Booking of a uncommon tour I had see a small paragraph on a backpacker website about an indigenous Wounaan community, close to Panama City, that encourages tours within their village. Our friends were actually staying at that particular backpacker hostel and so we made enquiries about the tour and were able to organise our time in the village for today. Apparently, no one from the hostel had been out to the community in a while and so the receptionist wasn't really sure on what was involved. She confirmed our tour with a member of the community and let us know that we had to catch a bus from the Albrook bus terminal in Panama City out to a town called Gamboa and we would be met there for the tour. Transportation difficulties It all sounded easy ... read more

Farewell to the ecolodge It was raining very heavy for the first time in the morning during our stay at Lapa Rios and neither Dan nor I wanted to get out of our massive soft bed, as the sound of the rain was soothing as the rain drops cooled the air. But we needed to get up to finish packing, eat breakfast and take our ride back into Puerto Jimenez in time to board the ferry to Golfito, a small town on the other side of the Golfo Dulce, the water mass that separates the Osa Peninsula from the mainland. We said our goodbyes to our beautiful home of the last 4 days and went to eat as much as we could at breakfast, as we didn't know when we would be eating next. Our bags ... read more

Scoping out a good wedding location Dan and I woke early to head down to the beach to find appropriate places to hold our wedding ceremony. We weren't exactly sure on how to get to Pan Dulce beach, as we had only looked at the map once on the previous day and had forgotten to bring it with us on this morning. It generally takes 15 minutes to walk there, but we had made it a good 30 minutes of walking back and forth before finally finding it down the road that we first decided against. It was the first time that we had seen the beach, even though I had seen photos of it on th eweb previously. It has quite dark grey sand with rocky sections on both ends of the beach, separating it ... read more

Cooking indoors over an open fire is one of the issues that the people of Santa Maria de Jesus face in there daily lives. As it does many people in similar circumstances across the world. It is this issue that I went to this town in Guatemala to learn more about and to assist in fixing it for four families whilst I was there. After a week of one-on-one Spanish lessons in Antigua, I was ready to get my hands dirty with a bit of manual labour, something that I have missed after a number of years working and studying indoors in Britain. Santa Maria de Jesus is a town of about 25,000 people, although you wouldn't think so as it doesn't appear to have that many houses around. I was to learn later that each ... read more

Day of the grandparents There were less people to squish into the van to Santa Maria de Jesus this morning, due to some of the volunteers taking a 3-day weekend in San Salvador and another having completed her time on the project. The comfort of space just added to how well the day was to become. Today at the school is 'el dia de abulitos' (the day of the grandparents) which is always combined with the day of the birthdays for the children. Once a month at the Santa Maria de Jesus project, the grandparents of the children that attend the school are given a bag of supplies to help feed them for the next month. It is a reward for keeping the children in the school. Much of the time children are sent out to ... read more