Beasties are ALWAYS Bad News!

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First Ill start with the bad news. It is VERY hot here now! I thought it was just Guadalajara but every day here gets hotter! Certaintly no need for 3 blankets nowadays, and Im beginning to wonder why I brought 2 pairs of jeans!

With the heat comes biting and crawling and generally wierd beasties. Firstly cockroaches...UGH they make me sick...I had been lucky enough in my life have never witnessed one before I went to Lanzarote last year and then I was disgusted! Here they seem to think theyre welcome in our cabaña with us. Back in the day before it got meltingly hot we used to beat the odd one or 2 out with the broom but I think they have multiplied in the heat and I had to kill 5 last night...normally I shout for Becky and scream like a girl in the corner but she was asleep! What they say about cockroaches being the only thing to survive a nuclear explosion is true, they BOUNCE!!!! I hit each one about 20 times with the broom and their legs were still twitching. So I swept them together and put them down the drain. It was certaintly easier last night than after the campfire on Saturday when there was no light and we beat them out, me with a torch yelling and pointing and following them scuttling away and Becky with the broom attacking, Andres (one of the concillors who come at the weekend) generally getting in the way and laughing his head off at us! I dont know why they dont go in the boys cabaña. Urbano said it was because all insects have great respect for him and that is also why they dont bite him. How unfair!

We also have ants! But Andres and Urbano told us off for stamping on them! Apparently we should leave them alone because they are such hard workers and they affect the food chain which eventually leads to bees and without bees we would have no flowers. I wouldnt mind if they werent in our cabaña!!!!

Another piece of bad news is Im getting fat!!! Im sure you will all be glad to know that one though... The food here is just so nice, I could eat about 5 meals a day. Ive even started finishing off other peoples meals if they dont eat it all...I dont think Andres and Abram (another consajero) could believe it when I polished off his bisteak as well as my own last week! I have started going running to combat the munchies! I dont think I have experienced hunger since about 3 weeks ago when we were fending for ourselves. I dont think it helped that my language school in Guadalajara was right next door to the best bakery I have experienced outside France. I had at least one (probably more like an average of 2) cakes each day I was there. Ooops! I really loved Guadalajara, its such a beautiful city and the main plazas seem to go on forever! There was one which had fountains in it and one of the fountains changed direction all the time so the water spiralled about and was really lovely! I do have photos but now my camera or lead.

I went to Lake Chapala one day when I was in Guadalajara, which is the biggest lake in Mexico, although now severely smaller than it was due to the water needed in Guad and Mexico DF, its also extremely polluted and looks very dirty! But the town Chapala itself was very nice and pretty, I sat on a bench for a while near the pretend beach, bought a scarf and some sweets (which I really didnt need!) and went home. Here starts a fiasco! When I got back to the Old Bus station in Guadlaljara I wandered to where I thought Id got off the bus on the way there, asked the cus driver if he was going to the Centro and hopped on. 45 mins later after going through some very very backstreets I was wondering quite frantically to myself where I was...turns out he was going to the Central Nueva Bus Station about 11km out of town. I was so mad!! And the story ends happily 3 hours later when I finally got home!

I really didnt want to leave Guadalajara...and nearly failed to when the bus to the Central Nueva didnt stop for me when I actually wanted to go there!! I totally mistimed my journey, I left at 6pm, made the station at about 8 (its really not far!!!) planning to leave at 9 and get to Mexico 8 hours later at 5am, but when I got there I bought a ticket for the first bus, went to sleep and woke up at 3 just as we were arriving at the Terminal de Norte in Mexico City! Apparently travelling at night is faster, I think because you dont have to slow down too much at the toll booths. I had to wait first till 5 to catch the first trolley bus to the Tasqueña, got there about 5:45 and had to wait till 7:20 for the first bus here, and arrived just in time for breakfast!

We have worked the last two weekends with wannabe consajeros, the first group was amazing but this weeks rubbish! I dont think they really wanted to be here apart from to swim and be late for everything! We climbed the Guarda at stupid oclock on Saturday morning...I cant bring myself to write the actual time but I feel you ought to know I was awake at 5:15 the second Saturday in a row! It wasnt half as hard or as far as the Tepozteco and the view at the top was amazing. Its just high enough to see over the next hill as far as Popocatabtyrkhjv and we were in time to see the sun rise over it. It still amazes me how fast the sun rises and sets here, though in the valley we are in the sun disappears about half an hour before it sets so we cant appreciate it! Once we got the the top there was a big rock which Andres MADE me climb despite me protesting for about 20 mins whilst everyone else went up! Still I didnt really want to be left with the humongously fat boy and the girl who fell over and hurt her knee just meters from the top...neither of whom I dont believe could have physically climbed it! I was more scared about coming down than going up but it really wasnt soooo bad!

Good news!! We are getting shelves!!!! Im so fed up of having all my clothes in a locker, we have given up and are just keeping our clothes on the spare beds, so we asked Matias and he is getting us some wood for them! I really dont think he would trust us to put them up by ourselves! I think thats about it for now! We are back from holidays and settling back into camp life! Abram is here this week with a group which is nice to have someone to talk to our own age! And we gave one of the cooks an English lesson last night so she loves us!

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Photos

Tepoznieves
Tequila Ice Cream anyone?

Lake Chapala
Boats!

Street Signs...
SPONSORED BY CORONA!

My Spanish Class!
In front of the cathedral in Guadalajara

Tepoznieves! (AGAIN!)
Chili Ice Cream anyone?

The Seed Mural at the Entrance of the Church
One side shows the religious background of Tepoztlan and the other the pagan Aztec side