O.K. as for me, I left you last installment in Semuc Champey… from there I went to Flores, it was an uneventful tourist minibus, soulless but really convenient, now Flores in itself is nothing much to rave about, it is an almost island on lake Peten, which is quite pretty, though difficult to appreciate after the beauty of Semuc Champey. My visa was due to expire and there were still things I wanted to do in Guatemala so I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances and went diving in Belize.
I caught a bus to Guatemala city and a boat straight out to Caye Caulker, met a brilliant English chick on the way, so we planned to get a room together on arrival, we arrived and met one of those "Ex-patriot alright g'uvnor I'm your man" types, wicked, fixed us up with an Irish and a Scottish girl and we got a really cheap place together, terrific. As luck would have her way, we had arrived on lobster festival weekend! So we ate lobster (seriously every day we were there) it was delicious! Every time!
I had a marvelous few days scuba diving, went to the "blue hole" an undersea cave system, stalagmites and sharks everywhere, it was great fun swimming in and out of the limestone formations, some serious cave diving practice, but I was really glad to get back above the thermocline (freezing). The next dive site was called the aquarium and seriously, I have never seen so many rays in my life, massive mantas, I love the way they swim, like flying through water, they are truly beautiful to watch.
We stopped on another little caye for lunch, the home of… wait for it… RED FOOTED BOOBIES! O.k so not the blue footed ones I've set my heart on going to the Galapagos to see but still, Half moon caye, is the nesting place for hundreds of these birds, the look out is so close you can almost reach out and touch them, i was such a kid in a candy shop… excited!!!! All round an excellent week. How does that Jaques Cousteau guy get it right every time? Not bad for a dead French guy.
I arrived back from Belize in time to find a group hiking to "El Mirador" the next day, great, so I get in on that, we have been warned, about the mud, we have been warned about the mosquitos, we have been warned about the hike, but I'm still game.
The day before the hike begins it rains, the night before the hike begins, it rains. The morning of the hike we are packed into our mini van and heading out into the jungle, we drive till there is no road left and then we (well not we actually some other local type dudes) load up the mules and we head into the jungle proper.
Ah yes, the we, no it's not the royal we, there are six of us in our party, yours truly (defying simple superficial categorisation). Sandra, she is Danish, she is in her last year of med school and an ex-gymnast, she is patient and easy to be around. Rik and Yoyo are Dutch, they are both students and bundles of fun, they live in Amsterdam and act like European big city kids, (aspiring Eurotrash in the nicest sense of the word). Then there are the Germans, the slight pretty almost silent Nadine and her garrulous, bumptious boyfriend Sebastian.
As soon as we pass the sign that declares we have entered the park, a cloud of mosquitos appears, big, black and ominous, I can hear the jaws theme at a high pitched whine in my ears and the mosquito cloud settles in to follow us reminding me exactly of the dust cloud which perpetually follows young Charlie Brown's friend "pigpen" through the "Peanuts" cartoons.
Oh my God, going to the loo was a challenge seriously swarms of mosquitos. Luckily the camp sites were some what less infested then the trails, the Germans went through 5 cans of deet. Anyways, when we finally got to El Mirador we were in luck.
As it is rainy season the archeaologist and his team were working on the site (they can only work two or three months a year in rainy season due to lack of water otherwise) it was great, they showed us around and let us in places and explained stuff, it was great, I actually wouldn't recommend El Mirador to people who aren't real archeaology freaks though as most of the place is still under jungle. The hike is flat but muddy as hell if it rains, apparently the Argentinian ambassador had to wade through chest high mud the week before we went in. Tee hee, but you know me, born under a lucky a star, I had a great trip. Finally dirty, sweaty, muddy, made it back out of the jungle, saw the biggest snake I'd ever seen in my life, loads of spider monkeys, had been awoken by the haunting cries of Howler monkeys and of course saw birds and jaguar footprints. Climbed the biggest (pre-industrial) man made structure in the world, from which you can see nothing but trees in every direction, it must be one of the last places in the world where this is the case! You can see great big mounds under which you know are more pyramids and causeways, and lives lived, it's cool, a whole civilization lived and died here only to be swallowed back into the jungle.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
(I know it was written about Ramesses the great in Egypt, but I still got pleasure quoting it here and on the top of the pyramid in El Mirador)
The next day Sandra and I headed for Tikal, we stayed in a tent next to the site so we could see sunrise and sunset, the early morning fog was eerie and cool but there was too much cloud cover for a real sunrise (or set). still it was fabulous to wander round the ruins. I got attacked by a Coatimundi (hillarious) it wanted my snack, but all it did was make a hole in my new raincoat (curses), ah well at least I escaped with my life (tee hee) saw lots of Tucan's, for some inexplicable reason that bird just makes me happy every time I see it, one of my favourite books as a child was about a Tucan. I think that is why they make me so happy, that and the fact that they look totally preposterous!
So then finally I crossed the border into Mexico and threw away all that dodgy paperwork from Honduras, here they are really generous with visas and give you six months on arrival!!! Wow, I am super impressed, and they asked no difficult questions at the border, it was sweet, I blended with all the other tourists (imagine it, me blending, how's that working for ya?).
So Mexcio, first stop Palenque, Yes, more ruins, I am kinda getting over ruins a bit at this stage, but I heard good things so I went, it was very manicured, I don't like my ruins manicured, I like them wild, so maybe EL Mirador is more my thing after all. Having said that the reliefs are amazing here, I went to the museum and the tomb is incredible, carved out of one giant slab of rock, (how on earth did they ever get that thing up the stairs and into the pyramid???). It was definitely the coolest thing about the whole place, I wasn't though very impressed with Palenque town and headed out to San Cristobal las casas as soon as I could.
San Cristobal is fabulous, I fell in love with it immediately, what a cool little town full of funky bars and cafes, bizzare churches and cobblestone streets. Every time I think I have seen everything I walk into another church and there is something even weirder going on. This time it was a baby Jesus, dressed up as a Dr!!?! Yes he even had a stethoscope, white coat and Dr's bag (with the inscription Dr Jesus on it). and the temples here also love the grovelling Jesus, weird, a humiliated crawling Jesus, this time I really have seen everything right?
Then there was the day I spent visiting Sumidero canyon, crocodiles, pelicans, yellow footed storks, iguanas, waterfalls and of course the place where hundreds of Indians threw themselves into the canyon rather than surrender to the Spanish, the stuff legends are made of.
Onwards, I kind of had to move on faster than I wanted at this point as there was a festival happening the next weekend in Oaxaca and I wanted to be there! so I pushed on. When I got here I discovered Oaxaca is even nicer than San Critobal, I love the place, poor old Pachuca is really going to have a lot to live up to. Oaxaca rocks, it has bars, it has dancing and pool playing (yes I brushed off the old cue, and you will be pleased to know I am still as shit as I ever was) but luckily I had met a Scottish lass who absolutely kicked ass (not to mention who has the amazing ability to make men fall in love with her at 50 paces) hillarious to watch, she is amazing!, more churches, the Santo Domingo church is the most baroque over done gold curlicued thing I have ever seen, the art here is so much fun, the dancing, did I mention the dancing (wait breathe N.J., breathe), OMG I am having so much fun, did I mention the mescal, it''s all kinds of flavours here (trust me that does nothing to improve the actual joy of consuming it though). all I can say is FIESTA.
So now I am back in Oaxaca, from the beach, tomorrow I have to wise up, get serious, get on a bus and go get aquainted with my new home, cross your fingers and toes for me.
Besos y abrasos N.J.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Leaving Honduras
Thankfully the school year is over, and I am hanging up my teaching hat for a while.
Leaving Honduras made me happy, I can not begin to tell you how claustrophobic and parochial Gracias (and pretty much all who sail within her) is (are).
And so a line (a lifeline) written before the tyranny of distance and narcotic influences of time erase the zeitgeist of the "Honduran era" of my life.
Leaving Gracias, after a sleepless night, I was sick as a parrot, and had managed to lie in bed all night willing myself to sleep, to, of course, no avail, My flatmates had held a party for me the night before, I had been too sick and wretched to enjoy it, I was the first to leave for bed. So bleary eyed I found my way to the bus, said my last goodbye and clambered aboard the ridiculous yellow school bus (another reject from Estados Unidos) the bus was blaring "Betty Davis eyes" and other hopelessly overdone love songs from the 80s' at a ridiculous volume, the reverb distorting and richocheting off the windows was ludicrously real, it was a mixed blessing that the bus was going all the way to The Entrance (saving me a bus change but taking years off the health of my ears). I managed to not cry for at least half a minute (o.k. maybe it was only quarter of a minute) anyway it was dark on the bus and no-one was paying me any attention and to be truthful it was two or three tears of relief, the scenery on departure was breathtakingly beautiful and I actually surprised myself by feeling a little sad about leaving the place. Mostly though, I will not lie it was with the feeling of a great weight slipping off my shoulders that I felt the distance between me and Gracias, Lempira lengthen.
So I arrived in Copan and then made a dash for the border, entering Guatemala was easy, apparently my passport is legit enough for immigration to not mind all the dodgy goings on that the school lawyers have (we suspect) been involved in for the past 10 months.
I arrived in Antigua as New Zealand tied with Italy in a world cup (soccer) game, apparently this is such a monumental happening that it may yet be declared a public holiday in New Zealand. Antigua is quite lovely, I was a little overwhelmed by the number of tourists, but I love the sushi and bakeries…
Antigua is basically a poor man's Cuzco, it's charming and sweet and FULL of ruined churches, astronomical numbers of ruined churches crumbling back into cobbled streets. My favourite of the old churches is accompanied by several small museums and set rather bizzarely amidst the middle of a rather posh hotel. I struggled to find the entrance (eventually entering via the multilevel car park, I went down into a posh lobby area. Dispite some initial misgivings I knew here I was on the right track as the walls were lined with niches displaying items from the museums which were my ultimate target, so I passed the young men in their penguin suits and the check in desk where the hotel lobby opened into a beautiful inner sanctum, full of gaudy McCaws still in last night party frocks sleeping off their excesses on roosting perches amidst a pretty gardens surrounded by ancient ruins. It is an interesting juxtaposition it appealed to me in it's oddity, The place is well set out, the ruins clearly labeled their are bones, bells, a fascinating candle workshop and precolombian artefacts (what more could a girl want).
There are so many ruins here because of all the nearby volcanoes and tectonic activity which regularly sends pieces of Antigua to it's knees, in fact there was a recent volcanic erruption only a couple of weeks before my arrival, the godesses (or Mother nature) underlining the dangers in case we humans might forget our place in the cosmic food chain. Of course given such provoa\cation I felt compeled to climb a volcano, the one which had in deed just errupted, I found a guide willing to take me and then as we set off one of my party informed me what we were about to do is now illegal, the government having banned climbing because of the five people who died the fortnight previous. Oh great I think, too late now, I also think as we begin our assent gingerly picking our way up onto the crusty blackened old lava flows now rigged with the cold. As we climbed higher, footing became more difficult and walking less gingerly it was hot despite the drizzle, the smoke seeped up around us through small fissures in the black lava, where the smoke was hottest the edges of the lava was grey soot rather than the hard black spiny dragon back ridges we were used to, I could see flashes of orange in parts and new what I was seeing was part of the molten core of our planet (pretty amazing).
The climb got harder and steeper, there was no path we just followed the guide who with goat like agility hopped from crumbling crest of frozen wave to wave. After three quarters of an hour the steam rising up through the crevices in the lava became noticably more and we soon found ourselves walking beside a river of lava we followed it up to a point where it forked and flowed round a corner as the skies darken and the rain settled in we could hear the sizzle of raindrops on molten earth. So we began our descent.
The next day I went to Panajachal on Lago Atitlan, the trip over the mountains was scenic and beautiful, arriving in Panajachal was a surprise, it is a strip of tourist shops, comparable to seeing Koh San rd (Bangkok) for the first time. Brightly coloured cloth everywhere, ladies carrying baskets cushioned on their multicoloured wrapped hair bands, baby's strapped in papooses on their backs, I found myself a quiet guesthouse away from the mad crowd in the old part of the city and went to the river to enjoy the sunset.
The lake here is truly beautiful. In the next few days I took the time to hike to the next little town around the bay, the weather held the whole time I was at the lake, though in the evenings the sky would darken threateningly, full of the promise of rainy season. I spent a day at the market in Solola, up a steep winding road from Panajachal the place was teeming with activity, I sat in the park watching people come and go avoiding the pandomonium in the actual market proper.
On I go, heading to Quetzeltenango or Xela as the locals call it. I arrived, found a hostel and acquainted myself with the centre of town, a grey day, grey buildings and here, at least, the rainy season is in full swing, by 12:30 the rain had settled in, I dug the jumper out of my backpack visited the cathedral and then gave up for the day. The next day opened with leaden skies and stayed that way all day. The morning after was at least light grey skies and no rain, I scurried to the bus station and went to el veijo Palmar, a ghost town destroyed by mud and lava flows from the local volcanos, most famously known for the fact that vigorous volcanic activity had changed the course of the local river which caused a deep ravine to form through the middle of the old church, all traces of the church are now gone but the deep ravine, the river was an absolute raging torrent that I watched pick up a large log and turn it into a lifetime supply of matchsticks in the muddy barrage of water that was hurling itself under the wooden suspension bridge that hung perilously over the roaring brown monster. Apparently you enter this area at your own risk, the abandoned houses all about stand in mute testament to all those who choose to no longer live such hazardous lives. Of course by now it was again persisting down with the rain so I took some quick snaps of the river and beat a hasty retreat to Xela.
The next morning I headed to San Andreas Xecul which is a cute small town where every second house is festooned with great hanks of thread drying in the open air after being dyed, it's imminent future revolving around being woven into some of the striking Guatemalan fabrics which I only wish my backpack was empty enough to allow me to purchase. The whole town is a riot of colour, not least of which is the church, an ochre yellow complete with bizarre gaudy relief sculptures. Inside the church are the usual tortured bewigged statues of Christ, Mary and a roll call of various saints. the dome of the church on the outside has been gaily painted to imitate a hot air balloon rising behind the main vestible helping the crucified Jesus with his ascension.
I returned to Xela as the rain (once again) began it's usual afternoon patter (of little footsteps over rooftops and streets alike). So I headed to the "Museum of Natural History" for my (indoor) afternoon entertainment. The first few rooms were full of old bakerlight phones, telephone switchboards, a genuine computer from 1980!!! an old "Pan Am inflatable life vest a cell phone that looked more modern than mine, (perhaps the curator had left his in there by mistake last time he was dusting). there was a room of musical instruments and documents concerning Guatemala's history. We then went upstairs (to the photography free zone where of course the cool stuff you really want to photograph is), here is all the precolombian (Mayan) artefacts, they have some really well preserved petroglyphs and rock carvings, pottery and statues. There are accompanying pictures and text showing you the Mayan Gods and Goddesses in all their glory, they look, well, terrifying, I totally understand the need to placate these Gods with whichever kind of sacrifice they demand!
This morning I caught the chicken bus again, this time in the drizzle to Chichiestanango, it drizzled all day but the town is really cute, small and cute, after I dropped my bags at the hotel I wandered around the cobblestone streets to see the major two churches, the first one was a sepulcher, a fire burnt on the steps and the inside was full of crucified Christs, Christs in coffins and spare crosses leaning up against the wall (errrrrrm?), the paintings are so blackened by the continuous smoke from a million candles and the almost continual swinging of smoking censors that the bloke out the front does, the smoke shimmers across the altars on the floor. Then there is a dark room, lit only by the candles on more altars which send small fingers of light toward crawling toward another coffin, I could barely make out the christ shape in the coffin, I felt the hairs down the back of my neck start to rise and backed out of the inky room,
the church behind me was still empty but the whole place just felt freaky!
The second church, the main cathedral had a Mayan ceremony taking place (with burning censors and sacrifices on the front steps). The church was well patronised with local Maya carrying out ceremonies on the altars.
These altars are set every few feet all the way up the centre aisle of both churches and are used to burn sacrifices of corn, flowers candles and sugar (the candles they don't bother lighting just throw handfuls of them into the burning fire, the sugar smoulders and melts attracting a million bees, amazing. Apparently one of the most popular ceremonies is performed by young women in the hopes of securing a husband who is good and not a drunkard. I considered having this ceremony performed for the mere cost of 7 dollars (US) and then decided to spend the money on cuba libra's instead!
The next day was market day, I woke up early and climbed the hill past the mask museum to visit the local idol, Pascual Abaj, alone on the top of a hill in a circular altar (surrounded by crosses) it's supposed to have a human face but again the years of soot and rain have mostly washed away the features, interesting nontheless. I wandered the market saw the museum and the next day traveled all day to get to Semuc Champey.
Semuc Champey is beautiful, natural limestone pools set in the middle of a national park, I climbed to the mirador and looked out over the park, I had the place to myself for an hour and a half before half a dozen Guatemalan guys turned up, guides I suspect, nothing disturbs the serenity quite like the sound of a snaggle toothed dude sharpening a massive machete behind ones back. I moved on. The thundering of the waters under the natural limestone bridge was cool, I swam and relaxed all day it was great, I rounded off the evening with a visit to the local bat cave, very cool stalagtites (& mites), if only I hadn't had to swim through freezing water in the cave I would have been much happier, but the clouds of bats exiting the cave as the sunset were well worth the wait.
And so tomorrow, on to Flores, but today I send this!!!
Leaving Honduras made me happy, I can not begin to tell you how claustrophobic and parochial Gracias (and pretty much all who sail within her) is (are).
And so a line (a lifeline) written before the tyranny of distance and narcotic influences of time erase the zeitgeist of the "Honduran era" of my life.
Leaving Gracias, after a sleepless night, I was sick as a parrot, and had managed to lie in bed all night willing myself to sleep, to, of course, no avail, My flatmates had held a party for me the night before, I had been too sick and wretched to enjoy it, I was the first to leave for bed. So bleary eyed I found my way to the bus, said my last goodbye and clambered aboard the ridiculous yellow school bus (another reject from Estados Unidos) the bus was blaring "Betty Davis eyes" and other hopelessly overdone love songs from the 80s' at a ridiculous volume, the reverb distorting and richocheting off the windows was ludicrously real, it was a mixed blessing that the bus was going all the way to The Entrance (saving me a bus change but taking years off the health of my ears). I managed to not cry for at least half a minute (o.k. maybe it was only quarter of a minute) anyway it was dark on the bus and no-one was paying me any attention and to be truthful it was two or three tears of relief, the scenery on departure was breathtakingly beautiful and I actually surprised myself by feeling a little sad about leaving the place. Mostly though, I will not lie it was with the feeling of a great weight slipping off my shoulders that I felt the distance between me and Gracias, Lempira lengthen.
So I arrived in Copan and then made a dash for the border, entering Guatemala was easy, apparently my passport is legit enough for immigration to not mind all the dodgy goings on that the school lawyers have (we suspect) been involved in for the past 10 months.
I arrived in Antigua as New Zealand tied with Italy in a world cup (soccer) game, apparently this is such a monumental happening that it may yet be declared a public holiday in New Zealand. Antigua is quite lovely, I was a little overwhelmed by the number of tourists, but I love the sushi and bakeries…
Antigua is basically a poor man's Cuzco, it's charming and sweet and FULL of ruined churches, astronomical numbers of ruined churches crumbling back into cobbled streets. My favourite of the old churches is accompanied by several small museums and set rather bizzarely amidst the middle of a rather posh hotel. I struggled to find the entrance (eventually entering via the multilevel car park, I went down into a posh lobby area. Dispite some initial misgivings I knew here I was on the right track as the walls were lined with niches displaying items from the museums which were my ultimate target, so I passed the young men in their penguin suits and the check in desk where the hotel lobby opened into a beautiful inner sanctum, full of gaudy McCaws still in last night party frocks sleeping off their excesses on roosting perches amidst a pretty gardens surrounded by ancient ruins. It is an interesting juxtaposition it appealed to me in it's oddity, The place is well set out, the ruins clearly labeled their are bones, bells, a fascinating candle workshop and precolombian artefacts (what more could a girl want).
There are so many ruins here because of all the nearby volcanoes and tectonic activity which regularly sends pieces of Antigua to it's knees, in fact there was a recent volcanic erruption only a couple of weeks before my arrival, the godesses (or Mother nature) underlining the dangers in case we humans might forget our place in the cosmic food chain. Of course given such provoa\cation I felt compeled to climb a volcano, the one which had in deed just errupted, I found a guide willing to take me and then as we set off one of my party informed me what we were about to do is now illegal, the government having banned climbing because of the five people who died the fortnight previous. Oh great I think, too late now, I also think as we begin our assent gingerly picking our way up onto the crusty blackened old lava flows now rigged with the cold. As we climbed higher, footing became more difficult and walking less gingerly it was hot despite the drizzle, the smoke seeped up around us through small fissures in the black lava, where the smoke was hottest the edges of the lava was grey soot rather than the hard black spiny dragon back ridges we were used to, I could see flashes of orange in parts and new what I was seeing was part of the molten core of our planet (pretty amazing).
The climb got harder and steeper, there was no path we just followed the guide who with goat like agility hopped from crumbling crest of frozen wave to wave. After three quarters of an hour the steam rising up through the crevices in the lava became noticably more and we soon found ourselves walking beside a river of lava we followed it up to a point where it forked and flowed round a corner as the skies darken and the rain settled in we could hear the sizzle of raindrops on molten earth. So we began our descent.
The next day I went to Panajachal on Lago Atitlan, the trip over the mountains was scenic and beautiful, arriving in Panajachal was a surprise, it is a strip of tourist shops, comparable to seeing Koh San rd (Bangkok) for the first time. Brightly coloured cloth everywhere, ladies carrying baskets cushioned on their multicoloured wrapped hair bands, baby's strapped in papooses on their backs, I found myself a quiet guesthouse away from the mad crowd in the old part of the city and went to the river to enjoy the sunset.
The lake here is truly beautiful. In the next few days I took the time to hike to the next little town around the bay, the weather held the whole time I was at the lake, though in the evenings the sky would darken threateningly, full of the promise of rainy season. I spent a day at the market in Solola, up a steep winding road from Panajachal the place was teeming with activity, I sat in the park watching people come and go avoiding the pandomonium in the actual market proper.
On I go, heading to Quetzeltenango or Xela as the locals call it. I arrived, found a hostel and acquainted myself with the centre of town, a grey day, grey buildings and here, at least, the rainy season is in full swing, by 12:30 the rain had settled in, I dug the jumper out of my backpack visited the cathedral and then gave up for the day. The next day opened with leaden skies and stayed that way all day. The morning after was at least light grey skies and no rain, I scurried to the bus station and went to el veijo Palmar, a ghost town destroyed by mud and lava flows from the local volcanos, most famously known for the fact that vigorous volcanic activity had changed the course of the local river which caused a deep ravine to form through the middle of the old church, all traces of the church are now gone but the deep ravine, the river was an absolute raging torrent that I watched pick up a large log and turn it into a lifetime supply of matchsticks in the muddy barrage of water that was hurling itself under the wooden suspension bridge that hung perilously over the roaring brown monster. Apparently you enter this area at your own risk, the abandoned houses all about stand in mute testament to all those who choose to no longer live such hazardous lives. Of course by now it was again persisting down with the rain so I took some quick snaps of the river and beat a hasty retreat to Xela.
The next morning I headed to San Andreas Xecul which is a cute small town where every second house is festooned with great hanks of thread drying in the open air after being dyed, it's imminent future revolving around being woven into some of the striking Guatemalan fabrics which I only wish my backpack was empty enough to allow me to purchase. The whole town is a riot of colour, not least of which is the church, an ochre yellow complete with bizarre gaudy relief sculptures. Inside the church are the usual tortured bewigged statues of Christ, Mary and a roll call of various saints. the dome of the church on the outside has been gaily painted to imitate a hot air balloon rising behind the main vestible helping the crucified Jesus with his ascension.
I returned to Xela as the rain (once again) began it's usual afternoon patter (of little footsteps over rooftops and streets alike). So I headed to the "Museum of Natural History" for my (indoor) afternoon entertainment. The first few rooms were full of old bakerlight phones, telephone switchboards, a genuine computer from 1980!!! an old "Pan Am inflatable life vest a cell phone that looked more modern than mine, (perhaps the curator had left his in there by mistake last time he was dusting). there was a room of musical instruments and documents concerning Guatemala's history. We then went upstairs (to the photography free zone where of course the cool stuff you really want to photograph is), here is all the precolombian (Mayan) artefacts, they have some really well preserved petroglyphs and rock carvings, pottery and statues. There are accompanying pictures and text showing you the Mayan Gods and Goddesses in all their glory, they look, well, terrifying, I totally understand the need to placate these Gods with whichever kind of sacrifice they demand!
This morning I caught the chicken bus again, this time in the drizzle to Chichiestanango, it drizzled all day but the town is really cute, small and cute, after I dropped my bags at the hotel I wandered around the cobblestone streets to see the major two churches, the first one was a sepulcher, a fire burnt on the steps and the inside was full of crucified Christs, Christs in coffins and spare crosses leaning up against the wall (errrrrrm?), the paintings are so blackened by the continuous smoke from a million candles and the almost continual swinging of smoking censors that the bloke out the front does, the smoke shimmers across the altars on the floor. Then there is a dark room, lit only by the candles on more altars which send small fingers of light toward crawling toward another coffin, I could barely make out the christ shape in the coffin, I felt the hairs down the back of my neck start to rise and backed out of the inky room,
the church behind me was still empty but the whole place just felt freaky!
The second church, the main cathedral had a Mayan ceremony taking place (with burning censors and sacrifices on the front steps). The church was well patronised with local Maya carrying out ceremonies on the altars.
These altars are set every few feet all the way up the centre aisle of both churches and are used to burn sacrifices of corn, flowers candles and sugar (the candles they don't bother lighting just throw handfuls of them into the burning fire, the sugar smoulders and melts attracting a million bees, amazing. Apparently one of the most popular ceremonies is performed by young women in the hopes of securing a husband who is good and not a drunkard. I considered having this ceremony performed for the mere cost of 7 dollars (US) and then decided to spend the money on cuba libra's instead!
The next day was market day, I woke up early and climbed the hill past the mask museum to visit the local idol, Pascual Abaj, alone on the top of a hill in a circular altar (surrounded by crosses) it's supposed to have a human face but again the years of soot and rain have mostly washed away the features, interesting nontheless. I wandered the market saw the museum and the next day traveled all day to get to Semuc Champey.
Semuc Champey is beautiful, natural limestone pools set in the middle of a national park, I climbed to the mirador and looked out over the park, I had the place to myself for an hour and a half before half a dozen Guatemalan guys turned up, guides I suspect, nothing disturbs the serenity quite like the sound of a snaggle toothed dude sharpening a massive machete behind ones back. I moved on. The thundering of the waters under the natural limestone bridge was cool, I swam and relaxed all day it was great, I rounded off the evening with a visit to the local bat cave, very cool stalagtites (& mites), if only I hadn't had to swim through freezing water in the cave I would have been much happier, but the clouds of bats exiting the cave as the sunset were well worth the wait.
And so tomorrow, on to Flores, but today I send this!!!
Saturday, May 08, 2010
The last few months in a nut shell.
And so, the latest, sort of. Life has quickly fallen into a pattern now, and the school, "the mill that grinds young people old." Has kicked off for the final partial.
We had Science fair and that was a long day of thumb twiddling and child herding. No-one fell in the pool and some kids won prizes so I guess my mission was fulfilled.
The weekend fading into the mists behind me now was a trip to Santa Rosa, the nearest big city to our little Gracias). I got on the bus with my fellow gringos and was listening to my ipod when an entire band got on the bus, a snaggletoothed (actually some were just plain toothless) posse of old guys in cowboy hats, four had guitars and one with a home made double bass, amazing instrument, looked like it was made out of a pregnant guitar case and strung with gaily colored plastic wires. They saw me nodding my head in time to my own music and asked if I wanted to hear a song. So I soon had five dudes serenading me and the entire front of the bus getting cricks in their necks staring at the spectacle… Four songs later they finally stopped and I could stop applauding and smiling faux smiles at these strangers, they asked if I wanted to join them at their fiesta that evening, I politely declined and was relieved to arrive in Santa Rosa and be free of their attention.
Santa Rosa has good restaurants, good food and good clubs so we returned home exhausted and mellow on Sunday afternoon.
Sorry, that previous paragraph was of course written weeks (months??) ago now. Summer daze has also come and gone, a day spent at the pool with the kids from fourth grade up. The entire day consisted of children throwing water balloons at each other, throwing each other in the pool and the staff discovering which kids can't swim (quite a number). The games we had "organised" were never played but Some fellow teachers and I did manage to eat my favourite fish and drink beer in relative quiet at the end of the day Yes you read that right, I have started drinking beer, after all these years).
Then finally Semana Santa arrived, the week when we all get to celebrate some mindless brutality otherwise known as the martyring of Christ.
For the first few days Laura (one of my fellow teachers from Gracias), her brother Paul and another teacher (Liam) and I went to a place called Lago Yojoa (the big lake in the middle of Honduras if you care to glance at an atlas), The place we were booked into was called the D&D brewery, Bob the expat American who owns the place brews his own beer, a little bitter for my tastes but not bad at all, he was super friendly. He showed us his collection of mayan artefacts which he had found in the local area, amazing little death masks and obsidian and Jade cores for making arrow heads, pieces of pottery a bunch of other bits and pieces that he explained to us and ending with shards of trinkets, very cool.
We took a row boat out on the lake one day, in which we discovered between the four of us none of us could row, but we did manage to paddle ourselves around to see some birds and patches of lake, it was a fun day.
We went to the local nature reserve and saw lots of birds and lizards. I saw the most massive damsel fly I have ever seen, it had beautiful pearl coloured gosamer wings and of course was long gone by the time I got my camera out (As is most of the wildlife). Of course it's my own fault as I would rather watch the wildlife and then after I am kind of done watching I reach for the camera, by which time the wildlife is generally kind of done with me as well.
A few days later we caught several busses (after attempting to wave down many more that would not stop). and headed to Comayagua.
We arrived at Comayagua and found our hotel, I immediately broke the key in the door lock of our room. Then Paul broke the towel rail in the bathroom and the curtain rod also. Hmmmmmmm, I thought the managment would no longer love us, but despite us waking up the poor desk girl at least three (or was it four) times to let us in as the night progressed and we wanted to see more carpets being built. They continued to be nice to us, so if you are ever in Comayagua stay at the Halston Hotel in the centre of town, the people are soooooo nice!!!!
We saw parades featuring small boys wearing gross wigs and pretending to be Jesus, there were robes and colourful K.K.K. style masks (a bit weird but what do I know). there were
biers being carried to and fro in ridiculous heat with various saints atop, swaying around the stations of the cross, nasty wigs flicking in the breeze created by the jogging lopping steps of their bearers. The largest was a massive boat with Jesus depicted as a fisherman. We stood a few hours in the hot sun and then beat a retreat back up into the cloud forest that is Gracias.
The humidity levels at the moment are through the roof, the afternoon thunderstorms are incredible, the roiling skies frequently scarred by thunder, it's worth seeing, but I understand what people mean when they talk about going troppo now!
And so on to my life lately! Again time has rumbled past, between the electricity the water and the internet going down either alternately or simultaneously I have still not got around to completing this long overdue missive (sorry).
Two weekends ago I went back to Copan with some of the guys I work with, it was fun to see the nature walk and hang out in a different town for the weekend.
Last weekend we made the assault on Celaque (the highest point in Honduras). We hiked with some friends from a nearby town, the girls had never hiked before (and it was obvious) they had packed metal nail clippers and nail files brought a hand held tent and picnic basket? Z and Liam ended up carrying this stuff most of the way up and all the way back down for the girls. The hike was o.k and we meet some fun people along the way though by the time we got to base camp it was drizzling slightly.
We then discovered our tent had no pegs but luckily the place was packed with climbers so we borrowed some. Unfortunately the wood was all soaked but luckily we had Chris from Arizona (a man who actually has "fire master" listed as a skill on his resume), and he could indeed make fire out of wet wood, amazing! Also luckily the drizzle had cleared and we found ourselves in a magical fairy land. The next day was gorgeous and the climb to the summit was an incredibly beautiful cloud forrest, massive trees, festooned with vines, green foliage dripping with glistening dew decorated with bejewelled spiders webs, and just as I was starting to feel truly like a wood sprite we broke through the top of the clouds to the top. We watched the clouds swirl in and out revealing the view from the highest peak and then wrapping it up in mist again and hiding it's beauty covetously from us.
Suffice to say it was really pretty.
This weekend I'm doing nothing but catch up stuff so I promise to post this tomorrow, (or tomorrows tomorrow).
N.J.
We had Science fair and that was a long day of thumb twiddling and child herding. No-one fell in the pool and some kids won prizes so I guess my mission was fulfilled.
The weekend fading into the mists behind me now was a trip to Santa Rosa, the nearest big city to our little Gracias). I got on the bus with my fellow gringos and was listening to my ipod when an entire band got on the bus, a snaggletoothed (actually some were just plain toothless) posse of old guys in cowboy hats, four had guitars and one with a home made double bass, amazing instrument, looked like it was made out of a pregnant guitar case and strung with gaily colored plastic wires. They saw me nodding my head in time to my own music and asked if I wanted to hear a song. So I soon had five dudes serenading me and the entire front of the bus getting cricks in their necks staring at the spectacle… Four songs later they finally stopped and I could stop applauding and smiling faux smiles at these strangers, they asked if I wanted to join them at their fiesta that evening, I politely declined and was relieved to arrive in Santa Rosa and be free of their attention.
Santa Rosa has good restaurants, good food and good clubs so we returned home exhausted and mellow on Sunday afternoon.
Sorry, that previous paragraph was of course written weeks (months??) ago now. Summer daze has also come and gone, a day spent at the pool with the kids from fourth grade up. The entire day consisted of children throwing water balloons at each other, throwing each other in the pool and the staff discovering which kids can't swim (quite a number). The games we had "organised" were never played but Some fellow teachers and I did manage to eat my favourite fish and drink beer in relative quiet at the end of the day Yes you read that right, I have started drinking beer, after all these years).
Then finally Semana Santa arrived, the week when we all get to celebrate some mindless brutality otherwise known as the martyring of Christ.
For the first few days Laura (one of my fellow teachers from Gracias), her brother Paul and another teacher (Liam) and I went to a place called Lago Yojoa (the big lake in the middle of Honduras if you care to glance at an atlas), The place we were booked into was called the D&D brewery, Bob the expat American who owns the place brews his own beer, a little bitter for my tastes but not bad at all, he was super friendly. He showed us his collection of mayan artefacts which he had found in the local area, amazing little death masks and obsidian and Jade cores for making arrow heads, pieces of pottery a bunch of other bits and pieces that he explained to us and ending with shards of trinkets, very cool.
We took a row boat out on the lake one day, in which we discovered between the four of us none of us could row, but we did manage to paddle ourselves around to see some birds and patches of lake, it was a fun day.
We went to the local nature reserve and saw lots of birds and lizards. I saw the most massive damsel fly I have ever seen, it had beautiful pearl coloured gosamer wings and of course was long gone by the time I got my camera out (As is most of the wildlife). Of course it's my own fault as I would rather watch the wildlife and then after I am kind of done watching I reach for the camera, by which time the wildlife is generally kind of done with me as well.
A few days later we caught several busses (after attempting to wave down many more that would not stop). and headed to Comayagua.
We arrived at Comayagua and found our hotel, I immediately broke the key in the door lock of our room. Then Paul broke the towel rail in the bathroom and the curtain rod also. Hmmmmmmm, I thought the managment would no longer love us, but despite us waking up the poor desk girl at least three (or was it four) times to let us in as the night progressed and we wanted to see more carpets being built. They continued to be nice to us, so if you are ever in Comayagua stay at the Halston Hotel in the centre of town, the people are soooooo nice!!!!
We saw parades featuring small boys wearing gross wigs and pretending to be Jesus, there were robes and colourful K.K.K. style masks (a bit weird but what do I know). there were
biers being carried to and fro in ridiculous heat with various saints atop, swaying around the stations of the cross, nasty wigs flicking in the breeze created by the jogging lopping steps of their bearers. The largest was a massive boat with Jesus depicted as a fisherman. We stood a few hours in the hot sun and then beat a retreat back up into the cloud forest that is Gracias.
The humidity levels at the moment are through the roof, the afternoon thunderstorms are incredible, the roiling skies frequently scarred by thunder, it's worth seeing, but I understand what people mean when they talk about going troppo now!
And so on to my life lately! Again time has rumbled past, between the electricity the water and the internet going down either alternately or simultaneously I have still not got around to completing this long overdue missive (sorry).
Two weekends ago I went back to Copan with some of the guys I work with, it was fun to see the nature walk and hang out in a different town for the weekend.
Last weekend we made the assault on Celaque (the highest point in Honduras). We hiked with some friends from a nearby town, the girls had never hiked before (and it was obvious) they had packed metal nail clippers and nail files brought a hand held tent and picnic basket? Z and Liam ended up carrying this stuff most of the way up and all the way back down for the girls. The hike was o.k and we meet some fun people along the way though by the time we got to base camp it was drizzling slightly.
We then discovered our tent had no pegs but luckily the place was packed with climbers so we borrowed some. Unfortunately the wood was all soaked but luckily we had Chris from Arizona (a man who actually has "fire master" listed as a skill on his resume), and he could indeed make fire out of wet wood, amazing! Also luckily the drizzle had cleared and we found ourselves in a magical fairy land. The next day was gorgeous and the climb to the summit was an incredibly beautiful cloud forrest, massive trees, festooned with vines, green foliage dripping with glistening dew decorated with bejewelled spiders webs, and just as I was starting to feel truly like a wood sprite we broke through the top of the clouds to the top. We watched the clouds swirl in and out revealing the view from the highest peak and then wrapping it up in mist again and hiding it's beauty covetously from us.
Suffice to say it was really pretty.
This weekend I'm doing nothing but catch up stuff so I promise to post this tomorrow, (or tomorrows tomorrow).
N.J.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Year of the Tigre
The other day one of my friends asked for my address, so they can see where I live on google earth, the following is my reality check (reply) Honduran style.
Ahh, Google maps, addresses, oh what happy heady days they were, days those were, our internet (electricity and water supply) are erratic at best. So, I tell him "No we don't have an address, I live in the yellow house in Colonia Borhause, up the road from Casa Asado (which is a restaurant on the corner of our street). Our street is a dirt road, there is usually either a cow with a crumpled horn and it's calf or a couple of horses tied up in the paddock opposite my bedroom window, there is an empty lot as neighbors on both sides of our house (our house though is a semi detached and our actual neighbors are religious nuts who like to have friends over to chant and speaks in tongues or just sing random praises to God at random hours of the early (and I mean 4am early) morning, they also have a teenage son who is learning saxophone, and did I mention their penchant for fireworks and chorus' of tuneless singers turning up on their (our) doorstep before dawn whenever someone has a birthday (which seems to us to be a regular occurrence!).
Try looking up Casa Asado in Gracias" I helpfully add, "And head up the dirt road past the house with a yard full of yellow buses and there is the yellow house, I will have a look next time I'm on line, but I'm not holding my breath for you success rate, I looked up google earth when I had an actual address in Thailand and Google earth has not mapped most of the areas of Phuket (or Bangkok for that matter) Or my Mum's place in New Zealand either, apparently if I have lived there no-one cares, I guess (contrary to opinions of my more conspiracy theorist inclined friends) satellites are just not that interested in me.
Right, so that said, back from Christmas vacation, Gracias was a brutal reality check, it was cold and grey, yes, cold, who would have thought, I was wearing my Bolivian wooly hat, gloves and jumper. But a week later the winter seems to have passed… Just in time for the celebration of St Sebastian's (20th January) feast day (you know the guy who they usually represent looking like a pin cushion). Anyway Saint Sebastian apparently can't just have a day to celebrate no, no, no, here in Gracias he needs a week, a week with a fair which gradually expanded further and further from it's epicenter (the church). it included a ferris wheel, a rocking pirate ship and two other dodgy third world rides, yes, of course I went on them, with the kids from school, who love to take their lives frivolously in their hands.
One day we were treated to a parade through the streets in order to walk the virgin to and from her church (virgin street walkers a unique idea?), I guess she doesn't get the chance for much air cloistered as she is the rest of the year round.
One evening when we were there the boat generator wasn't working so they had employed two guys just to stand on either side of the boat and throw the thing, with wild abandon, into the air as it swung precariously on it's pendulum like journey past them. The church was bedecked with a few miles of tulle, flowers and a beautiful rastafarian (red, gold and green) cinema style curtain behind the statue of the saint himself. Why this colour scheme I have no idea but it did make the warm evenings feel very caribbean. Last night when we were there, being the 20th it was the big night, they had a massive firework display, shower bursts of beautiful colours, the sky blossomed with fizzing sparkling light. Then when it was over a guy came out of the yard wearing a wooden bull frame encrusted with explosives of course they ignited him, catherine wheels spinning, snorting rockets, incendiary fragments flying in all directions he ran wildly after children, who of course ran every which way, in his wake the children swarmed back around to pick up still smoldering pieces of pyrotechnic product and fling them back at the careening bull, I'm not sure who was terrified more (well actually it was probably me). Not once but twice did this holocaust of sanity appear from the house behind the church to chase any spectator foolish enough to get in their way. The central American version of the "running of the bulls?".
Exams next week, I have become very adept at writing a weeks lesson plans in a couple of hours and the exams were done in 4 or 5 hours. Great, this teaching gig ain't so tough!
Inauguration day has come and gone, the new president Pepe Lobo, has been sworn in, at the end of the day it was a fairly low key affair, Zelaya has been enticed out from under the desk at the Brazilian embassy (I was beginning to think the Brazillian ambassador was going to have to pack him in a discreet suitcase and take him home at the end of his tenure). But no they finally managed to lure him out with promises of safe passage out of the country and possibly an extra cowboy hat thrown in for good measure.
Ahhh school, an adventure in contrasts, one week a serene experience, the next feels like an exercise in futility, its the perfect job for the aspiring offspring of the bi-polar, it has been tense with another round of exams and me, head stuffed full of cotton, it's great to put yourself through the emotional wringer sometimes, the edges of human experience remind me what it feels like to be alive. Still living like a twenty something backpacker, however that said I love it, everything is magnified and at the same time compacted, it's the edges of human experience that remind me what it's like to feel alive (and sometimes ironically dead).
Driving through town this week, the vehicle that struck me as the most disturbing, and lets face it, surreal, even by Honduran standards was the guy with the "real hood ornament". Yes, in deed this guy had a real (live) Jaguar strapped to the hodd of his car, slowly dying in the heat I am sure, weird world aye?
Yesterday, My friends and I climbed Puka (it's a mountain, one that is apparently still growing). It was lucky Carlos had managed to borrow his Dad's car, as the hike would have been twice as long and infinitely more grueling if we had, had to walk from the last drop of point on the bus. The car wound higher and higher up the slippery muddy track and the grey clouds blew in and out. It is always beautiful, being out of Gracias and especially so as we were in the cloud forest. On finally parking the car with some local chaps we walked through a coffee plantation to get to the base of the mountain proper, we chatted to friendly locals on the way and saw where the coffee beans are ground, the piles of husks laying around the machinery smelling both sweet and acrid as they lay rotting in the sun. The pineapple plants and wild orchids are beautiful and I only fell on my ass twice in the mud. Though my knock off combat boots went straight into the garbage as I peeled them off my feet in the aftermath of my return to Gracias. The view from the top was great, we glimpsed it as the clouds boiled in and out past the tip of the mountain.
After lunch on the top and a well deserved rest we skidded and slid our way over the pine needles and mud back to base, then the car shimmied and slithered it's way down the side of the mountain on the way seeing one of the saddest things I have seen since I have been here.
There was a man walking down the road with a small, (very small) coffin on his shoulder, he had an arm wrapped around it and a determined look on his face, one small boy with eyes like saucers had a beautifully carved and constructed wooden cross in his hands hurried to remain in front of him and two small boys, (also with eyes the size of saucers) followed in his wake each carrying a huge basket of flowers that appeared to be far to big for the size of the small boy. Very sad.
I hate to end on a sad note so instead I will wish you all a beautiful, happy healthy Year of the Tiger.
Besos y Abrasos. N.J.
Ahh, Google maps, addresses, oh what happy heady days they were, days those were, our internet (electricity and water supply) are erratic at best. So, I tell him "No we don't have an address, I live in the yellow house in Colonia Borhause, up the road from Casa Asado (which is a restaurant on the corner of our street). Our street is a dirt road, there is usually either a cow with a crumpled horn and it's calf or a couple of horses tied up in the paddock opposite my bedroom window, there is an empty lot as neighbors on both sides of our house (our house though is a semi detached and our actual neighbors are religious nuts who like to have friends over to chant and speaks in tongues or just sing random praises to God at random hours of the early (and I mean 4am early) morning, they also have a teenage son who is learning saxophone, and did I mention their penchant for fireworks and chorus' of tuneless singers turning up on their (our) doorstep before dawn whenever someone has a birthday (which seems to us to be a regular occurrence!).
Try looking up Casa Asado in Gracias" I helpfully add, "And head up the dirt road past the house with a yard full of yellow buses and there is the yellow house, I will have a look next time I'm on line, but I'm not holding my breath for you success rate, I looked up google earth when I had an actual address in Thailand and Google earth has not mapped most of the areas of Phuket (or Bangkok for that matter) Or my Mum's place in New Zealand either, apparently if I have lived there no-one cares, I guess (contrary to opinions of my more conspiracy theorist inclined friends) satellites are just not that interested in me.
Right, so that said, back from Christmas vacation, Gracias was a brutal reality check, it was cold and grey, yes, cold, who would have thought, I was wearing my Bolivian wooly hat, gloves and jumper. But a week later the winter seems to have passed… Just in time for the celebration of St Sebastian's (20th January) feast day (you know the guy who they usually represent looking like a pin cushion). Anyway Saint Sebastian apparently can't just have a day to celebrate no, no, no, here in Gracias he needs a week, a week with a fair which gradually expanded further and further from it's epicenter (the church). it included a ferris wheel, a rocking pirate ship and two other dodgy third world rides, yes, of course I went on them, with the kids from school, who love to take their lives frivolously in their hands.
One day we were treated to a parade through the streets in order to walk the virgin to and from her church (virgin street walkers a unique idea?), I guess she doesn't get the chance for much air cloistered as she is the rest of the year round.
One evening when we were there the boat generator wasn't working so they had employed two guys just to stand on either side of the boat and throw the thing, with wild abandon, into the air as it swung precariously on it's pendulum like journey past them. The church was bedecked with a few miles of tulle, flowers and a beautiful rastafarian (red, gold and green) cinema style curtain behind the statue of the saint himself. Why this colour scheme I have no idea but it did make the warm evenings feel very caribbean. Last night when we were there, being the 20th it was the big night, they had a massive firework display, shower bursts of beautiful colours, the sky blossomed with fizzing sparkling light. Then when it was over a guy came out of the yard wearing a wooden bull frame encrusted with explosives of course they ignited him, catherine wheels spinning, snorting rockets, incendiary fragments flying in all directions he ran wildly after children, who of course ran every which way, in his wake the children swarmed back around to pick up still smoldering pieces of pyrotechnic product and fling them back at the careening bull, I'm not sure who was terrified more (well actually it was probably me). Not once but twice did this holocaust of sanity appear from the house behind the church to chase any spectator foolish enough to get in their way. The central American version of the "running of the bulls?".
Exams next week, I have become very adept at writing a weeks lesson plans in a couple of hours and the exams were done in 4 or 5 hours. Great, this teaching gig ain't so tough!
Inauguration day has come and gone, the new president Pepe Lobo, has been sworn in, at the end of the day it was a fairly low key affair, Zelaya has been enticed out from under the desk at the Brazilian embassy (I was beginning to think the Brazillian ambassador was going to have to pack him in a discreet suitcase and take him home at the end of his tenure). But no they finally managed to lure him out with promises of safe passage out of the country and possibly an extra cowboy hat thrown in for good measure.
Ahhh school, an adventure in contrasts, one week a serene experience, the next feels like an exercise in futility, its the perfect job for the aspiring offspring of the bi-polar, it has been tense with another round of exams and me, head stuffed full of cotton, it's great to put yourself through the emotional wringer sometimes, the edges of human experience remind me what it feels like to be alive. Still living like a twenty something backpacker, however that said I love it, everything is magnified and at the same time compacted, it's the edges of human experience that remind me what it's like to feel alive (and sometimes ironically dead).
Driving through town this week, the vehicle that struck me as the most disturbing, and lets face it, surreal, even by Honduran standards was the guy with the "real hood ornament". Yes, in deed this guy had a real (live) Jaguar strapped to the hodd of his car, slowly dying in the heat I am sure, weird world aye?
Yesterday, My friends and I climbed Puka (it's a mountain, one that is apparently still growing). It was lucky Carlos had managed to borrow his Dad's car, as the hike would have been twice as long and infinitely more grueling if we had, had to walk from the last drop of point on the bus. The car wound higher and higher up the slippery muddy track and the grey clouds blew in and out. It is always beautiful, being out of Gracias and especially so as we were in the cloud forest. On finally parking the car with some local chaps we walked through a coffee plantation to get to the base of the mountain proper, we chatted to friendly locals on the way and saw where the coffee beans are ground, the piles of husks laying around the machinery smelling both sweet and acrid as they lay rotting in the sun. The pineapple plants and wild orchids are beautiful and I only fell on my ass twice in the mud. Though my knock off combat boots went straight into the garbage as I peeled them off my feet in the aftermath of my return to Gracias. The view from the top was great, we glimpsed it as the clouds boiled in and out past the tip of the mountain.
After lunch on the top and a well deserved rest we skidded and slid our way over the pine needles and mud back to base, then the car shimmied and slithered it's way down the side of the mountain on the way seeing one of the saddest things I have seen since I have been here.
There was a man walking down the road with a small, (very small) coffin on his shoulder, he had an arm wrapped around it and a determined look on his face, one small boy with eyes like saucers had a beautifully carved and constructed wooden cross in his hands hurried to remain in front of him and two small boys, (also with eyes the size of saucers) followed in his wake each carrying a huge basket of flowers that appeared to be far to big for the size of the small boy. Very sad.
I hate to end on a sad note so instead I will wish you all a beautiful, happy healthy Year of the Tiger.
Besos y Abrasos. N.J.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
New Year
And so…
2010
Well the school christmas play was chaos, it was stressful but the kids looked absolutely cool!
The icicles looked frosty and evil, the elves were adorable and absolutely rocked there dance number, the music, well lets not talk about it, lets just say we had had no practice with the PA that was used on the night and suddenly they gave us this microphone which stilted everyones creative flow. We did get some extra special effects in though which was great.
Finally it was over and I went home and crashed out as the next day (early) the school was taking a bus to San Pedro Sula so some of the teachers could catch flights home for the christmas vacation. I caught the bus in the drizzly grey dawn with them so as to get a jump on the morning traffic and to save some cash. The leaden grey skies reminded me of the thanksgiving break and I hoped that this holiday I would be treated to more sun than the last.
Liam, one of my fellow teachers and I decided to head for La Moskitia, the biggest rainforest in the Northern hemisphere and one of the most difficult and isolated spots to get to in the world, the first night we got as far as La Ceiba where we wandered around town until we found ourselves a hotel to stay in. Then (it being Saturday night) we headed out, we found a restaurant with a fantastic salad bar and followed it up by walking up and down the bar strip, every where looked quiet and dull except this one bar which had a posse of tough looking dudes in a social scrum at the door way, by tough looking I mean seriously these guys looked like they could belong to the bloods or the some other evil North American shoot you if you look at me wrong gang. So of course I wanted to go check it out, we walked past the place three or four times talking ourselves into it and once we walked in to the place it was a different world, we were in deed the only white people in the place and the dance floor was throbbing and grinding to a mix of meringue, salsa, reggae and reggaeton music. We bought beer to legitimize our presence and sat in the corner, I commented to Liam that in some countries one had to pay for this kind of entertainment (and then it is usually delivered through a peep hole in a darkened room) not quite but you get the idea.
We wandered home before it got too late and the next day we found our way to the travel agent who helps organize trips to La Moskitia, we arranged for a trip to visit the Petroglyphs and went to the store to get our supplies for the 5 day trip. I did the math for the cash we would need and we packed. In the morning we headed out early, first catching a bus to Trujillo and from their we found a guy called Fernando who perched us on the back of his four wheel drive pick-up truck, perched precariously across rough planks of wood we met a lovely Danish couple Camila and Andreas, the back of the truck was packed with Hondurans (mostly young men) all heading home for Christmas and determined to get as drunk as possible on the way. The bottles of biccardi and "Flor de Cana" (another rum) were merrily being passed around by 9:30 as we pulled out of town.
It continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the trip as we rolled off the end of the tarmac and onto the dirt road, we rocked and rolled along crossing bridges here and there, fording streams when there was no other way and taking detours when the access route had been washed out, after several hours we finally caught sight of the beach, and then we were racing along at not only terrifying speed but also at a scary 90 degree angle across the sand dunes, whenever we came to an estuary entrance or river mouth the four wheel drive would roar onto a bamboo raft which a couple of blokes would then pull across the water and we would roar off again on the following bank. We wove between the beach and a barely maintained dirt road which ran more or less parallel, we passed at least two shells of aircraft as apparently these rough rocky bits of road double as a runway for those tiny planes who buzz in and out for tourists tight on time but not budget. Finally we arrived at the end of the road where a boat awaited us to take us on our final leg of the journey up the side of the mosquito coast to a little town called Raista.
We arrived about in tie for sunset, we washed and crashed, it had been a long journey and tomorrow was our trip to Las Marias, accessible only by boat at the heart of the Rio Platano in the middle of La Moskitia (named incidentally after muskets and the trade of them in colonial times as opposed to mosquitos, which are in deed present in La Moskitia but not in the numbers or with any where near the level of tenaciousness of those in the Amazon).
The next day thankfully the drizzle had cleared over night to a beautiful morning, we were met in the morning by a couple of lads who seemed, to us, totally off their heads, which at 5 or 6 in the morning is kind of off putting, we had no idea how they had gotten themselves into this apparent state and we were not entirely sure we should trust them, we had though little choice and there were four of us, they chatted away in a collection of languages one of which was Spanish, (none of which were English), we eventually piled into their boat, a boat which was essentially a hollowed out log, we cruised up and down the banks for a while as the boys tried to find some petrol for the boat, they disappeared into the jungle with the gas cans as we watched a troop of little girls file down to the river to gut and clean massive fish for lunch, eventually the boys returned with the gas and our mismatched posse crossed the Estuary, the boat rocked like an autumn leaf, and headed up the plantain river, No sooner had we entered the river proper than the boat stabilized and a large Toucan flew out of the jungle and over our heads, it was amazing, beautiful, I have been waiting months to see this crazy looking birds in the wild, it was cool, I knew we had made the right decisions although it was still a long day, We passed a lot of cool little villages on the banks of the river, their only contact with the outside world is via these little boats, their houses stuck on stilts into the river, outside everyone a woman (or several women, sometimes women and children) stood waist deep in water doing the family washing. Children would stop their water baby games to watch us pass, these sights, the hum of the motor and the heat of the sun conspired to make the journey a warm companionable one despite our initial misgivings.
We arrived in Las Marias to be met by the local head guide and discuss our plans for our various trips, the next day again early we were met by another guide who led us on a walk through the little town that is Las Marias till we got to the river edge where an even smaller boat awaited us, this time our three guides had long poles and we punted up stream against the current, it is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds and these guys did a stunning job of negotiating rapids and getting the hollow log up the stream, we saw birds at every turn, we saw a river otter fishing for his dinner amongst the rocks, we walked through jungle, to see more birds mad look out towers and supple jack vines full of water, then back into the boat and up the final part of the river to where the petroglyphs are where we had lunch.
The journey back was easier and quicker as we were going with the flow of the river though negotiating the rapids for the boys was sometimes made trickier by this increase in speed. We made it back to Las Marias where the boys cut us fresh coconuts off the tree which we spiced with rum and sat on the balcony watching the sunset. We arrived back at Raista the next night, doing the journey in reverse, we had time to get to the beach and enjoy swimming and I took to drawing in the sand with driftwood. At dinner we were told by the woman who runs the jungle lodge that the next day (being Christmas) there would be no transport, our five day trip just became six days, so Christmas day we spent in the hammocks and on the beach, we found yet another shell of an airplane, the propellor blade burned three quarters of the way up in sand.
Finally we made it out of the jungle, the four wheel drive overheated blowing a gasket twice on the way back across the beach but we made it, we spent another day in La Ceiba and then headed for Utila, one of the bay islands in the morning, the journey was calm and our good fortune with the weather continued, I did a bunch of diving, New Year was welcomed in with much late night partying in the exotic Treetanic bar at the Jade seahorse, and the next few nights continued to see residual partying at both Coco Loco and Tranquila, I was offered a job on the island, although I'm not quite sure if it is waitressing or bar-maiding which as you may remember I have always sucked at, and so I find myself, surprisingly, back in Gracias (an attempt to dry out again perhaps) another New Year welcomed, and now I must think of a resolution, o.k. why break with tradition I never have bothered with resolutions, so till next time.
PS: I have bought a new camera and a new computer as both of these things have been dead for a long time, so hopefully I will get some photos and this blog posted in the near future. I'm not promising to post more often as that never seems to happen!
2010
Well the school christmas play was chaos, it was stressful but the kids looked absolutely cool!
The icicles looked frosty and evil, the elves were adorable and absolutely rocked there dance number, the music, well lets not talk about it, lets just say we had had no practice with the PA that was used on the night and suddenly they gave us this microphone which stilted everyones creative flow. We did get some extra special effects in though which was great.
Finally it was over and I went home and crashed out as the next day (early) the school was taking a bus to San Pedro Sula so some of the teachers could catch flights home for the christmas vacation. I caught the bus in the drizzly grey dawn with them so as to get a jump on the morning traffic and to save some cash. The leaden grey skies reminded me of the thanksgiving break and I hoped that this holiday I would be treated to more sun than the last.
Liam, one of my fellow teachers and I decided to head for La Moskitia, the biggest rainforest in the Northern hemisphere and one of the most difficult and isolated spots to get to in the world, the first night we got as far as La Ceiba where we wandered around town until we found ourselves a hotel to stay in. Then (it being Saturday night) we headed out, we found a restaurant with a fantastic salad bar and followed it up by walking up and down the bar strip, every where looked quiet and dull except this one bar which had a posse of tough looking dudes in a social scrum at the door way, by tough looking I mean seriously these guys looked like they could belong to the bloods or the some other evil North American shoot you if you look at me wrong gang. So of course I wanted to go check it out, we walked past the place three or four times talking ourselves into it and once we walked in to the place it was a different world, we were in deed the only white people in the place and the dance floor was throbbing and grinding to a mix of meringue, salsa, reggae and reggaeton music. We bought beer to legitimize our presence and sat in the corner, I commented to Liam that in some countries one had to pay for this kind of entertainment (and then it is usually delivered through a peep hole in a darkened room) not quite but you get the idea.
We wandered home before it got too late and the next day we found our way to the travel agent who helps organize trips to La Moskitia, we arranged for a trip to visit the Petroglyphs and went to the store to get our supplies for the 5 day trip. I did the math for the cash we would need and we packed. In the morning we headed out early, first catching a bus to Trujillo and from their we found a guy called Fernando who perched us on the back of his four wheel drive pick-up truck, perched precariously across rough planks of wood we met a lovely Danish couple Camila and Andreas, the back of the truck was packed with Hondurans (mostly young men) all heading home for Christmas and determined to get as drunk as possible on the way. The bottles of biccardi and "Flor de Cana" (another rum) were merrily being passed around by 9:30 as we pulled out of town.
It continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the trip as we rolled off the end of the tarmac and onto the dirt road, we rocked and rolled along crossing bridges here and there, fording streams when there was no other way and taking detours when the access route had been washed out, after several hours we finally caught sight of the beach, and then we were racing along at not only terrifying speed but also at a scary 90 degree angle across the sand dunes, whenever we came to an estuary entrance or river mouth the four wheel drive would roar onto a bamboo raft which a couple of blokes would then pull across the water and we would roar off again on the following bank. We wove between the beach and a barely maintained dirt road which ran more or less parallel, we passed at least two shells of aircraft as apparently these rough rocky bits of road double as a runway for those tiny planes who buzz in and out for tourists tight on time but not budget. Finally we arrived at the end of the road where a boat awaited us to take us on our final leg of the journey up the side of the mosquito coast to a little town called Raista.
We arrived about in tie for sunset, we washed and crashed, it had been a long journey and tomorrow was our trip to Las Marias, accessible only by boat at the heart of the Rio Platano in the middle of La Moskitia (named incidentally after muskets and the trade of them in colonial times as opposed to mosquitos, which are in deed present in La Moskitia but not in the numbers or with any where near the level of tenaciousness of those in the Amazon).
The next day thankfully the drizzle had cleared over night to a beautiful morning, we were met in the morning by a couple of lads who seemed, to us, totally off their heads, which at 5 or 6 in the morning is kind of off putting, we had no idea how they had gotten themselves into this apparent state and we were not entirely sure we should trust them, we had though little choice and there were four of us, they chatted away in a collection of languages one of which was Spanish, (none of which were English), we eventually piled into their boat, a boat which was essentially a hollowed out log, we cruised up and down the banks for a while as the boys tried to find some petrol for the boat, they disappeared into the jungle with the gas cans as we watched a troop of little girls file down to the river to gut and clean massive fish for lunch, eventually the boys returned with the gas and our mismatched posse crossed the Estuary, the boat rocked like an autumn leaf, and headed up the plantain river, No sooner had we entered the river proper than the boat stabilized and a large Toucan flew out of the jungle and over our heads, it was amazing, beautiful, I have been waiting months to see this crazy looking birds in the wild, it was cool, I knew we had made the right decisions although it was still a long day, We passed a lot of cool little villages on the banks of the river, their only contact with the outside world is via these little boats, their houses stuck on stilts into the river, outside everyone a woman (or several women, sometimes women and children) stood waist deep in water doing the family washing. Children would stop their water baby games to watch us pass, these sights, the hum of the motor and the heat of the sun conspired to make the journey a warm companionable one despite our initial misgivings.
We arrived in Las Marias to be met by the local head guide and discuss our plans for our various trips, the next day again early we were met by another guide who led us on a walk through the little town that is Las Marias till we got to the river edge where an even smaller boat awaited us, this time our three guides had long poles and we punted up stream against the current, it is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds and these guys did a stunning job of negotiating rapids and getting the hollow log up the stream, we saw birds at every turn, we saw a river otter fishing for his dinner amongst the rocks, we walked through jungle, to see more birds mad look out towers and supple jack vines full of water, then back into the boat and up the final part of the river to where the petroglyphs are where we had lunch.
The journey back was easier and quicker as we were going with the flow of the river though negotiating the rapids for the boys was sometimes made trickier by this increase in speed. We made it back to Las Marias where the boys cut us fresh coconuts off the tree which we spiced with rum and sat on the balcony watching the sunset. We arrived back at Raista the next night, doing the journey in reverse, we had time to get to the beach and enjoy swimming and I took to drawing in the sand with driftwood. At dinner we were told by the woman who runs the jungle lodge that the next day (being Christmas) there would be no transport, our five day trip just became six days, so Christmas day we spent in the hammocks and on the beach, we found yet another shell of an airplane, the propellor blade burned three quarters of the way up in sand.
Finally we made it out of the jungle, the four wheel drive overheated blowing a gasket twice on the way back across the beach but we made it, we spent another day in La Ceiba and then headed for Utila, one of the bay islands in the morning, the journey was calm and our good fortune with the weather continued, I did a bunch of diving, New Year was welcomed in with much late night partying in the exotic Treetanic bar at the Jade seahorse, and the next few nights continued to see residual partying at both Coco Loco and Tranquila, I was offered a job on the island, although I'm not quite sure if it is waitressing or bar-maiding which as you may remember I have always sucked at, and so I find myself, surprisingly, back in Gracias (an attempt to dry out again perhaps) another New Year welcomed, and now I must think of a resolution, o.k. why break with tradition I never have bothered with resolutions, so till next time.
PS: I have bought a new camera and a new computer as both of these things have been dead for a long time, so hopefully I will get some photos and this blog posted in the near future. I'm not promising to post more often as that never seems to happen!
Thanksgiving etc.
Ho, ho, how did it happen, another year nearly done???
Here in Gracias, where I have been working, teaching 5th and 6th grade English and Art for almost four months now the idea of what a big city is like, is slowly slipping from my memory, I am not sure this is entirely a good thing, it's a very insular small town, full of small town gossip and busy-bodiness, I'm a bit over it to be honest, I am starting to count the months till I can leave, next year it has to be a bigger town, hopefully close to the sea, although I am actually contemplating a return to Thailand, Although not wanting to give up on the entire continent just yet; life is so much easier in Asia (perhaps it's just rose coloured glasses, but this is true third world, gangsta territory here and that's just if you believe the stats not the rumors.
I do miss the sea, the theatre, libraries, in fact there is not even a cinema in the town I live in, there is one in the next city over (an hour and a half away) it plays one movie at 7pm each day and when I was there a few weeks ago, they were showing the hopelessly out of date "Night at the museum 2" So I suspect my cinema attending days have slunk into the past and (hopefully) the future.
my computer now will not turn on, it´s dead, I knew it was coming, but it still hurts to have it finally die. I had backed everything up except my latest photo´s so I am only some what annoyed with myself, but it won´t kill me at least, I am doing all of this on the p.c.´s at school and posting from internet cafes, such is the lot of a poor teacher in the third world who cannot afford a new computer at the moment. (and priority wise I want a new camera before a new computer). On the bright side I had that morning (before my computer died) just backed up all my music files so I am thankful for that, without music, I would be really unhappy, and I have a loooooot of music!!!
I live in a big sunny yellow house which is nice, there are cows, clves, Hens and chicks, goats and kids that roam outside our gate, keeping the grass down. I have flatmates, a Canadian chappie called Liam, Rae, she and her Husband Matt are from North Carolina and rounding out the household is a Texan girl who has, what I have come to assume is a typically Texan (ie big) personality. We all get on well enough for the most part.
Gracias is a small tin pot town, cobbled streets and free range farm animals, which is lovely and quaint for about a month, I would post pictures If they were not on my broken computer!!! The best thing about my house is the fields of red, green, blue, yellow and orange fireflies that surround my house in the evening. The school I work at is small, one of my classes only has 10 kids, (7 at the start of the year). It means you get to know your kids really well, but it also means they are terribly spoiled.
We just had thanksgiving vacation, which was nice, an excuse to get away and see some of the country. I went (with some of my house mates) to Utila, when we arrived in the Port Town it was absolutely persisting down luckily we had already contacted the dive shop we were planning on staying at and diving with, they had a boat over picking up supplies so we didn't have to catch the ferry. So feeling pretty lucky we climbed on board the boat and headed out to sea, we cleared the headlands beers in hand and then, the sea was incredible, walls of water, I put the beer can down, and hung on, I have been on rollercoaster rides that were less violent. The spray over the deck was constant, you could barely see anything amidst the driving rain, the boat trip was nuts, later that day we found out the ferry did not even go that day, (or the next two) the weather was vile but amazing. The diving was great, seahorses and fish galore, of course they don't care how much it rains, but we were all relieved when the sun finally came out and we managed to dry off a little.
I am currently directing (I use the term loosely) the Christmas play at school (which I also wrote and choreographed) of course it's for 10 - 15 year olds so not exactly a hard thing to do fun, but crazy and time consuming. It goes on this Friday and then we have another round of holidays I haven't yet decided if I am going to La Moskitia, (the most isolated of the areas of Honduras, the biggest rain forrest in the Northern hemisphere and only accessible by boat) or to Guatemala, the more I look at the guide books the more choices I have the harder it all becomes.
Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Love, and hugs.
Nikki Jayne.
Here in Gracias, where I have been working, teaching 5th and 6th grade English and Art for almost four months now the idea of what a big city is like, is slowly slipping from my memory, I am not sure this is entirely a good thing, it's a very insular small town, full of small town gossip and busy-bodiness, I'm a bit over it to be honest, I am starting to count the months till I can leave, next year it has to be a bigger town, hopefully close to the sea, although I am actually contemplating a return to Thailand, Although not wanting to give up on the entire continent just yet; life is so much easier in Asia (perhaps it's just rose coloured glasses, but this is true third world, gangsta territory here and that's just if you believe the stats not the rumors.
I do miss the sea, the theatre, libraries, in fact there is not even a cinema in the town I live in, there is one in the next city over (an hour and a half away) it plays one movie at 7pm each day and when I was there a few weeks ago, they were showing the hopelessly out of date "Night at the museum 2" So I suspect my cinema attending days have slunk into the past and (hopefully) the future.
my computer now will not turn on, it´s dead, I knew it was coming, but it still hurts to have it finally die. I had backed everything up except my latest photo´s so I am only some what annoyed with myself, but it won´t kill me at least, I am doing all of this on the p.c.´s at school and posting from internet cafes, such is the lot of a poor teacher in the third world who cannot afford a new computer at the moment. (and priority wise I want a new camera before a new computer). On the bright side I had that morning (before my computer died) just backed up all my music files so I am thankful for that, without music, I would be really unhappy, and I have a loooooot of music!!!
I live in a big sunny yellow house which is nice, there are cows, clves, Hens and chicks, goats and kids that roam outside our gate, keeping the grass down. I have flatmates, a Canadian chappie called Liam, Rae, she and her Husband Matt are from North Carolina and rounding out the household is a Texan girl who has, what I have come to assume is a typically Texan (ie big) personality. We all get on well enough for the most part.
Gracias is a small tin pot town, cobbled streets and free range farm animals, which is lovely and quaint for about a month, I would post pictures If they were not on my broken computer!!! The best thing about my house is the fields of red, green, blue, yellow and orange fireflies that surround my house in the evening. The school I work at is small, one of my classes only has 10 kids, (7 at the start of the year). It means you get to know your kids really well, but it also means they are terribly spoiled.
We just had thanksgiving vacation, which was nice, an excuse to get away and see some of the country. I went (with some of my house mates) to Utila, when we arrived in the Port Town it was absolutely persisting down luckily we had already contacted the dive shop we were planning on staying at and diving with, they had a boat over picking up supplies so we didn't have to catch the ferry. So feeling pretty lucky we climbed on board the boat and headed out to sea, we cleared the headlands beers in hand and then, the sea was incredible, walls of water, I put the beer can down, and hung on, I have been on rollercoaster rides that were less violent. The spray over the deck was constant, you could barely see anything amidst the driving rain, the boat trip was nuts, later that day we found out the ferry did not even go that day, (or the next two) the weather was vile but amazing. The diving was great, seahorses and fish galore, of course they don't care how much it rains, but we were all relieved when the sun finally came out and we managed to dry off a little.
I am currently directing (I use the term loosely) the Christmas play at school (which I also wrote and choreographed) of course it's for 10 - 15 year olds so not exactly a hard thing to do fun, but crazy and time consuming. It goes on this Friday and then we have another round of holidays I haven't yet decided if I am going to La Moskitia, (the most isolated of the areas of Honduras, the biggest rain forrest in the Northern hemisphere and only accessible by boat) or to Guatemala, the more I look at the guide books the more choices I have the harder it all becomes.
Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Love, and hugs.
Nikki Jayne.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Gracias, week 4
Week four is turning into an interesting week.
I sit at home typing this (as opposed to hiding under a desk at the Brazilian embassy) As the exiled President has just returned and has hogged that space for himself, his return of course causing riots and tear gas on the streets. But again I am getting ahead of myself.
Last week was Independence day where we (including children as young as four) marched in the streets trying to look like a model school, of model children and fine shiny foreigners, we also had children's day, a day of absolute chaos where children ran about and the teaching staff pretended to organise these wild beasties and choral them into planned games. We also had teacher's day a day of school. Oh what does a full week feel like, I can barely remember, my planning book absolutely bristles with tabs of missed lessons awaiting catch up (ha, ha, ha).
I have had my friend Sam (from my U.T.S. varsity days) and his girlfriend Jess staying with me which has been excellent, due to having a long weekend (timing), we went to Copan, my first Mayan ruins.
The ruins were fabulous, sacrifice tables and ball courts and wonderfully preserved statues. The ruins are very close to a little town with cobbled streets and tourist restaurants which are probably cheap if you have money, the downside of this job is that it really doesn't pay enough to live on, so not so cheap for me. Anyway I had a great time and returned in one piece all in time for Mr Zelaya to return and the Hondurans to have a second shot at this military coup bussiness.
Anyway I'll try to post this before the internet gets blocked again.
Take care, Love N.J.
I sit at home typing this (as opposed to hiding under a desk at the Brazilian embassy) As the exiled President has just returned and has hogged that space for himself, his return of course causing riots and tear gas on the streets. But again I am getting ahead of myself.
Last week was Independence day where we (including children as young as four) marched in the streets trying to look like a model school, of model children and fine shiny foreigners, we also had children's day, a day of absolute chaos where children ran about and the teaching staff pretended to organise these wild beasties and choral them into planned games. We also had teacher's day a day of school. Oh what does a full week feel like, I can barely remember, my planning book absolutely bristles with tabs of missed lessons awaiting catch up (ha, ha, ha).
I have had my friend Sam (from my U.T.S. varsity days) and his girlfriend Jess staying with me which has been excellent, due to having a long weekend (timing), we went to Copan, my first Mayan ruins.
The ruins were fabulous, sacrifice tables and ball courts and wonderfully preserved statues. The ruins are very close to a little town with cobbled streets and tourist restaurants which are probably cheap if you have money, the downside of this job is that it really doesn't pay enough to live on, so not so cheap for me. Anyway I had a great time and returned in one piece all in time for Mr Zelaya to return and the Hondurans to have a second shot at this military coup bussiness.
Anyway I'll try to post this before the internet gets blocked again.
Take care, Love N.J.
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