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Accessible Everything

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Lucas “LazyLegz” Patuelli

AccessibleNicaragua nominated for Geotourism Award

By Craig Grimes

Even though AccessibleNicaragua is in it’s infancy it has already been nominated by Scott Rains for the National Geographic ChangeMakers Geotourism Challenge. The competition is a “global search for innovations in tourism that sustain, enhance and preserve local culture and place.”

AccessibleNicaragua is based upon the same philosophy as AccessibleBarcelona in providing flexible options, planning and information to clients and travel agents to supply inclusive holidays for people with disabilities. AccessibleNiacargua takes this philosophy one step further through being socially responsible and encouraging our clients to have a positive influence on the people, culture, environment and natural heritage of Nicaragua. This is achieved by using, where possible, accommodations which are eco-friendly and/or managed by non-profit organisations so that they can reinvest their profits back into their projects, introducing our clients to organisations that work with local people with disabilities (and of course the individual people with disabilities themselves) and through the promotion of employment for minorities such as people with disabilities, women and indigenous people through selling artisan crafts and in the travel industry.

For further information about AccessibleNicaragua please visit our website: www.accessiblenicaragua.com

Please read our entry at the Geotourism Challenge at; http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/6670 or click on the above banner and please leave any comments and/or suggestions to help strengthen our application.

I would very much appreciate your support and look forward to hearing from you and seeing your comments on the Geotourism Challenge site. If AccessibleNicaragua gets through to the final stage public voting begins on 28th May. Please forward this information to as many people as possible!

Posted in AccessibleNicaragua, News, Central America, Nicaragua, Travel | No Comments

Traveling to Guatemala

By Craig Grimes

Tomorrow, well actually, at about 4.00am in the morning Edurne and I begin our trip to Guatemala. The girls (Laia and Roser) are currently in León and will be meeting us in Antigua along with another friend (Josefina) on Thursday evening. It’s a bit of strange situation as Edurne will be in Antigua for meetings for 3 days and consequently she’ll be at one hotel with the other delegates and I’ll be at another by myself. We don’t expect to see each other much, if at all, until Friday evening. This gives me plenty of time to look into general access in Antigua and specific hotels.

After Antigua, we’re planning on going to Chichicastanango - Lago Artitlan - Rio Dulce (where we’ll catch a small boat to go through Lago de Isabul and down river) - Livingston. I think this is going to be quite a tough trip, especially as we have no hotels booked and I’m not really sure what to expect.

So we’re getting up at about 3.00am and going to Sébaco and catching a very inaccessible which goes though Honduras, El Salvador and onto Guatemala City, Guatemala with no bus changes. Then we have to catch another bus from Guatemala City to Antigua. The journey in total will take about 12 hours and we should arrive at about 5.00pm. It will be interesting for me to see the differences between the countries as we travel up through Central America. For a map of Guatemala please use this Lonely Planet link.

In preparation for the trip I’ve been doing some research on the internet, mainly trying to find hotels that look cheap and relatively accessible. I mainly looked at Antigua as this is the first place I’m going and I’ll be able to go to internet cafes whilst traveling to do more research for later in the trip. I searched using Google with phrases such as “Guatemala Disabled Travel Antigua” and “Guatemala Handicapped Antigua”. The usual problems arose while trying to find information about traveling for people with disabilities.

The guide books either say that it is very hard and don’t give any information to make it any easier or they give web addresses to general web pages about travel for people with disabilities, which while some if these pages are very good, they don’t have any information about Guatemala. Another really irritating thing that some web page owners do is write the names of every country and major city in the world hidden in the design of the page. We can’t see it, but the search engines can. Then when we search, our city comes up, their web page is at the top of the list, but there isn’t any of the information you’re actually looking for. A great way to get to the top of Google Rankings but very annoying, I was surprised at how many major travel agents for people with disabilities use this technique and in my opinion it wastes everybody’s time.

Here are some of the more useful things that came up:

www.conexion.com A wheelchair accessible internet cafe in Antigua. The owner is a wheelchair user and the guide books claim he is very helpful to disabled tourist. On the website there are a couple of expensive accessible hotels listed but you have to read the descriptions of all of them to see which might have access. The site doesn’t give any information about the type of access just “adapted rooms available.” I emailed them to ask about cheap accessible hotels in Antigua and they didn’t reply.

www.transitionsfoundation.com Transitions is an ONG that works with people with disabilities and at one was point linked to Conexión, but for whatever reason they seem to have gone their separate ways. I also emailed Transitions about meeting up with them and about accessible budget accommodation in Antigua. They emailed me back about meeting up but no mention about hotels.

www.guatemalastory.com This is the most useful website I found and although there isn’t any reference to disabled access whatsoever, there are lots of pictures so you can at least take a rough guess. One of the things I like about this site is that you can mark every hotel that you like the look of in a particular location and then they send you an email with a printable map with all of your chosen hotels and their contact details. Very clever! I also emailed Guatemala Story about a specific hotel and they didn’t get back to me either!

www.alfatravelguide.com A general page about hotels which also gives the usual “adapted rooms available” but no other information. Obviously, this phrase can mean almost anything, but at least it gives you a place to start.

www.aroundantigua.com A general travel site with info and hotel listings in and around Antigua.

www.larutamayaonline.com Another general travel site with info and hotel listings in and around Antigua.

The above listings were all I found really, nothing specific, but a good start to sorting out the trip. Now all I have to do is get there in one piece and hope that the hotel that I want to go to is accessible and has vacancies (maybe I should have booked my room in advance?!) I’ll write more about the hotel in Antigua and the trip up to Guatemala later in the week.

Until then, wish me luck……

Posted in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Accommodation, Public Transport, Nicaragua, Central America, Travel | No Comments

Traveling in Nicaragua with Friends - When the Inaccessible Becomes Accessible

By Craig Grimes

Two of our friends have come to visit us in Nicaragua for a while and as a wheelchair user this gives me the opportunity to see and do things “with a little help from my friends.” We went on a trip this weekend, which with an extra two pairs of hands and someone that could hire a car, made inaccessible parts of Nicaragua more accessible. I guess I’m really testing the theory of AccessibleNicaragua in that, if, as people with disabilities, we ask for and accept help, we can travel to the most inaccessible places of the world and see and do things that we only dreamed of.

We set off on Friday and headed to Granada in the hire car. The girls (Edurne, Roser & Laia) went on the boat trip around Las Isletas but after a tiring day, I decided the best thing to do was sit on a terrace and have a cocktail! After a refreshing Makua, (a white rum based cocktail) I went and checked the access and availability of the Hostal Central where we had decided to stay. We rented two double rooms which were on the ground floor and although neither of them were designed for wheelchair users, the level access made it easy to get into them. The bathroom was way too small, but I could just get in to use the sink, WC and shower.

In Granada

The next day, we went to an area near San Juan del Sur and along the way we stopped at the Niacarguan/Costa Rican border so that I could cross to update my Visa. Edurne came with me to the Nicaraguan side to help me out and then I had to wheel across the border alone, go into Costa Rica and then come back to Nicaragua. The wheelchair access wasn’t too bad and to be expected it was better on the Costa Rican side rather than the Nicaraguan side. The whole process only took about an hour, but now it means that I’m legal here for another 3 months.

We carried on with our trip to two beaches near San Juan del Sur, at the first one we just stopped to have lunch but the bay was amazing.

Marsella Beach, San Juan del Sur

After lunch, we went to find an ecolodge that we had read about in a guide book, we got lost on several occasions and had ask for directions countless number of times! When we eventually made it to the beach that we were looking for, the hotel wasn’t there! We asked around and found a small hotel that had two spare rooms, we dumped our stuff and went down to the beach to watch the sunset.

Matagual Beach, San Juan del Sur

The sunset was just fantastic and the path to get to the beach was fairly manageable although I needed a push when we got to the sand. We returned to the beach later that night and the stars were unbelievable, unfortunately nobody had their camera with them! On assessment of the hotel bathroom, which I didn’t check earlier as we were in a rush to get to the sunset, I realised that I couldn’t get past the WC to the shower, it didn’t really matter as we were only there for one night, but it could have been a bit of a struggle if we were there for longer.

The following morning we set off again, this time back towards Granada to El Mirador de Caterina and Laguna Apoyo. We stayed briefly and looked at some of the shops before going down to our hostel “The Monkey Hut.” On arrival, I was a bit shocked, although I knew it was on a steep hill I really wasn’t prepared for how steep. There were several steps to get down to the front door and the ramp down to the lagoon was impossible to manage independently. Edurne and I slept in a small dorm with 4 other people and the bathroom was incredibly tight for my wheelchair. After some discussion we decided to stay, I’m so pleased that we did as it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in Nicaragua.

El Mirador de Caterina and Laguna Apoyo

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and then went kayaking on the lagoon. This confirmed for me, that I and other people with disabilities, can achieve and do much more in Nicaragua with a little help. This now throws a new perspective on AccessibleNicaragua as their are so many activities, especially sports, that are available here that would otherwise be inaccessible to people with disabilities without help.Maybe it isn’t about being 100% independent after all, maybe it’s about being 90% or 80% independent and allowing others’ to make your traveling experience richer.

For more photos from this trip, please see my Facebook album.

Posted in Adapted Sport, AccessibleNicaragua, Accommodation, Central America, Nicaragua, Travel | No Comments

An accessible & inclusive travel blog for people with disabilities

AccessibleNicaragua nominated for Geotourism Award

Trip to Guatemala

Traveling to Guatemala

AccessibleNicaragua - Already in the Press

Traveling in Nicaragua with Friends - When the Inaccessible Becomes Accessible