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.