After a long sleep James and I woke up at 7:30am, ready to get started. The course starts at 9am and already it is really hot out with not a cloud in the sky. It begins with the set up of our scuba gear, getting everything hooked up and on then taking it all off and repeating the process. Once we are all proficient at it, we step off the dock one at a time. Two hours of underwater time later and we can all do all the safe diving skills such as go with alternate regs, swim without masks, give all the hand signals and buddy dive. It was great doing it in a group of five with our two laid back instructors. The buddy system works for us all as we pair up and ... read more

After a restless sleep we all woke up, grabbed our bags and headed to the dock with barely time to brush teeth. It ended up being quite the ride though, as we boated along the coast seeing awesome scenery. At one point dolphins were swimming beside us and the weather is finally hot again. We got to the border and from there took a bus through Honduras. Before I discuss that though, the town of Livingstone in Guatamala needs a bit of history. It Is a completely different culture than the rest of the country, having a black carribean population. They are very friendly and the seafood is the cheapest meals (yes!). We went to a local diner and ordered random seafood. Matt and Alyse got the supreme meals of seafood soup. It had snails, a full ... read more

Woke up to the sound of crickets and a facefull of my bug net. Not terrible though, I kind of like this camp style hostel in the middle of nowhere. We all had a late breakfast and decided to head to the hot spring falls. The weather was pleasent as we boated into town. Picking up lunches from a local diner, we jumped on our first chicken type bus! What an experience, there were 23 of us packed into a van suited for 11 max. The whole way Matt and Jeff were complaining about numb legs haha and I am pretty sure Matt was partially sitting on a lady who had a baby in one arm. It was a very cramped 45 minutes but we made it to the falls and began to hike in. The ... read more

This being an organization day, was susposed to be a relaxing one. It ended up being anything but. We all spent the morning doing a whole lot of nothing but by lunch we found some Brits who wanted to play soccer. So the five of us along with two Brits and an Aussie walked down to the local market and bought a soccer ball. We then headed to a dirt field with a net, thinking we would play 4 on 4 (this was at 2pm). By 3 there were more locals than us so we had a huge game. It was great until actual teams showed up to use the field and we got displaced. It all worked out because we found another net. By this time we are all getting quite tired and almost ready ... read more

I woke up all through the night, still sick. If this continues I am heading to a doctor tomorrow. I have been able to eat a little but this is aweful. We went to the market but I only stayed 10 minutes before heading back to the hostel. The crew all bought some souvenirs which were cool, so hopefully I will feel well enough in the morning to walk back there and bargain for different souvenirs. I wish I was well enough today because as I was leaving the jersey booth the owner yelled 40 quetzals at me for one which is the equivalent of 5 Canadian dollars. I will not say what the others bought just in case there was a present or two in the mix :). Good night (it's 8pm but I need ... read more