schools vary a little but not by much; the standard price is around US$110/around US$130 per week for four/five hours of instruction per day, Monday to Friday, including room and board with a…
reviewed