Saturday night in Placencia we decided we needed to head back to work so we got up early on Sunday and headed down to Punta Gorda to get a lancha (bacically a small boat that holds about 20 people at the most and sits about 30cm above the water) back to Livingston in Guatemala. It may as well have been bucketing down because every wave we went through sprayed over the entire boat, every row of seats was given a big sheet of plastic to hide behind but I decided to put on my rain coat and sunglasses and at least catch a bit of the view. It was like one of those rides at the fair ground where you pay to get wet, except no where near as much fun and almost 2 hours long, ... read more

Easter Monday morning five of us set of on our descanso (our week long monthly break), Pilar, Lara, Miguel, Javier and myself. We got the 10.30 bus from Rio Dulce to Flores in the north of Guatemala. The bus ride was my worst yet, we were standing for half of it, all squashed in like sardines in a can, gripping onto what ever you can to stay upright. After about 4 hours we arrived in Flores, a small town on an island in the middle of a lake. We booked into a recommended hostal for Q25 (about 2.50 euros), Doña Goya, nice, clean, and safe from what we seen. We headed out for lunch at the side of the lake and spent the day walking around the town and checking out the little shops. After a ... read more

Apologies again, we had a problem with the internet back at the orphanage so haven't got online in a while. Quite a lot has happened since the last blog, mostly fiestas (parties or celebrations). First one up was Carnival, its basically like a kids version of the carnival that they have in Brazil and every other Latin American country, except it was a month after Guatemala's Carnival due to the school term starting around the same time. All the volunteers painted their faces green and wore little antennas, we were supposed to be martians in case you cant guess from the photos. So basically each class did a wee performance, the younger kids did group poems and songs, and a few of the older kids did dances, some were pretty funny. One girl from each class ... read more

Wow! Where do I start? I love this place! Sorry about the delay on the update but I've been kept pretty busy since I arrived and we only have electricity for the internet a couple of hours a day. No complaints though, I really do love it here! Ok, so I arrived to find out that the coordinator has changed her mind and is now staying for another few months at least, so I didnt get the admin job. Instead I was asked to work as an english teacher as they want to step up the english classes for the kids as the tourism here is picking up and it will be very useful for them to get jobs once they're old enough to leave the orphanage. There were already two english teachers, but theres about ... read more

Greetings, saludos, welcome to my first travel blog. Call me lazy if you want but it seemed like the easiest way to keep eveyone posted on my travels, so don´t complain if u dont get an email. As most of you know I have just set off to complete my placement year for uni. After such a warm welcome in Spain I decided to take my travels to Central America, so I booked a ticket for Guatemala, with an overnight stop in Mexico City. So here the adventure begins... After an enthralling 11 hour flight from London, watching on-demand movies and eating burnt airplane food I touched down in Mexico City and passed through the airport without a single hiccup. I was approaced by a 5ft mexican man asking if I needed a taxi, so I ... read more