Another eleven hours, this time on a luxury bus, and I arrived in Oaxaca. I booked myself into a nice wee hostal and went about finding Steph and her mates. Again I could see straight away that Oaxaca was a beautiful colonial city, with landmarks, parks, and churches everywhere. My first day was spent walking around the town taking in the sites and we ended up in some little bar called La Costumbre drinking cuba libres the rest of the night. Next day was Tuesday the 16th of September, Independence day. Everything was covered in green, white and red lights, giving [View Full Entry]

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Twelve hours on three different buses from Guatemala City and I finally arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico. I had planned to meet up with Stephanie, a friend of mine from New Zealand that I met in Rio Dulce, so I headed straight for the Posada Ganesha, the hostal she was staying in. Even from that first stroll through the town I could see it was amazingly beautiful everywhere and I knew I was going to like it. For anyone that doesn't know, Chiapas is the south westerly state of Mexico that has been fighting for independance [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday morning I finally left Rio Dulce, for this year at least. It was strange, really strange, but in a strange way. It still didn't feel like I was actually leaving. Of course we had the usual leaving party and leaving dinner, it was also Montse's leaving do, the long serving volunteer coordinator, along with Arturo, one of the teachers from Spain. So we all got up on the bar and danced to the leaving song, Tobaco y Chanel by Los Bacillos, an Argentinian group. Then we all fell down and got thrown in the river fully clothed in the middle [View Full Entry]

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Just thought I'd give a quick mention for the best bar and restaurant in town. And its not just because I'm working with them, it really is the best in town, thats why we went there every wednesday and saturday for dinner and beers while still at the orphanage. It does the best food, including an extensive sandwich range done on home baked bread which is famous throughout the town and ordered daily by other locals and eateries. They also offer some dinner specials such as home made lasagne (vegetarian but amazingly good), stir-frys, currys, soups and salads. The specials usually [View Full Entry]

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So, my new job offer... I was asked by a couple of Dutch people I know that run the Sundog Café in Rio Dulce town, if I wanted to help them out taking care of their new hostal about 5 minutes up river. As there are only two of them, if they took one business each they would never get a day off, so the idea was that I would stay with the hostal, they can run the café between them and cover for me on my days off as well. Having already checked out the new hostal (paradise!), I agreed [View Full Entry]

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Big sorry about the lack of blogs, been a bit of a mad month. Another month in the orphanage means another descanso, this time I headed off to the City with Andrés, Montse and Quique, the first time me and Andrés have been allowed on descanso together ever, since we were both english teachers. So to start off we headed up to his house in the city for a night. After having spent a bit more time in around the city centre I'm actually starting to like it. But Andrés lives in Zone 10, far from where I had seen before. [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Antigua Friday morning and waited for the rest of the volunteers to arrive who were coming down for one last blow out with the Madrileños. By saturday night we were eleven people and headed out to wreck the town. Good night, good send off, and I was back to the orphanage by sunday night. Didn't see a lot of Antigua to be honest, nice bars and restaurants, lovely town with original cobbled streets everywhere, but far too many tourists and gringos. Sorry I didn't get much photos but had ran out of batteries. I'll definitly be back before [View Full Entry]

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Two hours on a chicken bus from the lake and we arrive in Xela, otherwise known as Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in Guatemala and probably the nicest. Not a lot to do here as a tourist but we got a pick up truck up one of the mountains to some natural hot springs and pools, known as Las Fuentes Georginas . Lovely day out, well worth the 30 min ride up the mountain through the clouds. Also spent a good 30 mins walking up a little jungle path to find it stop dead at a water pipe, good fun. The [View Full Entry]

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After spending every hour of every day with the other volunteers here we end up being almost like a family. So when some of the longer term ones leave its a bit tough, not only because we end up doing more work until new volunteers come, but because we really miss them around the house. This month six of those special people have left us, Miguel & Lara the couple from Madrid, their good friend Pilar, Ana, another Madrider, Maria from Andalucia, and one of the longest term volunteers, Quique from Galicia. The three Madrileños left because their time was up [View Full Entry]

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Second descanso and I was headed off to Honduras to go scuba diving just off Utila in the Bay Islands. We thought it was a shorter trip but ended up taking us about 2 days due to a pretty poor infrastructure along the coast. So we ended up stopping off in San Pedro Sula, which was nothing really to talk about, had a pizza from Pizza Hut and head on to La Ceiba in the morning to catch the ferry to Utila. The main reason I went was because Kelly has a phobia of water and decided she wanted to face [View Full Entry]

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