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.
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