La Habana Journals 4 It seems the manaña attitude is seeping into my blog writing…sorry! Will try to fill in a little without writing a boring list of what I’ve done. Briefly ive been mostly… partying, drinking rum, going to the beach (in maquina - 50’s old American banger), queuing, eating ridiculously cheap ice-cream (and getting sick 1 time from it), hanging out with too many Germans and trying hard to socialize more with the Cubans! Of course, studying and doing cultural stuff 2… Monday was a shit day… I was so looking forward to taking ad [View Full Entry]

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First experiences in La Universidad de Habana 05.09.07 Everything. Here. Happens. Very. Slowly. If it happens at all. It seems one of the favourite pastimes of the Cuban population is queuing… waiting… waiting… queuing.. and … waiting some more… and then actually… mañana. That’s what happened on Monday at uni - we went to enrol but we couldn’t do so until the next day because Magaly, in charge of foreign students, felt ill. Tuesday then, we went in again… I went to the first class that I was interested in - Estudios Afro-Carib [View Full Entry]

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I’ve moved into a new casa particular, owned by a lovely couple, Anita and Jorge - they live below Yamelis and Federico and but also have this house… some kind of loophole so they don’t really live here but can rent it. It’s a much better deal for a permanent stay than Casa Federico, which is really set up for tourists. Here I pay $CUC 450 a month which includes breakfast and dinner (huge tasty portions, there’s lots of fresh juice and she even manages to get hold of tomatoes which I haven’t seen in any of the markets!). There’s [View Full Entry]

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The dustyfoot traveller is back, literally. After just one day in Habana I’m immediately regretting not bringing a scrubbing brush, blister plasters and a lot more chocolate, especially as I severely doubt the postal service! Other than that, I’m loving it. Arriving alone at the airport last night, I waited nervously for my luggage, which I was happily surprised to be reunited with. In the taxi to my casa particular (room rented in a house) we passed posters proclaiming the joys of Castro’s regime, many unlit cyclists and crowds of people waiting at bus stops. At Casa F [View Full Entry]

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hondurans celebrate national independence on September 15th. actually they kind of celebtrate it for the whole month but parades are on the 15th. our school was no exception. me and one of the other teachers Sean spent the week before making a dragon/mayan serpent head which was an ordeal, but we were proud of the the finished product and it made sure our school kicked the ass of the rival bilingual school. i miss honduras already. in some ways it was wierd going back... my kids where that little bit older (between cute fun kids and adolescent nightmares), my friends have [View Full Entry]

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ok, truth is i'm no longer under blue honduran skies, but under the grey ones of brum. my last few weeks in honduras were crazy, had no time to waste in the internet cafe. so here's a quick update of what i did. UTILA ... i was lucky enough to get a long weekend off school so i took the advantage to go to Utila, one of the Bay Islands off Honduras, accessable by a 1hr boat trip from La Ceiba on the coast. Last year i had been to Roatan (the bigger Bay Island) twice so i decided to check [View Full Entry]

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on friday after school 4 of us teachers decided it would be a nice relaxing weekend escape to go up to Cusuco national park which is in the Merendon mountain range behind Cofradia. to get up there u need a 4x4 so Ben, our host very kindly let us use his "1996" russian jeep. eventually Rory (Irish) and Sean (form Philly u.s) turned up at the bottom of our road with afore mentioned vehicle. they couldn´t bring it to the house where me and Fiona (irish- R´s girlf) were waiting because the state of the art car doent have a handbrake [View Full Entry]

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already i know its gonna be so hard to have to leave this place again. everyone is trying to get me to stay and jack in uni for another year... not least because the class i taught before will graduate this year ( ie do 6th grade). everyone is so happy to see me (esp andromeda and jessel-they cried a bit!)... i went around visiting yesterday and ive seen most of my friends now just a few left to find today. we ate baleadas which is one of my favourite foods here (refried beans, cheese and "chismol in a tortilla)mmmmmm. im [View Full Entry]

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day 5 in la selva ecuatoriana... today was spent mostly in the canoe again as we were heading back to our 1st camp by the community of Nekempare. on the way we stopped at eh house of another of Moi´s relative´s on the river. we saw the most crazy stuff at this house... -loads of cooked bush meat inc peccary (which the non veggies amoungst us tasted), monkey and mb tapir -more handicrafts nmade of exotic animal bits u certainly wouldnt get thru customs eg turtle shell, toucan feathers -a huuuge jaguar skin - hanging up where several animal skulls, inc [View Full Entry]

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Really i dont know where to start. so i´lll try the beginning. this could be long. we eventually arrived at our 1st camp in Huaorani territory 16 sleepless hrs after leaving Quito the night before via a shit scary bus ride (in my sleepless delirium i was convinced we were going to fall over the possiblely existent possibley imagined cliff) to Ecuador´s ugly, dirty oil capital of Coca; an ass-breaking truck ride thru oil territory to the bridge over the Rio Shiripuno and a canoe ride thru Shuar land (rival indigenous group) and into Huarani territory. Inside the Amazon, the most [View Full Entry]

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