Earth and Beyond

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Hey people,

Here are some pics of Nicaragua and Honduras for you. I´ll let you see for yourself...

Life at Spirit Camp ´09 is going great. We´re about a month in now and I´ve been doing more study than I ever did at uni! We´re learning tarot, astrology and a whole bunch of other stuff based on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. There´s a one month and a three month course that you can do here. I did the Moon course (the one month course) last year and am doing the Sun course now. The last part of the Moon course is a week in silence and us Sunnies join in on that one. This time round it happened to land on my birthday!

How amazing it is to spend your birthday in silence. No talking, no eye contact and no food. My friends on the courses made it pretty amazing, leaving me little notes, cards and balloons. I think that not being able to express your joy externally makes it an even more intense feeling internally. And at one point I was so happy I drooled. Fancy that. It was certainly a birthday I´ll never forget!

So life at the lake goes on. The Great Scorpion Tally (number of scorpions found in my room) is slowly increasing. I´m up to five now and I can verify for a fact that those f@%kers really hurt. One sting I would call self-defence, but three stings when you´re asleep is NOT cool. It certainly woke me up and I stayed up till 4am doing aerobics in the garden to get the poison out of my system. Crikey.

Anyways, enough rambling for now. In a couple of weeks we go into silence for 47 days (!) to meditate on everything that we´ve read and all the stuff our subconscious already knows so I have to go do some cramming.

Much love,

The 25 year old

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Photos

farm work
the daily banana haul

farm work2
Here we are sifting dried rice after the harvest. Good for the arm muscles!

Neeming
On the weekly neem spraying mission. Who ya gonna call?

chocolate!
We made our own chocolate on the farm from fresh cocoa beans, honey and rum. Yum! The lime and chilli flavour was a hit.

Working bee
At the working bee for the new community centre in Balgue. From old crack house to a fine institute for learning in a few stroked of a paintbrush.

mountain goats
On the hike up one of the volcanoes on Isla de Ometepe. I forget it´s name. But this is Nat :)

Horse fright
One day I went on a horse trek with a 37yo Nica friend called Nelson and this chica (16yo), the apple of his eye. Little did I know that her mum wouldn´t let her go without a chaperone (me). Despite being the 3rd wheel and a terrible spanish speaker, it was fun. Here the horses are bolting and Nelson is chasing them.

Three stinky malinkis
This is Cat and Aira who I lived and worked with on the island. Both mad as a box of frogs :) Cat and I hitched south after this...´Excuse me, which way is Costa Rica?´- Cat

caribbean christmas
On Utila, Hondurian Caribbean. Despite the inbreeding on the island, the snowmen species persists

hostel lights
Playing with the camera. Some pretty lights at a hostel I stayed at.

Caribbean chicas
The wonderful Kimberley and I heading out for a snorkel

spork ho!
Heading back to Guatemala. I bought this rockmelon to share with people on the bus and proceeded to devour the whole thing. Ahhh tropical fruit bliss.