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Nicole | Travel + Photo Diaries

@converseandwanderlust

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🦄 Wanderlust-fueled solo adventures ✈️🌍
📸 Travel Photographer | Olympus + iPhone
📍Current location: Nicaragua 🇳🇮
✈️Next destination: 🤷🏾‍♀️

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Lots of new faces around here (thank you btw!) — so here’s a little “about me” for the scroll-happy!

A few fun facts, questionable travel stats, and some semi-retired, margarita-loving energy coming your way.

If you’re new, say hey and tell me where you’re following from (and if you’re a beach or mountain person - I need to know my people).

Cheers to more adventures, more weirdness, and hopefully zero bad meals. taken in Everywhere by @converseandwanderlust

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a year ago

A last-minute Banff side quest 🏔️🇨🇦
Keep reading 👉🏾

I love nothing more than a big fat landscape. Give me more nature. Give me more pretty. Give me more ooh and ahh. Banff absolutely delivered all of the above and then some ✨🥹 I mean, GIRL.
👉🏾

The mornings were a little chilly, which made the hikes brisk in both temperature and pace 😅 Although NGL part of that pace was also driven by the fact I spent most of my time convinced a grizzly bear was going to emerge from the trees and take me for dinner (and I don’t mean out for dinner…)
👉🏾

Thankfully, no actual bear encounters. Just several very real warning signs saying grizzly bears had recently been spotted in the area, which I took as a polite invitation to hike somewhere else 🐻👋🏾
👉🏾

10/10 would recommend
10/10 would also continue avoiding grizzlies

FIN. taken in Banff National Park by @converseandwanderlust

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7 days ago

Wednesday night: watching the sunset at Espejo in SJDS, Nicaragua with friends, drinking wine.

1am: still sitting with @jujupeep who already had a World Cup ticket.

Me: “Fuck it. I’m coming.”

Six hours later we were in a taxi to Managua Airport.

Thursday night: landed in Los Angeles.

Friday morning: walking into the World Cup to watch Spain vs Belgium.

I still can’t believe I’m typing that. I don’t think I’ve ever made a bigger impulse purchase in my life 😂

The funniest part? Juju bought her resale ticket almost a week before I did. I bought mine completely separately. We ended up in the same section, the same row, 5 seats apart. The people between us were absolute legends and “scooted a skosh” so we could watch the match together.

You literally cannot make this shit up.

I’ve watched so many matches with Juju and our incredible football support group, Hydration Break FC™️ 😂 (shoutout Kate, Juliette, Liz and Candi!) over the last few weeks that getting to experience the World Cup together felt a bit surreal. Seeing Spain, seeing players I’ve spent the last month yelling at my TV over, hearing the anthem, feeling the atmosphere… it was everything I’d hoped it would be and then some.

Honestly, it was one of the best days of my life.

And to everyone who says money can’t buy happiness…

I present Exhibit A: a last-minute flight to LA and a World Cup ticket.

Zero regrets. 10/10 would financially irresponsibly support my football obsession again. ❤️⚽️🫡 taken in FIFA World Cup by @converseandwanderlust

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3 months ago

Amazon round 2.

Being in there is loud... not loud loud, but constantly alive. You’re surrounded by movement and sound and you’re just there, watching. Which is hilarious considering I have a genuine, crippling fear of moths and butterflies. Like, I’ll actually lose my 💩
And yet here I am, constantly throwing myself into rainforests and jungles and ecosystems absolutely crawling with all the things that terrify me.

Our days were spent moving through it. Canoeing down the river, hiking through the jungle, wading through knee-high rainwater pooled on the forest floor, well aware there are unknown creatures in that water but doing it anyway because it’s the freakin’ Amazon!! 💚🪱🦜🌱

Highlights, if I had to pick a few: sitting on the dock at the lodge looking for pink dolphins and spotting them twice. Seeing sloths peeking through the foliage and saki monkeys with their ridiculously floofy tails. Spotting caimans half-submerged in dark water at night and hoatzins dotted all alongside the river with their very punk rock crests. Seeing a variety of snakes coiled in the leaves, and after missing my shot in Peru, finally seeing an anaconda. That was AWESOME.

Which frame is your favourite? #natgeoyourshot by @converseandwanderlust

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4 months ago

Baños after the Quilotoa Loop was about one thing: do nothing aggressively 🫡

I splashed out on a lovely room with a terrace overlooking the river and the mountains, and I just lived there in all its cosy glory.

There’s just something about a slightly chilly morning. Putting on a jumper, leggings, socks. I don’t get to have that at home in Nicaragua because it’s perpetually sweaty weather. Which I chose, and would 10/10 choose again, OBVS. But still. A little jumper weather novelty? LOVE. 🥰

Waking up in Baños, sitting in my hammock with cosy vibes activated, watching the mist come down the mountains? Chefs 🤌🏾

I did manage to venture out for the waterfalls. El Pailón del Diablo has this vertigo inducing staircase right beside it, completely soaked, can barely see, the whole thing is just beautifully chaotic. Cascada Machay is this tall white line dropping through the jungle. Both dramatic enough to justify leaving the hammock for a few hours 😂

The town’s got colour, character, lots to see when you actually wander around. But honestly? I went for the nature, stayed for the hammock. taken in Baños, Ecuador by @converseandwanderlust

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4 months ago

Quilotoa Loop 🫡

NGL I was on the verge of a full crash out pre-hike. Acatenango flashbacks were in full swing (to this day one of the hardest and best things I’ve ever done, but still would never do again), I genuinely considered skipping the hike and just taking the bus to the crater instead. But I felt like I’d be cheating, Sooo I messaged the girl group chat for some support and they came back with a much needed “you’re a bad bitch, go get it.” Shoutout to the girls 🫶🏾🥹

The Quilotoa Loop is not hard but it’s not easy. 43.8km over three days, gaining around 2,500m in elevation. Day 2 was the hardest for me, more constant climbing than I expected, and the kind of false peaks where you think you’ve made it and then, nope, there’s another one. Day 3 ends with a final push up to the crater rim that is relentlessly uphill, but then you get there and you see that lake. And a bench. Oh the bench was gloooorious 😭

Also, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many shades of green in my life. So darn pretty! It’s not just the hills and the green though. There are dogs lounging in villages, cows and llamas you pass along the way, gorgeous flowers blooming everywhere. The whole thing is just so alive. 💚 taken in Quilotoa Loop by @converseandwanderlust

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4 months ago

I went to Mindo for the forest. I stayed for the birds. I am now (apparently) a birder… 🙄🪶😅

Genuinely did not see that one coming. But here’s the thing about waking up at 5:30am to stand very still in a garden staring at branches. At some point you stop questioning it and just commit… just accept what you’ve become 🤷🏾‍♀️🥹

And when you’re done being a birder for the morning, Mindo has the rest of it too. Trails, cloud forest and the Sendero Cascadas, 5 waterfalls deep into the jungle that I absolutely did not photograph nearly enough, but thoroughly enjoyed exploring.

#natgeoyourshot taken in Mindo, Ecuador by @converseandwanderlust

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5 months ago

Right. Cuicocha Lake was super duper. Otavalo wasn’t necessarily the highlight of my itinerary when I planned it, but it served two purposes:
1. See a pretty crater lake
2. Acclimate before the Quilotoa loop

I was the first (and only) one through the gate at 8am and had the whole trail to myself for hours, which is honestly my ideal situation. There’s something about being completely alone in nature that functions as therapy for me. Just me, my thoughts, and absolutely nobody to hear me whinge uphill. Inside voice fully out. No witnesses or judgement 😶‍🌫️

Through the varying ups (I really despise walking/hiking uphill. Like to my CORE. I don’t know why I continue to do this to myself 🙄) and downs of the hike, I walked through about 5 completely different weather-moods in one morning (yes weather-moods is a word now). Gloriously sunny but cosily cool. Then fully inside a cloud. Then dark and moody and misty. Then sunny again. None of my photos look the same from that hike.

Lastly (and perhaps most importantly), I met a cute dog which I’m not going to rank against the scenery but I’ll tell ya…. It was damn close 🫶🏾 taken in Laguna de Cuicocha by @converseandwanderlust

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5 months ago

Quito, Quito, Quito… LOVED. A city completely surrounded by mountains and volcanoes and the odd moody cloud, just doing the absolute most with its setting 🤌🏾

I went into the Basílica del Voto Nacional not expecting much. Churches aren’t really my thing. But the arches, the darkness, the mood of the whole place just got me. Completely obsessed.

La Ronda had the bunting, the colour, the cobblestones. Like, say less.

The only thing nobody tells you is what walking uphill at that altitude actually feels like. You develop this very specific walk where you’re pretending to be fine, and the second someone passes you, you’re basically doubled over gasping for air like you’ve just sprinted a marathon (you know the one) 😮‍💨😂 taken in Quito, Ecuador by @converseandwanderlust

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5 months ago

Surfers + Silhouettes.

Been quiet on here but not on the camera roll. Staying local, soaking up beach days, and hanging with the gals. Could be worse 🙂✨🫶🏾 taken in Playa Remanso, San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua by @converseandwanderlust

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8 months ago

Today is World Tourism Day, aka a little reminder that travel should give back to the places and people we visit, not just our camera roll.

I haven’t been out adventuring for a hot minute… and worse, I don’t have a damn thing booked in the near or distant future (cry for me).

So instead of slowly (read rapidly) spiralling through anxiety-fuelled searches for where to go, eat, sleep and “omg must see” (hiiii, it’s me 🙋🏾‍♀️), I’m digging into the archives and revisiting some of my favourite places and photos from this year. Le sigh.

In no particular order:

1. Laguna Rosada – Paracas, Peru
2. Macaws – Amazonia, Peru
3. Machu Picchu – Peru
4. Rio de Janeiro – Brazil
5. Little Corn Island – Nicaragua
6. Tamarindo – Costa Rica
7. Ilha Grande – Brazil
8. Bachelor’s Beach – Bonaire
9. Christ the Redeemer – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

#WTD25 #cinematictravel #cinematicphotography #travelphotographers #blacktravelista taken in EARTH by @converseandwanderlust

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a year ago

Niagara Falls, majestic AF. Golden autumn light, warm breeze, and a famjam. Perfect afternoon.

#blacktravelista #travelphotographers #cinematicphotography #discoverontario

niagara falls Canada | autumn in Canada | scenic canada photography taken in Niagara Falls, Ontario by @converseandwanderlust

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a year ago