The Paroissien Diaries

All About the Charity- El Nahual

para — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:19:00 GMT

Hola people

Below is a letter from the volunter coordinators and its aimed at trying to raise some money for the school. I wont go into it because the letter explains it all. No doubt 
everyday you recieve a note from someone asking for money and so I understand if you dont want to give. If you do however, its really easy and the best thing is that you can donate as little or as much as you want!
read below for details.
Also if you want to se directly where your money is going have a look at the photos of the children in the Guatemala photo galleries on this site.  Also you can se a few photos
of me lifting some heavy rocks at the construction site. Things are coming along really nicely but with some extra cash the building can be finished this year!


 
El Nahual Community Center is reaching a critical juncture in our
development as an organization. Thanks to support from donations and
dedicated fundraising efforts, we were able to purchase a plot of land
near our current location on the outskirts of Quetzaltenango back in
2007. This land is the site of our future community center, which we
are building day by day, brick by brick. Having our own building will
ensure that we will no longer lose a substantial portion of our income
every month, as we rent our present location. We are committed to
expanding our current programming in this new building, which will
house the Manos de Colores El Nahual after-school program, an
accelerated primary school for adults who never had the opportunity to
complete their formal education, a free or low-cost primary school for
local children, a family health clinic, a free public sports field, a
community garden and kitchen, and workshops for the community on
skilled trades, nutrition, and microenterprise, among other things.
Our philosophy is ¨education for social development¨, and we are
dedicated to serving these children and families through the
thoughtful, creative, and innovative instruction they may not
otherwise receive.
 
However, we cannot accomplish any of these important objectives
without your help. Construction of our new building has progressed to
the point where we need to purchase items of substantial cost and size
in order to continue building. These basic necessities include doors,
windows, flooring, a roof, and walls. We are asking for any help you
and your friends and family are able to give us. One door costs
US$230; a meter of tile flooring is US$60. Once again, we must stress
that without the installation of the above listed items, construction
cannot continue. Please consider donating as much as you can, and
asking your friends and family to do the same. If 10 people you know
decide to give just $10 each, the construction of the new El Nahual
Community Center comes closer and closer to completion!
 
For your ease we have established an online Click & Pledge system,
which you can access via the following link:
http://www.languageselnahual.com/svprogram.htm. This allows you to
calculate the total costs of your donations in US dollars and wire the
money directly to us via a secure server. Please note that we are
charged administrative fees for the use of this online system, so we
ask that you calculate 6% over your total sum in order to cover these
fees (example: for a $50 total donation please pay $55 to ensure we
are not charged). For those who prefer not to wire money, we can also
accept checks in dollars or quetzales. Simply send your post via
airmail to:
 
Asociación de Centro Idiomas El Nahual, 27 Avenida 8-68, Zona 1,
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
 
We thank you for all of your help as we continue to expand our
programs and offer creative, thoughtful instruction and social support
to families in Quetzaltenango. We could not continue this important
work without the ongoing support of our incredibly dedicated and
talented group of volunteers and staff.
 
Many thanks,
The El Nahual community
 
El Nahual Community Education Center
www.elnahual.org
email: cdl.elnahual@gmail.com
teléfono: (502) 7765-2098
dirección: 27 avenida 8-68 zona 1, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, C.A.

Xela and the 2nd volunteer experiment

para — Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:22:00 GMT

Things learnt thus far.

-If and when in doubt, wear a surgeon mask.
-The term ´Gringo´ (used for naming foreigners in Central and South America) I was told comes from the saying ´Green Go Home´ referring to the US Marines stationed, well, everywhere really.
-Doing 30 push-ups two days in a row will change nothing
-Nothing will ever slow a chicken bus down including cliff drops, oncoming traffic and certainly not double lines....speed bumps help somewhat
-The NZ word ´Jandal´meaning thongs or flip flops comes originally from´Japanese Sandal´
-Reading ´The Swiss Family Robinson´ makes you feel incredibly stupid.
-Always, Always check whether a flush works before using the toilet- If you dont you could face a very akward conversation with the internet cafe owner.
- Don´t read the local newspapers...they all tell of horrific bus crashes complete with graphic pictures.
- Gum Trees are not native to Australia...If I see a Koala....
-In an emergency the London Tube Map thats been in the front of your bag since 97 will work wonders.

And so the highlights of last month begin with the wonderful memories that occured in abundance at Casa De Patty our homestay.

Casa De Patty and the people.

Patty- mum extroadinaire, cook, cleaner and chef at El Naual the Spanish school we attend. Patty was awesome, up at 5.30 every morning running after the little tackers and then working all day at the school. Always laughing and always making sure we had everything we needed.

Abuela- Grandma
In fact we actually dont know her name and so settled for Grandma.
cook, cleaner, principle day carer and 5.30 am wood chopping expert!
Abuela was slightly confused about what exactly a vegetarian was, Beth spent the majority of meal times slipping bits of meat onto my plate. Concessions made to vegetarianism include giving Beth the smallest chicken breast ( no bones). and
ham doesn´t count as meat.
Also had a tendency to overfeed and had a love affair with eggs and because Beth refused to eat two eggs every morning I was on a diet of at least 4 eggs a day! 4-6 eggs a day!

Javier- 8 yr old son of Patty and also known as ´The Drummer´
Javier mostly walked around all day banging the empty 10 litre Agua bottle. In what turned out to be a very unwise decision we went to the local fair and replaced the agua bottle with a real drum. Silly, very silly! Although we can grant that he at least didn´t have the old fashion pots and pans.

Diego Andres 4 yrs..nicknames include ´Diego the terrible´ and ´Diego the alarm clock´
This kid had an unbelievable set of lungs on him and by god did he use them. Without fail before 5.30 everymorning there would be screams and or tears... no one knows why, not even Patty. A very very funny kid, its a shame I couldnt understand anything he said. Unfortunately he had a problem with not telling anyone he needed to go to the toilet and so at all hours of the day every member of the family would ask Diego Andres if he needed to go...needless to say there was some more ammusing moments with Diego.

Nancy, 16 yrs
Daughter of Patty and easily the most level headed in the family. Very nice and relaxed although potenially long suffereing I imagine. When we were there she was sharing a room with all 4 of them including a bed with Grandma and mum.

Lodgers our back, Mario and Rafa.
Cool uni students who had a love for drinking Quezelteca, the local fire water, in the park. Aghh those were the days...
´Hola Rafa, are you going out tonight?´
Na, not tonight.
Why not
Cause its raining...we hang in the park Andres.
ohh right, yer, fair enough.

As you can see, drinking in the park can be a potential disaster in the rainy season..the social ´off season´

- Along with these colourful characters, seemingly millions of different relatives, friends, chickens and bossy young Guate girls were always in the house. Monday nights were always a favourite when the wonderfully loud and fantastic church group kicked down the doors and took up residence in the living room. This church group was complete with guitars, tambos and the 80´s beat producing key board! Rock on religion!

Other moments included our favourite time of the week...´Bath Time.´ There wasn´t any hot water in the house and being 2800 metres above sea level its pretty chilly up here and so once or twice a week we braved the shower. Not fun. Not a good time to lose the deodarant either.

SCHOOL AND THE SPANISH ASSAULT- 4 weeks, 4 one on one hours a day.
Highlights
A definite highlight of last month was my profossor for three weeks Profossor Horacio. A machismo, young, intelligente and very immature guate boy. We were an unfortunte match in our ability to muck around in class and disturb all the other students. He had also been teaching too long and would often set me long writing tasks so he could text his girlfriend or answer his phone. Saying this I had an awesome time in class with him. A highlight was trying to explain Aussie Rules Football to him in Spanish...one hour later and we had gotten as far as a piece of paper with an oval on it, some stciks at each end and a shit load of scribbles going in all directions and a very confused look on Horacios face.

other highlights include
-Being able to do more than order a beer in Spanish
Seeing Beth absolutly dominate, she's not fluent but...
-The excess energy that explodes from you during breaks at 10.00 and after school at 12.00. Running around and speaking english as fast as you can to as many people that can understand you.
I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO UNDERSTAND SOMETHING THAT IS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!

Extra Curricular Activities

Weaving
-not really a crowd favourite this one, but a fun couple of hours being taught by an old Mayan woman with no teeth who had serious skills with her hands.

Salsa
- 3 weeks in and the highlight still remains when Pat and Ally (fellow students) attempted a tough twist move, banged heads and fell to the ground. Very ammusing.
- Bandy after 4 weeks now are currently performing the ´basic step´ at local theatres. check local guides for details.

Educational SpeechesJaime, the inspirational director of the school and community centre educates the students and volunteers on Guatemalan and Mayan society and issues. 2 problems arise.
1. its all in Spanish
2. its all in Spanish

Luckily the topics in spainish are about uncomplicated ideas such as Mayan Prophecies, Guatemalan history and the roles of sex and politics in Guatemala.
-I found it interesting that in a school of over 15 students I was the only one asking for translastions.
´aghhh, umm yere, can you stop, umm yere...what???´

Community LunchesEvery friday all the students gather together in the kitchen and cook a dish to share with volunteers and teachers a like. A wicked afternoon of cooking, eating and talking...in English. Anyone seen cooking an egg or bean is immediately shunned from the community.
Lunch themes thus far include- speciality, Asian, salads, breakfast (a tough one with no eggs) and our personal favouirte, yes thats right, The baked potato party has made it all the way to Guatemala! A special shout out to all those original baked potota party animals in Cornwall... the sprit lives on in Guate.

Pattys Magical KitchenPatty does cooking class once a week which is awesome!

Milosh´s Polish Government Sponsored underage Beauty ContestDont ask. Go Poland.

Movie NightsMovies include:
Volver- a third viewing of this awesome movie and it keeps getting better. Penolpe Cruz is wicked in the hilarious movie about life outside of Madrid.
Azul oscurro, casi negro. The Spanish can make a movie. See it.
Plan columbia. Cashing in on the drugs Trade. Another reason why Beth and I thank someone that we are not from the United States! England may have been bad, Australia too, but not this bad and not this recent. Notably this goes for all Central America and South America, not just Columbia.

Extra Extra curricular activities
- Beth squeezing huge amounts of mustard coloured puss out of the boil on my left buttox while im bent over doubled in pain. haha theres not turning back now darling!
-Quiz nights where I won a free dinner for guessing what the name of the piecring is between a man testicles and bum hole. Dont worry mum, I dont have one.
-Friday night tequilla nights. No one can drink tequilla like the volunteer coordinators.

Weekend tripsA 5 hour bus ride to the beach where we met a storm, ate fried fish and a friend snapped his surfboard on his second wave...

A Volcano climb. 3800 metres above sea level. An exhilarting feeling, and what you feel is a great physical effort until you get to the top and there is a small mayan market manned by Mayan women decked out in tradiotnal dress.
´How did they get up here in those shoes´
´well, they didn´t get the cable car did they Andrew!´
oh well, spose we better buy something small now that we´re up here.´

The hot springs, that turned out to be the ´Hot, wierd, sauna´
notably used for such horror movies as ´jack the ripper´and Freddy Jrugar´

Weekend in Mexico!
lifes tough when you mosy on over to mexico for the long weekend to drink Corana and eat Tacos. Honestly thats all we did, oh and drank tequilla. What? This all comes under the cultural umbrella experience! Oh we also managed to go to an awesome national park where we saw the only poinious snake in Central America.

Cultural XelaThis section highlights all the wonderful things Xela has to offer.

The local enourmous cemetary! Unfortunately yet to be explored because of its notioriety for danger and muggings!? Who robs someone at a cemetary? Harsh!

Museo Xela
Now we believe that this Museam was created from a notice in the paper that read.

´Have you got anything Old?´At the Museam of Xela we want anything thats over 10 yrs old´

Thus the 1st floors collection of stuff hliariously includes photos of granny, Jonnys boxing medal, phones/ computores from the 70´s and 80's and long scripts of writing with no reference cards.

Following the sucess of the first donation drive, the 2nd notice in the paper read
Got anything wierd? Got anything strange or smelly? We want it!

Thus the 2nd drive produced a museam with the foetus of an 8 legged goat (tampered?), two kittens glued together, and amazingly two human foetuses! To top this however was the amazing kiwi flag which unfortunately had been labelled the Australian flag...ammusingly like everything else really...pavalova, lamingtons, Russel Crowe, Crowded House etc etc oh woe is NZ!

Mercado de Ropa
The wonderful clothes market which could only be described as the biggest charity/op shop in the world. This is where I happened to pick up a lovely tweed jacket for under 30 cents...get in! The only slight problem is that all the clothes come from North America and so happen to be abolsutly fricken massive!!!

Independece Day
Marching bands, school girls twirling sticks and a concert were we could clearly see the front because everyone is soo small. Moshing anyone?

INdependece week fair
where one could clearly invisage the faris wheel rolling freely down the street or the pirate ship flying off into the distance. We stuck to the old fashion ball games.

Volunteering at El Nahual
Finally we arrive at probably has been the most rewarding of all experiences in the last month here in Xela. I wont go into detail what exactly the school contributes to the community here, this will come later. Briefly however, El Nahual provides english and art classes to over 150 kids at numerous local schools around the community. Beth and I have managed to work our way into taking over the program at El Nahual itself. Our job includes teaching english and art to children aged 5-12 over two different classes 5 days a week. Its a really important project as for some of these children its the only education they recieve. It has been hilarious and even after 4 weeks we are seeing some really fantastic improvements.

More hilarious moments include
-Atleast three 4 year olds rock up everyweek and last week a three yr old in all his glory waddled up complete with older brother and his milk bottle. Currently teaching ´scribbles´101.
- Planning for classes where the ability levels are soooo different. Some kids can speak English in sentences and some who cant read or write in Spanish, let alone another language.
- Not knowing what an 8 yrd can achieve in Australia let alone a child in Guate.
´come on! its not that difficult! of course you can read ´war and peace´, its easy.

These children are awesom at repeating what you say. Spot on at saying exactly what you ask them to say. Ask them to remember it though and haha thats another story. This repeating game is very funny in class however when you ask them to say something and they do it and you say ´good´and then they repeat ´good´right back at you, and no one knows when to stop repeating. Thats when I usually yell out ´peter piper picked a pack of pickled peppers´Always stops them in their tracks!

Projects completed succesfully include
Under the Sea- we made fish, mermaids, star fish and fully decorated a wall of the classroom. it was ace!
Verb week- sounds fun i know!
Personal information booklets- these were very cool including name, age, family, likes, dislikes.

This week we´re doing a couple of lessons on manners and questions haha a good one! Before we jump headlong into jungle week! monkies, parrots, aux verb do, and lots of english grammar games to trick them into learning. Fun and games ahead!

So thats its folks. life in Guatemala.

look out very soon for a message from the school about donating. This month sees me getting my hands dirty by giving all my contruction skills (none) to help build the schools new building which desperatly needs materials to build with!

rightio. love to all
para xxx

Its only words, and words are all i have, to take your heart with me...to Guati Guati Guati

para — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:29:00 GMT

The current state of the blog site is thus:

It's the start of 3rd quater and we are down by about 50 points and going against the wind. The coach is a litte angry about the lack of committment that I have shown but is confident if not hopeful that all can be saved. We must play catch up footy! Play gutsy, dig in and we´ll run all over them in the final term. Thus, here I am, about to play gutsy, nothing too special, just going to get it down on paper what has happened recently.

GUATI GUATI GUATI GUATI!
The cries of the bus driver from across the border. Welcome to Guatamala.
ohhh high fives all round, or in the case of the Guatamalan people, relatively low fives as the average hieght reaches slightly over 5.4.

The first highlight of Guatemala was by far the money. We recieved our change from the bus driver in the form of huge gold coins. These gold coins are brilliant, the type of money that Captain Jack found in his treasure trunk. Although Jack was probably dissapointed to find out that the gold coin quetzal wasn´t worth very much. Also highly ammusing about the money was the name of the currency, the Quetzal, named after the national bird which happens to be the national bird for nearly all central American countries. Regardless of this can you imagine if in Australia we called our currency the Emu?

´Aghh yes mate thats gonna set ya back about 15 emus thanks.´

So across the border we hop and arrive in a bustling little town called Chiquimula. Highlights reel include:

-The first meal which included rice, beans, pasta (that came under the catagory of salad,) scrambled eggs, potatoes (salad) and tortilla. A note to anyone who is travelling in Guatemala and wants to go on the Atkins diet...no chance, absolutly no chance what so ever! If you want I can give you another Aussie Rules football metaphor to make it absolutly clear that no one could survive here with out Carbs.

- A cool market dinner where we watched the sunset being blurred by incredible clouds of dust and eating Guatemalan Pupusas. Which unfortunately dont make the cut against the El Salavadorian pups.

Salama

-The first ´rip off´ on tour. We paid 5 dollars more than we should have. Although it doesnt sound like much it left a bitter taste in the mouth and if anything highlighted hilariously how bad my Spanish was in times of emergency. 'Hey you, that's too much aghh no, come back , hey, muy caro, you are bad', later that was translated as 'you are hard'. As always though, a lesson was learnt and we were thankful that it was only 5 dollars. I really hope that this doesnt make me sound like a tight ass.

-A wicked hotel with cable t.v hehe
-Great street food where I trialed the flat style tacos styled out with cooked salty cabbage, spicy mince, great melted cheese and lovely tomato sauce with a kick to finsh. Super Rico!
- A morning market which specialised in incredibly ugly, warty turkeys. A lady in all seriousness asked if we wanted to buy her turkey for a cheap price. This allowed hilarious visions of ´Bandy and the Turkey´ tootling around Guatemala becoming the best of friends.

-The incredible bus journey from Salama to Coban where we were not surpirsed to find that in this part of the country they max out the amount of people they cant fit in a mini bus. Built to fit 12 people, at one stage I counted no less than 25 fricken people in a mini bus hahaha. Good luck getting two cheeks on the seat.

- It was at this early stage of the Guati experience that we realised that Guatemala was dedicated to the chicken/cock. Everthing is named or dedicated to the most beautiful of birds.
The Gym...El Gallo Mas Gallo- translated as The Cock More Cock
The electronics store ´Gallo Gallo´ simply Cock Cock

and of course the numerous chicken eateries which can all be found on the same street of a tiny town.

Pollo Campensino- Peasant/farmer chicken
Pollo Campero- peasant/farmer chicken
Pollo Frito- fried chicken
Pollolandia- chicken land

After your delicious meal of chicken with chicken, wash it all down with a delicious Cervesa Gallo- Cock Beer.

- Beth loses crib again and vows never to play another game ever again. A bitter sweet victory- Currently in the process of writing up the Treaty of Crib acknowledging forever my dominance.

Uspantan- western Highlands

Anoither terrifically crammed and scarey bus ride thru the highlands of Guatemala. The dark and low clouds gave off a wicked effect on the mountains which would have been uplifting if it wasnt for the enourmous landslide in the distance.

This landslide was a real eyeopener, streching over 500 metres wide and carrying huge boulders. Of course we were a little shaky especially when we drove passed the road closed sign accomanied by another sign a few metres down the track of a warning ´rocks falling on your head´sign. No need for the translation underneath!

Rest assured we got through the avalanche risk area with only a bum that had lost all feeling, which I thought was a fair compromise. Unfortunatly the danger hadn't passed. After a short stop for some snacks and supplies that bus driver turned around and noted that ahead there may be bandits. We didn´t quite understand what he had said until the man next to us, or should I say on top of us started taking his life savings out of his pockets and stuffing them down his pants. haha very comical if you werent about to lose everything you own! Thus we flew into action, Beth taking camera chips and cash and hiding them in secret places that Bandits were never likely to look. I rued the decision of wearing loose fitting boxer shorts, not only because there were 50 people in the bloody car!

aghhhh no grip for the passports Beth...what are we going to do...maybe they wont make us stand up!?

Whoooo but a few stressful hours later and we arrived unscathed and holding everything except my stomach.

- Not much of a town, found a group of dispensars that issued the usual lollies, chocolates and peanuts haha peanuts in a coin dispensar, what will they think of next! A lovely steak dinner and a dissapointing pupusa. The Guati have a lot to learn from thier neighbours about the art of the pupusa.

The following day we headed to Quetzalango which is known locally as Xela, pronounced Shayla...(got you on my knees shayla) where in fact we still are. Xela is the 2nd biggest gringo town behind Antigua and along with its neighbour the land of Spanish schools. By all accounts its the cheapest place in central America if not the world to have Spanish lessons.

Xela is a wicked little colonial town that has a real European feel to it. A big central park surrounded by a church, museum, theatre and a plethora of shit to swanky restaraunts scattered all over the cobbled stone roads gone wrong by too much rain.

Highlights up until we started Spainish and volunteering include.

Meeting a NZ family in out cute little hostel who defined the word courageous. They are two parents Tim and Phillipa are currently studying Spainish 5 hours a day in order to become fluent to pursue a volunteering projext in mexico in December. What makes this incredible is that in tow they have a 6 month old baby boy, a two year old boy who is definatly definining what they call terrible twos and a 5 year old who is kicking it at a local Guatemalan school. Brilliant. And this voluntereing in mexico is no walk in the park, moving to a slum in Mexico city for 5 years to help kickstart some infrastructure! Truly awesome!!!
Anyway living with the family was so much fun, loud, crazy, 6.00 am wake ups.

I fetl a little guilty when I made Hudson the 5 year old try a cooked chilli...Beth came to the rescue with a glass of milk... a narrow escape!

- What is now three weeks ago, we signed up for a months intense Spanish lessons with volunteering in thier school in the afternoons and living with a host family. I wont go into the details now but the last three weeks have been absolutly incredible which I will devote a long and hopefully detailed and ammusing account. SO SO SO much has happened. Rest assured I still cant speak Spanish haha but having the time of my life!

stay tuned.

para

Good times and Great classic Hits

HONDURAS: Mayan Tombs and The Failed Volunteer Experiment

para — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:44:00 GMT

Honduras...well lets get honest, it was always going to be exciting wasn´t it. We went against the grain and decided to ignore the travel warnings on the Australian webiste to avoid all unnecessary travel. Unfortunately this makes me an unsmarttraveller.gov.au but sometimes you just have to take a risk, and the volunteer job we were searching out in the west of the country just sounded so great.

lets begin with the border crossing from El Salvador to Honduras. After a short bus ride we arrived a little nervous to a big block of buildings. To the say the least the border corssing was ghostly in its appearance. The big empty halls contained lonely, dull, crome, ajoining desks that sat idly chatting with the dust about the glory days. Parallel to the buildings the road trains lined up waiting to be let through but unlike any other crossing in the world there was no ANGST in the air! No tourists nervously wondering whether maybe, somehow, that maybe, just this once they didn´t have the right stamp. No dodgy looking drug dealers or sleak buisness men being impatient at the end of the line. There were certainly no undercover policemen hoping that today would bring their big bust. The sniffer dogs, the customs officials and well the rest of the entire immigration team had seemingly been given the day off. The sounds of stamps slamming onto passports, the stench of sweat and rice and the old clasic intimadating officer with big bushy eyebrows, not there, gone, vanished, poof.

I thought at that point that the only thing for this occasion would be a good old fashion coooooooweeeeeeeee but thought this might wake someone up in the middle of their dream, which i have heard is not good for you. Alas, a tactical knock knock on a door leading to nowhere in particular was employed.

An óh what a surpise´look was hastily followed by a dirty finger pointing to some far off óther´building. A little confused we headed over to this other building but were not even half way when a small, large, balding man with a killer moustache stopped us and walked us back to the original building we had just been in. At this point you realize the classic philosophy that people work much better when things are busy.
From a few years of experience in the hospo game you come to realize that when service is crazy, things work efficiently and jobs are done. When things are quite however, service often goes to the dogs! And when things are really, really quite, a mental state starts to come over you when you start to fear this quiet peace being disrupted. You start fearing the customer! And when it happens, in your head you are screaming at them " ohhhhhh really, come on, are you sure you want to be here, no one else is!?!? and thus the effort of serving two people with a smile is harder than serving 100 people. This was the feeling I got when we were being ping ponged aroud the immigration posts. Please, however, dont get me wrong, this crossing was awesome! The fat, blading man with the awesome moustache barely looked at the passport, asked for 6 bucks and we left stepping over the old frayed swine flu health declarations who were clearly trying to make a break for it in the hope of being filed out somewhere along the line.

So with a hop, skip and a jump we crossed over into Honduras. A country that recently had a military operated but supreme court and congressionally supported coup. Poor old President Zelaya went to bed one night in Honduras and woke the next day to find himself in Costa Rica! How annoyed would you be! Hang on a second, this isn´t Honduras, take me back! Unfortunately for everyone he hasn´t been allowed back in the country and since then the country and politics of Honduras all goes murky. What does seem certain however is that there is no chance in the world that Zelaya will take back the Presidency. I wont try to sum it up anymore but for a good overview of what is happening (both sides of the story) visit the website www.marder.com/htw

We borded a wait for it, you guessed, empty bus to a little town called Santa Rosa de Copan. Along the way we unfortunatly had a bit too much time to contemplate why we had entered a country on the brink of civil war. Being psycologicly confident when travelling, (for me anyway) is super dooper important. if someone tells you that a place is dangerous and you believe them then point of view can change dramaticly. All of a sudden the people staring at you from across the street are no longer nice cool locals interested in where you are from, they are vicious, machety carrying psycos out for blood! hahaha extreme i know but it happens and as a country Honduras is as volitile as any. Extreme poverty, high unemployment and a class system that is so drastically out of sync that the entire country's wealth is in the hands of 8 families. Tack on a little military coup and political unrest and you have two scared little travelers on a bus to Santa Rosa de Copan.

Santa Rosa de Copan
The bus from the frontier which had no one on it eventually cut its losses and handballed us onto another more full bus. Eventually we were dropped on the outskirts and feeling so rattled we jumped in a taxi. At these times of stress and confusion there is only one thing you can do, call your mum. Mums despite knowing this already and using it to their unfair advantage usually know exactly what to do. So we found a nice hostel and made our way to the phone box. Unfortauntely a lovely 26 minute phone call to England set us back 60 us dollars. What!!!!!! 60 bucks!! This sent us over the edge and at times like these not even mum can help, we had to smash a few beers.

Hilariously the beer in honduras is called Salva Vida which translates to "life saver" brilliant.
-The introduction of the "baleadas," tortillas cooked on a crepe style hot pan and filled with delicious delights like bean paste, cream, cheese, avo and chicken.

Copan Ruins
The advantages of a tourist town in a country on the brink of civil war were obvious, even to the paranoid eye. In fact we were there for so many days that we convinced ourselves that Honduras was in fact a paradise with lovely Mayan ruins and cocktails at every turn. A wave of relaxation washed over us as we saw random tour busses with middle aged North Americans carrying cameras that were bigger than the security guards gun at the bank. If they´re here, it must be safe.

- In saying this, the tourist town was relativly dead. Lush. clean hotels all with personalle on the streets yelling at us to stay at their hotel. Swanky restaurants with signs saying, second meal free ( we still coudnt afford it) and tonnes of bars with 2 for 1 cocktails and the old ere classic sign of struggle "happy hour ALL DAY"
- By far the best thing there was the internationally known Mayan Ruins. These heritage listed ruins were off the rictor scale! We had these amazing temple like structures built thousands of years ago to ourselves.
The Mayan civilization was amazing, technical language, uber impressive mathamaticans, dudes who made all sorts of accuarate depictions of the sun and moons and calanders.
Naturally I was interested in the sport they played. These hard core nuts played a soccer style game with what can only be described as a childs AMF Ten Pin Bowling ball with a little bounce. This ball made from sap from the rubber tree represented the sun and the moon and the aim of the game was to keep the bowl moving using anything but your hands or your feet! This resulted, I am told, in countless fractures of the ribs, shoulders and hips. also, pictures depicting this ancient game show players with severed human heads tied around their waistes, no one knows if this is symbolic or what actually happened to the losers... Hmmmmm werent quite on the ball with this one were they!

- Indiana Jones style setting, you walk out of these hard core jungles and step into this clearing and ahead are the temples. Ball courts, temples, pyramids, and the longest known maya script in the world written on glphys lining 63 steps heading up to a throne. Very cool stuff.

THE GREAT VOLUNTEER EXPERIMENT
Back in June we managed to organise the perfect volunteer job. Working for 10 weeks in a school in a small town in Honduras. It was perfect becuase we didn´t have to pay loads of money to sign up, we covered some small costs for food and housing and we were going to be able to teach English in a primary school. From the net the school looked unreal, positive and well run and working with other volunteers and getting to know the community was going to be ace.
It all went wrong. Below is an email the Beth wrote to her mum hours after doing the scariest runner of our lives. I Literally believe that we may have broken backpack 400 metre records! Enjoy the descriptions.
oh for reasons that this site is public, i have changed names.

Hello all,
the big news is ... we quit. we just ran away this morning, it was horrible! John, the owner, far from being the organised, pro active, kind-and-caring-enough-to-set-up-a school-in-a-developing-country man that we had asssumed from the emails, was deathly pale, semi clothed, brink of death skinny, shrivelled old stoner who never left his bedroom. To meet him we had to go into his lair. in fareness, he did come out once, but that was with a big shot gun that he fired into the pool a few times to demonstrate (i kid not) what he was going to do to the stray kitten. He also said that he likes to fire his gun every now and again as it helps with the crazy gringo rummours that stop people from breaking into his house. according to local lore he has shot 5 or 6 peasants.
so we arrived and no one knew what was going on, everyone was slagging eachother off and blaming eachother for the fact nothing gets done, the whole place was drenched in negativity. doom and gloom. as for the school, it was failing, john had been accussed af redirecting school funds, there was no curicculum and not enough money. we were told that because not enough volunteers had shown up we'd have to teach a grade (pick one!) and when andrew raised the point that these families are scrimping and saving to send their kids to this school and we didnt really feel we were qualified to teach fourth grade, he was told well, none of us are teachers either. hmm. reassuring. noone seemed to know what kids in fourth grade were supposed to know or be taught, there were no reccords of what they had already learned.
and also, the town was dangerous, we werent allowed to walk anywhere alone and volunteer houses were frequently broken into. added to which, the cigar factory was set to close down in september and with it 1200 jobs gone. and i was already dubious about the political situation! and our room was horrible and leaked with big puddles on the floor. and the bed collapsed when we sat on it...

so we told them this morning that we were leaving, i was having nervous breakdowns about our security and andrew couldnt take the conning of the poor parents. and the shame is that we probably would have been among the better teachers there (at least we know what verbs are!). so we fled on a super fast bus back to copan and here we are, feeling relieved but bad because we dont usually give up on things and now those children dont have fourth grade teacher. quitting was difficult, we always see things through, and i really hope that it was the right thing to do. i dont think we'll shake that negativity for a while. though 2 for 1 cocktails may help.

So there you have it! Since then we have made it to Guatamala and are about to tackle 1 month of Spanish and try again to volunteer haha try.

Right.
Sunday score board
Mosquitoes- 978. Andrew 72
Internet deception-1, Andrew- 0
England cricket team- 2, Australian cricket team- 355, oh I am sooo bitter.
Dont try and talk Spanish with a banana in your mouth.
Speak Spanish clearly or they´ll think you are speaking English and tell you that "sorry, I dont speak English"
When in doubt run as fast as you can with a backpack to a tourist town for 2 for 1 cocktails and a convo with your mum.

Good times and Great Classic Hits
Andrew

El Salvador and The Great Pupusa Challenge

para — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:16:00 GMT

Hola Guapos!
and so it is, just like I said it would be...

El Salvador and the great Pupusa challenge

It has been discussed and agreed upon over a number of beers now that the journey from Nicaragua to El Salvador will go down in our little meaningless travel books as 'one of the best.'
How it came about it no surprise. We were weighing up the options between the luxury, safe, straightforward Tica bus that picks you up from Managua and drops you in San Salvador, aboard which life is so easy you don't even need to get off the air-con bus to go through immigration, and (wait for it) 5 local buses, 2 border crossings, three countries and a whole heap of big people with bigger fricken automatic guns! After we played the numbers game, the choice was easy, risk it for a biscuit and save heaps of cash!

We left the cheese biscuit capital of the world and beth's heart in a small border town called Somoto at a respectable 6.00 am. We made the exit out of Nicaragua at 8ish but were then blocked on the Honduran side while the men played with their guns for an hour (no firing, just fidgeting) but were let thru on foot at 9.00am. So far so good as we bordered the next mini bus into town. After reaching the closest town an hour or so later we were immediately hustled onto the next bus without even a glimpse or hope of a wee, much to my disappointment. Not to worry as the next bus ride was a relatively short hour an a half hop to the biggest of the three bus terminals that would take us to the border. Well well, desperate times when we got to the terminal, they certainly tried to get us on the next bus but I was having none of it!

'Donde Esta El Bano??????, yo no quiero el bus! yo nesecito el bano. ahora!'
After that was settled, I watched the local men gamble away on the Central American pinball style pokie machines, which are cool and, bearing in mind Australia's addicted nature, I  could probably do very well out of importing these ´get the ball in the hole´boxes of fun. Oh the things you think about when you´re on the bus hmmm... well we were away around 12 ish for the longest of the journeys, 2 hours or so left Beth and I plenty of time to ponder what the local Honduran man had said to me at the bus stop:

Old mate-'oh, I think there will be a civil war, not good, but yes civil war is probable´
Andrew- ´Do you have a rough idea of when cause we´ll be coming back into Honduras in a couple of weeks and we might not bother if theirs a civil war on?
Old mate- haha silly gringo
Andrew- hmmm yes, silly gringo.

Right, where were we. Yes after 2 hours on the next bus we reached the border of Honduras and El Salvador. With massive grins and a couple bags of water we crossed the big ugly bridge, said hello to the men with the big guns, again, and cheered as we entered safely into one of the more dangerous countries in the world, where the murder rate reaches a healthy 12 per day!
Far from dodging gun crime and gang culture however, the El Salvadorians have rolled out the welcome mat and provided us with some brilliant times. simply bloody brilliant. But hang on, 4 buses only I hear you cry. Well we cross the border and get on the last bus of the day and screetch along at a million miles an hour to a lovely little off the map town called Santa Rosa. And so why was this journey so special? Apart from the normal day to day things like crossing three countries in 7 hours, all the buses came to a grand total of 10.00 us dollars! whooooooooo, that's a saving of 60 bucks.

Santa Rosa and the highlights reel
-Hospedaje El Salvador, what a great name and the hotel owner was a cool little balding man that hurried to get us our own $7 concrete block of bliss. Amusingly, his enthusiasm may have been due to the luxury of having customers that stayed for the whole night instead of a convenient couple of hours. There on our door in all its glory a ´how to put a condom on´complete with lovely illustrations if your spanish isn't quite there yet. classic.

-The first cold beer. that´s a given.

-The first Pupusa. The Puspusa is El Salvadors national dish and something that is consumed everyday by the millions, and that´s not exaggerating. Its like a tortilla made with maize flour but with the wicked added bonus of fried beans and cheese inside of them. The huge mamas wearing frilly aprons and looking exactly like mother hens wobbling around stand on the sidewalk with their large hot plates hitting and smashing the pupusas into shape and then frying them up and serving them hot. The moment I put the steaming hot pupusa in my mouth, i knew that I had to take up the great pupusa challenge. To eat one in every town in El Salvador and rate them accordingly. Thus a lot of our time here has been taken up with me dragging Beth into many a pupuserias in search of the golden grail ´best pupusa in El Salvador.´ Stay tuned for the results.

-The guns, in small little Santa Rosa I could have counted 20 automatatic weapons. And they were just guarding banks but little chemist shops, hairdressers and super markets. Nothing quite as amusing as asking for directions from someone whose smiling and pointing the way with a double barrel shotgun.

Perquin- moments include

-A lovely little mountain town in the east of Salvador where a short walk took you to sweet sweet views of rugged countryside.

-A hardcore storm with frequent loud bangs, fork lighting and ridiculously heavy rain. It only dampened the spirits when we realized it was raining into our room. 'it's okay, we can sleep on the bottom bunk.´

-Another Central American country and another terribly brutal civil war. I have unfortunately not read a lot on this civil war and so am uneducated on the subject (fortunately, some might say steve). What is clear however is that both sides were brutal and that the longevity of the war meant horrible consequences for the people. Perquin saw a good brunt of the fighting back in the day and a town close by was where a horrible massacre of women, children and men took place. In the town was a moving, if a bit awkward, museum where the photos alone spoke enough without being able to read the Spanish.
What is interesting (which I read from the Lonely PLanet) was that after the success of the Nicaraguan revolution, Reagan was adamant not to let another socialist revolution take place and so pumped billions of dollars into the ruling government, directly funding government death squads and in many ways causing the war to stretch over many more years. hmmm Mr. Reagan is not very popular in Central America.

Alegria
-Meeting a flying Dutchman named Carlies, who of course was cool because she was Dutch.

-Amazing views that topped even Perquin.

- A 20 dollar a night room, oh hello comfortable bed and private bathroom. Its lucky I even left the room, I didn´t really want to see the town after we found this heaven.

- The tasting of what I thought was the best pupusa in El Salvador and the realization that all the names of these places was simply called pupusarias!

-Taking detailed account of where in relation to town objects the pupusaria was.

- The 2 km walk into a volcanic crater lake where we picnicked for the day and enjoyed the healing qualities of the freezing water.

- Dutchy works in a mental institute back in Amsterdam, she deals with violent insane criminals on a daily basis, what's more is that shes only 23. Anyway she told us straight faced, no joke, that people are more crazy on full moon nights, and that the workers never want to work that night because heaps of stuff always happens. Freaky or cool?

- Missing the bus in Alegria and jumping in the back of a local pickup truck instead.

- The Stereophonics

-As always the bus ride from Alergria to PLaya El Tunco was adventurous but one conversation and one t shirt are too good not to explain. Sitting on the side of the road, a young man waiting for his hotdog sparked up a conversation in good American latin style English.
Young El Salvadoran Guy- Hey mannnnnn
Andrew- Gday mate
ESG- what you doing here in this country man
A- Well some call is bumming around, others call it avoiding reality but I call it travelling.
ESG- You crazy man.
A- um thank you, yeah cheers
ESG. na its cool but everyone is trying to get out of this country and you coming in, do you have a map or something man?
Beth- yeah, we have a whole book.
ESG- oh, that's cool but i still think use crazy.
Beth- is that your son?
ESG- yere
Beth- oh lovely, do you have any more.
ESG- naa he´s my only one here.
Andrew- Here?
ESG- oh well I have one in the states as well. but I dont want to have anymore, you know what I mean?
Andrew and Beth. aghhh yes yes.
ESG- unfortunatly I keep trying (laughs loudly) hahahahaha
A and B- Laugh hysterically until hotdog is served and man and son disappear.

- Seeing an old lady get on the bus with a very old T shirt saying ´10 reasons why a beer is better than a woman.´ haha do you think she knew what it said?

Playa El Tunco back to bali or goa.
-New local hotel where a heavily drinking mexican man made us free lunch.

- Watching the big wave surfing, long, long rights.

-Rich Salvadorian men trotting down the beach on the hired horses, bare chested and making manly heyaghhss. Could you see this happening at Bells Beach or black pool? Only if someone lost a drinking game.

- Beth being swamped by an El Savadorian film crew while I swim happily in the water. Oh hello awkward bikini moment caught on film. Podgy bits, hairy bits and trying to speak Spanish, not a good deal.

-Hot tacos and cold beers

-Meeting a couple from San Salvador down for the night at a local pupusaria. Great chats culminate in quick friendships and beers bought. The greatest lost in translation moment of the trip happens when the girlfriend thinks i have given her beth's earrings as a present. The night ends when I awkwardly ask for the earrings back and we part ways hahaha.

Juayua pronounced (who are you ah) ( insert that cool song by ´the who´ whoooooo are you, who who, who who!)
-The great food fair of El Salvador, marinated frogs, pickled rabbits, homemade marzipan and caramels etc
- The irony of having a kitchen in our hostel and cooking veggies for ourselves.

- Beth ordering one pupusa and then systematically destroying the fat-free tub of coleslaw that comes free with the pupusas. Luckily I had 6 more pupusas to make up for it.

Santa Ana.
-The great crazy corn, corn on the cob dipped in mayonnaise, then covered in cheese and smothered in tomato sauce, chilli, mustard and an unidentifiable brown sauce. Could you see this being a hit at the Melbourne cup or the footy?
-Double meat MANWHICH for 1.50.
- A bottle of red wine and the great drunk blog memory session.

Suchitoto. no we are not in Japan.
- The best waterfall we have seen to date over geologically odd hexagonal rocks
- A wonderful wonderful peaceful town and the place where they make the best pupusas in the whole of El Salvador.

La Palma- amazingly multicoloured town, everything (buildings, lampposts, tree trunks) is painted with bright, pictures of flowers, butterflis, birds shepherds, the works.
-Quite safe to say that this is the best artisans market town I have ever seen. It is so good that I have just completed in only a couple of hours ago my entire christmas shopping...for two families!!!

The Pupusa results.
These results obviously include only the places I have been in Salvador and research is far from complete. perhaps someone else could pick up the quest? The judging is based not only the pupusa itself but also on the condiments like cabbage and sauces.

1st- mamas pupusas in Suchitoto. the winning edge. the choice of rice flour or maize flower.
2nd. Mamas pupusas in Allergria. oh such a tight competition, these were soo good, melt in your mouth, great amount of cheese. In fact, i reckon its all about the cheese.
3rd. Santa Ana. Cafe Fiesta. Very good. very good.
4th. Santa Rosa. Mamas pupusas next to the bar, name unknown. These were stock standard however the came with a choice of tomato sauce and mayo. The mayo was a great addition and so it makes it to 4th position.
5th, 6th, 7th in no particular order. PLaya El Tunco, Perquin, Juayua.

ohhh and that's just about it folks.

Tomorrow will see us tackle the borders again and head directly into Honduras. We managed somehow to score a great volunteer job teaching at a bilingual school about 40 minutes from San Pedro Sula. Job starts on the 20th and so we are going to Hunduras´s famous mayan ruins first to get acquainted with the local brew before buckling down to hard manual labour 5 days a week.
till then chaps.

Nicaragua

para — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:09:00 GMT

To all who care:

Let me start by saying that Nicaragua is truly one of the greatest countries i have had the pleasure of travelling through. Nicaragua has opened up its doors and welcomed us with open arms and a hot plate of Gallo Pinto. Apart from the incredible diversity of nature and wildlife, it has been more than anything the people who have made Nicaragua the shiz nizzle of Central America so far. I've never been to a country where politics means more to the people. They are so incredibly involved at all levels of society and it´s only when you read about their incredible past and the achievements and sacrifices these people have made that you begin to understand the national psyche. I have been toying in my mind whether to include a short history on the Somoza era and the social revolution that followed, but I figured that I wont be able to do it justice enough here and so will dedicate another blog soon to a short run down.

For those who are interested in this awesome history. a couple of cracking reads are.
Life is Hard by Richard Lancaster- an american anthropologist in managua in the 1980s
The Jaguar's Smile by Salman Rushdie- A three week intense report on the ups and downs of the Sandinista party in the middle of their struggle with the US supported contras in the mid 80s and written with pure class by the language magician Rushdie.

And so it begins with our take on Nicaragua and what has happened in the last month. I can't promise that this will be short Mr. Townshend and so if you're going to complain you should stop now while you can.

Armed with sandwhich bags full of rice, chopped carrots and whatever else we had cooked up in Tanya's kitchen we boarded the bus in San Jose at a very responsible 4.45 am. Whatever hopes we had of getting some sleep on this lovely comfortable bus were quickly dashed when old mate up the front put a movie on at full blast. It was so incredibly annoying that it was funny. the choice of movie (bearing in mind that there were no children on board); the Spanish cartoon version of Charlotte's web. Hmm another story for the book i'm now writing appropriatly titled 'tales from buses around the world'.
Nicaragua will certainly be able to fill a chapter on the wonderful idiosyncrasies that accompany bus travel in thier country including;
- The sprawling market that passes chaotically up the aile selling everything from fried chicken, platain chips with salad, juice, coke, corn on the cob (a beth reeves special, in fact i've never eaten so much corn on the cob in my life. Atleast two corns a day and on a long trip maybe more. A word of advice, never forget to bring a steady supply of floss because there in nothing more infuriating than a piece of fried corn stuck in your teeth for 5 hours.) to pens with a torch, creams that cure heart burn, insomnia AND impotence and religious figurines.
- The music choice of the drivers. At the moment currently sitting on top of the bus drivers chart must be a cd titled '80´s and 90´s power love ballads'. We have been bombarded with classic hits from the Bee Gees, Kenny Logins and my favourite (and one to surely impress Barbara Paroissien) Nikki French singing that one hit wonder ´Turn Around.´ We have heard that song so many times now that Beth and I had a long discussion over what the song actually meant, its certainly filled with mixed messages. Any ideas?

Anyway, we arrived safely into Managua and conveniently found a cheap place to stay right across the road from bus terminal. Managua is a strange place and not the kind of first impression that is necessarily good upon entering a new country. The geography is confusing, thanks to a couple of sizable earthquakes Managua no longer has a city center. In addition we found that from the top of Sandinos hill, Managua has so many trees it looks more like a jungle than a capital.
The major problem we had with Managua however was the fact that we couldn't walk around. Minutes after arriving, Beth and I were on the streets enthusiatic to explore but were met increasingly with people running out of their houses telling us we coudn´t walk down there because we would get mugged. Ammusingly, we were baffled as to what to do next becuase on the budget we have, we dedicate most of our life to just ´walking around.´
After managing to ´walk´in the safe areas for the rest of the day we retired to our room to come up with a new game plan. Beside the danger factor, Managua still has some great historical sites that we figured were worth seeing and so at Beth's insistance I opened up to the idea of taxis. Ah, the irony! the next day we forked out for three taxis only to find all the museams we went to were closed!
What did save the Managuan experience was Mama's cooking, a little fire next to our hotel that served up Gallo Pinto ( translated as spotted cock and consisting of you guessed it, rice and beans) served with incredible squeeky hot cheese and sugar fried Plantains.

Leon.
Although I have never been to Canberra in Australia and therefore should reserve judgement, I can imagine that as a tourist coming into Melbourne after arriving in Canberra would have the same affects that arriving in leon after Mangua did. Basically a huge sigh of relief. Within seconds of getting off the bus we realized that Leon was going to be off the hizzle. It was the immediate for want of a better word 'vibe' of the place that struck us, although it helped also that there weren't lines of people yelling at us to get off the streets.
Another comparison to Australia that can be made is the history between the cities Managua, Leon and Granada. Way back before any of us were born, including you oldies that are reading, the old colonial cities of Leon and Granada were in an epic struggle to claim the title of capital of Nicaragua. Now this wasn't some name calling affiar that the Aussie one was, there was some intense fighting between the two cities and many people died. After years and years of civil fighting, the two parties finally agreed on a small city in between the two called Managua to be the capital, just like Canberra.
highlights include.
The first tasting of thier local brews, Tona and Victoria.
Teaching Beth the slogan that 'a hard earned thirst needs a big cold beer and the best cold beer is VIC'
Hotel Avenida- $5 a room
Walking around safely
Reaching the ruins of Viejo Leon, the original spot for Leon before it was destroyed by a Volcano. Not exactly the glamor you would associate with Pompeii but still interesting.
The Colonial buildings were cool, really cool.

Chinandega
A happening town 2 hrs north of Leon. Highlights include.
-$5 accomadation with a ensuite toilet and shower. The owner was great, little fat man that challenged me one day to a wieght lifting competition. He lifted 5 and I managed what I thought was a respectabull 10, until old mate in room 10 strolls out, built like a brick xxxx house and lifted 25- thanks for coming!
-The scary deserted carnival that conjuered harrowing memories of the scene in Pinocchio.
-Mamas cooking again was sensational.

Volcano San Cristobal
We stumbled across a man who owned a farm at the base of this Volcano who rented us his house for 20$ for the night. Dont be fooled by the term 'house' this place was rustic to the max. Most rooms were already occpied by bats and so we chose the outisde hammocks as our room for the night.
-we were up at 5.00 am and effectivly at the beginning of the volcano by 7.00. It was a demoralizing climb to say the least. We raced up the first two thirds so quickly that I though we might break some sort of Sir Edmund Hillary record, ohhhh how wrong I was. The further climbed, the steeper it got and the more difficult it became. Sounds obvious, however the terrain was based on millions of tiny little rocks that had a similar consistency to sand and so it went two steps up, one step back for about 3 hundred metres. We reached the summit of about 1800 metres ( not a record breaker but still tough) at roughly 9.30 and then relished the 'slide' back down in half the time.
What was harder was the 6km walk back to the road with the bus and then the trudge thru town back to our 5$ room and our friend the small fat man. The volcano climb was a massive highlight, being on a Nicaraguan farm accompanied by the local farmers was special, and my god that beer when we got home went down singing hyms.

Jiquilillo
A small town that was ravaged by a Tsunami back in 92´( anyone seeing the pattern?) about an hour north from Chinandega on the Pacific coast. Highlights include
-warm water surfing ( still cant do it)
-Steve the American history proffesor who gave us a two hour history lesson on how the USA invaded and stole a big chunk of land from Mexico. Who knew that???
-A terrible game of Volleyball
-An enroumous game of Bananagrams
-an incredibly cool English guy called richard who helped plan a good two weeks of our trip in the Nicaraguan highlands.

Estelli and into the highlands.
- Waiting for the 30th anniversary Independence Day celebration that never happened.
- Throwing all the toys out of the pram because we missed a festival.
- Feeling like a real idiot because we realized I got the days wrong!
- Heading to Matagalpa to try an celebrate again the Independence Day and finding no such luck again.
- Meeting to wicked aussies Aaron and Bridie who introduced us to Flora de Cana the local and delicious rum. At the local watering hole you can oder a bottle of rum with unlimited ice, coke and limes for $5. No more can be said on that subject without the risk of starting another informal discussion between Barbara Paroissien and Steve Reeves.
- A german retreat and a peaceful walk interruped by loud cries from the howler monkeys.

Wiwilli (put on thick posh British accent... my god, we've gone right off the map!)
As small cowboy town in the north west of Nicaragua. As highlighted by Richard in Jiquilillo, it's a wonderful little river town in the middle of nowhere. Way off the beaten path, it opens a window into really rural and poor life in Nicaragua. Most of the people you see on the 7 hour bus ride thru the mountains are living a bare hand to mouth excistence. This is not to say the people arent welcoming and amazingly generous with smiles and laughter.
My highlght was how far my Spanish had come, sitting in mamas front room for dinner one night and explaning with help from Beth what Australia was like as a country. And to their suprise trying to explain that we farmed and ate kangaroos!

Ocatal
Compartive to Wiwilli, a bustling metropolis 7 hours by bus from the little river town.
Highlights include
-suprising the folks with a monday morning 7.00 am wake up call. apologies.
- Using the future tense in Spanish for the first time!
-Realizing that we were super close to Honduran President Zelaya on the borders between the two countries.
-Securing the volunteering job in Honduras and celebrating with a bottle of rum!

Estelli and the Miraflor.
Back to Estelli to organize the Miraflor adventure which consited of being placed in a campinsino home for the day.
-Miraflor views were outstanding
-Being persuaded to go for a three hour horse ride to the local swimming hole. Associated words are ´fear, uncomfortable, laughter, city slickers and the man from snowy river!´
- Coffee plantations, Corn fields, medicinal gardens and an hilarious guide called Alex who tricked me into eating an eceptionally hot chilli.

ohhhhhhhhhhhh and thats just about it.

Things learnt
- It´s not about the distance its about the roads.
-Very few people outside of Central America know anything about Central America
-I pods have games
- I have the same genitic make up as my mum and am proned to electronic card game addiction.
- If you've got no teeth, we can't understand you. sorry.

Books
Life is Hard- Richard Lancaster
A jaguars Smile, Salmon Rushdie
Breaking the Maya code- some super smart but annoying Harvard genuis. interesting read however.

Music
A new found love for Nathaniel Merriwheather´s Lovage.

travel games score
Cribage
Andrew 6 Beth 1
Bananas Andrew 0, Beth 58,
Other card games
Andrew 10, Beth 10

Good times and great classic Hits
Andrew

Panama

para — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:54:00 GMT

So after delaying my reintroduction to the blog for a month now I finally plucked up the energy and gathered some lingering thoughts in my mind about what to write and came to a nice little internet cafe in a small town in Panama. After writing for about 35 minutes suddenly the page went funny and then closed. Aghhhhhhhhhhh im so angry that now im only going to put dot points of highlights so far. Mother be warned of numerous spelling mistakes and bad punctuation.

1. PLane ride where I got to watch three movies in a row without feeling guilty, that happens very seldom these days and I cant wait for the flight home.
2. San Jose, none really. Expensive and dangerous at night. However one shining light was meeting up with Tanya Kamowitz an old high school friend from INdonesia who I haven't seen in over 10 years. Wicked night which involved gossiping about old school mates...deaths, disasters, friends, fights, marriages, divorces, contacts and the whole shooting match. Tanya...you are awesome!
3. Puerto Viejo de Salamanica where we were charged 14 dollars for a tent in a refugee style hostel and then 12 dollars for two hammocks. clearly no highlight hmmmmm however Beth did manage to break the world record hammock sleep of 14 hours.
4. The border crossing into Panama across an old rickety bridge. good times.

Panama
1) seeing the famous (but by no means rare) red frog in Bocos Del Toro
2) Snorkelling off a point in Bocas and seeing three Stingrays.
3) Killing a stingray with a spear gun in honour of steve...very tasty
4) Learning how to cook coconut rice and beans taught by a Panamanian Hustler who had spent too much time in Vegas, "not too much coco andrew, you don't want to get the shits"
5) not sleeping in a hammock
6) Epic walks through the wildlife park watching lines of ants carry stuff 18 times their size, chatting with the toucans in the trees was fun too and of course trying to kill every mosquito that has ever lived.

Boqute... a small town south of the islands of bocos del toro and overrun by American expats who have retired there and bought up all the land with the sweet views. Regardless a great little spot and of course cause of the gringo invasion a very safe town. We choose this spot to do some much needed Spanish lessons. highlights include.
1) Using my brain again
2) 4 hrs of intensive Spanish a day and then 3 hours of study afterwards and still no idea
3) Going to the animal/bird sanctuary and playing with the local anteater and pretending to be pirates with birds on our shoulders.
4) Wicked walks in mountain fresh air.
5) two dollar meals of rice, beans, salad and chicken
6) A cold Bolboa Beer at the end of the day when you really have earned it hahaha
7) Getting a free upgrade in our pension because we were taking Spanish lessons, unfortunately the room we moved to had a tv with cable and so my studying dropped 3 fold hmmmm.

Panama City
1) Seeing the ticket guy on our bus cut sick at the mysterious person who took a dump in the bus toilet and stank out the bus for the 10 hr journey. translation...its not my job to clean out your kaka! very amusing, but even funnier when the mystery person went and did it again haha "if you are sick go to a hospital, if you cant hold on tell me and i will stop the bus"

It is interesting that in a foreign city the things that are the most intimidating when you first arrive are often the most useful and cheapest thing. This was the case with the local buses, affectionately known as the 'red devils.' These buses are spray painted with all sorts of crazy colours and most referring to some sort of western pop culture or sporting team. Big classic portraits of Harry Potter go zooming around the corner at top speeds, while the Barcelona Football team logo idly waits for the bus to be completely full before pulling away at frantic speeds. This was the welcome committee at the massive bus terminal in Panama city, 400 million crazy coloured buses hooting and horning and yelling at us to get on, no matter the destination. Although pissing down with fat rain we resisted the temptation to grab a cab and bags in hand jumped on a bus that we hoped would get us to the old town. It didn't, however did save us a couple of bucks on the taxi ride which eventually got us there! These buses were brilliant and at 25 cents a pop, saved us heaps of money and provided us with hours of thrilling entertainment.

3) Right, Casco Viejo. the old town. A suburd that back in the day during the construction of the panama canal would have been off the Hizzle! Massive beautiful old colonial houses that today are nothing but decayed old buildings that still resemble features of its old class. Some people cleverly have seized the opportunity and slowly these once amazing buildings at great cost are getting sweet face lifts. The Barrio is rocking though, full of life, history and cheap rice and beans.

4) Panama Canal. I could go on for hours about this marvellous and incredible act of human genius and engineering! It is astounding! Luckily for me, Beth read a 300 pg historical book about it and filled me in with all the necessary details that make this achievement even more special.

fast facts include.

average fee 30,000 us, most paid ever 200,000 us, least 36 cents by an american dude who swam the 80km in 1938

14,000 vessels pass thru the canal each year

a absolute shed load of lives were lost trying to build this thing, took over 30 years and caused a lot of head aches! If you have a spare 40 hours try reading 'A path between the seas'

Right, although expensive the train from PC to Colon was unreal. Followed the canal all the way up.

Colon. 6 bucks a night for a room with a broken bed was a bargain. Some cool old Spanish forts, some great history lessons from Beth about pirates and savages and some exceptionally good cheap fish would sum up Colon nicely.

Chitre. What is labelled in the LP as 'the interior' Chitre is a great little town that is still bery much dominated by the tradions and customs of the Spanish. Nothing much goes on here, shops, markets, shoe shiners eh gov and a plethora of cheap eateries. Beth and I were luckily enough however to be there during a couple of big Catholic celebrations. In the town next to us they were celebrating Corpus Christi and by the time we had got there, by the looks of things had been celebrating hard! So one sunday arvo we joined in the last of these C.C shenanigans and downed numerous cheap cold beers while music and dancing and straight rum drinking was going on all around! No religion involved really just a good excuse to get plastered and have a good time. Big groups of people line the streets with eski's full of rum and beer and food stalls everywhere selling meat and meat with meat in it and maybe some meat rice.

The highlight of the night was when i was wrestled to the ground by a group of scary hairy Panamanian women! At the time we had no idea what was happening, Beth just laughed and I just yelled 'no inteindo no inteindo' meaning i don't understand. Later we found out that on that Sunday it is tradition for women to wrestle men to the ground...i wasn't convinced though.

San Juan festival a few days later brought the same hilarity and joy. A sleepy town that erupts in pure brazen activities and drunkenness. The Afternoon sees men riding around the town on there huge stallions trying to out do each other with chest beating unlike monkeys in a forest and swiging rum straight from the bottle. Perched on the side with a couple of cold ones, we were entertained for hours until we were invited into the local pool hall for some cheap rum and sketchy conversations in Spanish with a few locals. Hours went by and amazingly we still spoke, me more so with my hands and facial gestures. After missing much of the festival we had come to see but no wanting to offend our new found friends we finally left only to find that the machismo had spilled out onto the streets from a bar down the road and the police had tear gassed them whooooooo. Obviously we ran to see what was happening, coughed a little, high fived, bought a beer from the guy who was still selling beers amongst the confusion (with a bandana around his mouth of course) and sat down at a nearby restaurant only to be serenaded by the local mobile Dj with English love songs. ANDDD IIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOOOOOVVVEEEEE YOUUUUUU. What a cracking night!

And so a few more Panamanian wicked little towns later and more memories still we have arrived back into the comfort of Tanyas house in Costa Rica. On Sunday we head to Nicaragua for a month or so and then no one knows?? This political unrest in Honduras is very uncalled for and terrible timing on their behalf but we'll see what happens there. rightio lastly.

Things learnt so far.

.Contrary to some studies, watching latin american dubbed television does not help with learning Spanish.

.If you dont know any Spanish, getting drunk does not miracoulsly make you fluent. It does however allow you to say the words you do know louder.

.Eating bananas, white bread and white rice everyday will clog you up something chronic.

.1 in 2 photos on a digital camera is either crap or pointless.

. If you write to the lonely planet recommending a place or hostel you get 30% off a product from their website.

. If you chose to go on a long journey make sure your head is in a good place. The amount of day dreaming that occurs on long buses in astounding! Negative day dreams are horrible and so to avoid these have a plethora of 'im going to be a super star one day' day dreams up your sleeve.

Things to learn.

.Spanish

.How to ride a horse down a main street with a full plastic cup of rum and coke and not spill a drop. Mad balance skills!

general catch up

para — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:38:00 GMT

As the new year rolled in and i mine swept another 10 aus dollar beer ( what? i just dont carry that sought of cash) i made the drunken realization that it had been close to 9 months since ive made any sort of contact with anyone. Clearly i had made the same realization sober many times but it has taken the drunken one to shake me out of my internet captivity and let you know exactly what has happened in short and quick dot points as to not disappoint the fast paced lifestyle you all lead.

let it all be known early in the piece before you all close this email that I miss you terribly, shit loads of missing is occuring as you read...even the annoying parts of your personalities that i left behind i miss, and while im getting all emo...i love use all soooo much.

So the last time i wrote I was in Cornwall in March last year after what could only be described as an epic epic journey around India. If you have any spare time what so ever, India is the place to go. anyway the end of india saw the beginning of the next epic adventure. Barcelona.

highlights and lowlights in no particular order

The city itself, teeming with life and energy. The Spainards have got it all figured it. Wake up early, have a few smokes, eat some breaky, maybe go to work if you feel like it. Get to work and do a few hours, not to stressful of course. Work up an appetite, close for a 2-3 hour lunch and a siesta and then go back to work to finish at around 7.oo pm. Head to the local watering hole with either your fellow Spainish fella's or take the whole family including grandma and grandpa and smash beers until roughly 9.30pm at which point you sit down for a 2-3 hour dinner. Wake up and do it all over again aghhhh needless to say it was awesom. Barca offers heaps from buskers, amazing wallet stealers, grungy back streets, disgusting tap water but most of all a great night life. On every street you're bound to find atleast 15 bar/restaurants which somehow manage to survive with what seems like minimal usage. I reckon old mate just starts up his own bar so his mates can drink there cheaply, it's a lifestyle thing albiet a unhealthy lifestyle thing.
TEFL. Beth and I had planned this teaching english caper a few months in advance but really didn't have a clue what we were getting into. Like most of the people who sign up for this thing, they take it as a...lets give it a go, cant be that difficult can it? Well I'm here to tell you that teaching English and getting the actual certificate was fricken hard and fricken stressful but dare I say rewarding. We had a wicked class of people from all over the world, who got on really well and were all trying hard to be the best which lead of course to everyone doing well. If you're thinking of doing tefl, please dont fall into the trap like me of thinking that cause you got a few A's on a oral presentation at school that your automatically going to be a good teacher. Our 2nd day we were teaching a class and i have never in my life been more nervous...the sweat patches underneath the 1 dollar armani shirt i bought from India were needless to say MASSIVE! the course was 9 hours a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks. we did 9 hours of teaching, 9 very long hours where we designed the lessons ourselves, up late at night trying to come up with activities in between stressful episodes of lost (bought on dvd in india of course) was horrible. Why are we paying lots of money for this again beth???? But we all came out the other side official teachers and none of us still had a clue what we were doing haha great.
English Grammar is fricken hard, a little dissapointed i didn't listen and nail all those definitions back when i was 10 and learning about nouns with Mrs PPrimary School Teacher. The hardest thing about the teaching for me, wasn't the standing up in front of people, it was that I had no idea about the grammar i was teaching haha it's all about teaching vocab.
highlight 3 came when Beth and I were offered the 2 places the tefl school opens up at the end of the course, a wicked reward for hardwork. What was initially joy turned quickly into despair when they casually handed us 29 hours a week teaching. Aghhhhh 29 hours in 4 days, the patches grew and grew. These students were actually paying me to teach them something, unilke the poor bunnies from the training school who get crap lessons for free. 29 hours quickly led to binge drinking on the thursday night thru to Sunday and a very anxious Sunday night. Saying this, my classes were awesom fun, all my students were really cool and engaging and dare I say, impressed with my efforts to pass on the intricies of the English Language. I would always start the lesson with pronunciation and always point them in the direction of Aussie slang, it was classic, all these sth americans, italians and Spainish speaking with Aussie accents after each month long intensive course...sweet!
Low lights...making up grammar rules in the classroom when i didn't know the answer to a question
ackward silences, being a terrible terrible speller
highlight, encouraging students all over 18 of course, to join me in my drinking escapades and assuring them that drinking helps with speaking english, which it did!
Low light, having my drink spiked by my own student, not sleeping and then teaching 5 hours unplanned completly of my face. It was a highlight after i completed those 5 hours, Although at the time PARANOI to the extreme!
Gemma, our Scottish hot lesbian class mate, house mate and very good friend who was there thru it all in Barcelona. A wicked friend who we recently met up with in Leeds and who took us to an ugly gay bar, which ws dissapointing. Gemma however is not dissapointing, she is a legend. She partook in such classics at the apartment 'the sunglasses party' ultimate friday sessions, cava breakfast saturdays, rythmic expression dance night and also supported beth in her obsession with katie price and peter andre...well done gemma.
Silvio. our german housemate who was classic computer nerd but also a legend. his favourite saying being 'in fact' even if it was complete unnecessary. Example, how are you silvio? 'in fact Andrew I am good' hahaha legend.
lowlight, missing our stop on the night bus and hving to go to the other end of the line and back again...it was both our faults for the record.
Miriam, our landlord in our first house. took us everywhere at the beginning including a cataylan bbq that would have rivalled an aussie one...so so much meat haha.
San Juan welcome summer party....85,000 people on the beach, wicked dj's ext ext Silvio so drunk he feel asleep on an old lady on the train on the way home and dribbled on her nice grey cardigan.HILARIOUS!

There's heaps more highlights but i feel im getting boring and so will leave Barcelona there. Photos aren't yet up on facebook but soon will when i get back to cornwall and put them in. Wicked visitors included Paula and Tanya from JIS days...good times. and Helen ohhh such a sweet time. ill never forget the oven chip cravings!

next...
Cornwall for the summer.
lowlights...there was never a summer. the weather was shite and it was never sunny. UK weather is truly appaling. not as appaling as my spelling but pretty bad.
Getting back in the sea was sweet and like all places around the world it's the people you go back for. Highlights included the return to monday night madness and the general trouble caused by 'Hayle massive,' What was lacking in sun was made up with cracking parties, dinners and movember celebrations ( i won a hair dryer to lamest mo... bastrds set me up, but the prizes made up for it. The end of season work party saw the chef and his partner having a massive fight over her making sexual moves on the chefs younger brother who conveniently was the pot wash hmmmm ackward, step in Dr.Phil ( me) talk it out for hours and then run home 3 hours in the wrong direction, hate my life)
It was a good time, working really hard to save some cash and try and get healthy again. the return to 10% fitness occured with atleast 10 short runs under my belt and quite a few bike rides. I even did a sprint session up some sand dunes once but that resulted in a spew and feeling sick and so that was cancelled. Dan Angelini made the long journey from london on the train and it's safe to say that in all the places he went- greece, italy, crotia, london that Cornwall was clearly the best. Pasties, warm beer, long walks, bbq's- the good times kept rolling for both ange and me.
The parentals came for a visit and met Beth's parents which although initally bloody stressful was a ball of laughs. parents meeting parents is wierd, that;s all i have to say on that. Mum and Dad reprensented is a massive way, except when mum kept bringing up the proper job thing. bless her.

this email is too long but it will end soon. promise

The end of cornwall (which i havent represented very well, it was a sweet sweet time) saw the beggining of where I am now.
Currently an hour away from Geneva airport, Beth and I are living and working in Morzine France, in the French Alps. Life is flat out. helping to run a 30 bed challet, snowboarding during the day and sqeezing in the odd drink is wicked but tiring. The snow has been tremendous, my snowboarding not as tremendous. I keep waking up each day hoping that yep, today is the day it will all fall into place like everyone says but alas it hasn't happened.

lowlights include-serving 34 very rich, snobby english people, sucking up their arse all week, working really hard and then getting 1/10th of sweet f.all as a tip. anyone who says it's not about the money is lying. it's all about the money.
chipping your tooth on new years walking down an icy drive drinking out of a cheap champagne bottle.
highlight- getting it fixed for 50 euros ha who would have thought, a sandwhich on the hill is more expensive!
being hot tub certified, I even have a certificate on my wall. the trick, its all about the chlorine, when in doubt chlorine chlorine chlorine and worry about the rash later.
landing my first 180, which was described as more like an ugly bruce lee karate kick, i potentially just created a new trick???
waking up and seeing the french alps out your window, no better view anywhere. fricken amazing. quite hard to describe and so will cop out and go with 'oh yere it's unreal mate, fucking tops'

allright allright enough i hear you cry.
I love and miss you all heaps.
so far the plan is to be back in aus for christmas. we're heading to central and sth america in may till december and so anyone keen or heading over in that direction, let me know and we'll definately organize plans.
send me address at home and ill put you on the post card list, post cards are cool.
good time and great classic hits
para

getting back in the blog game

para — Tue, 6 Jan 2009 16:51:00 GMT

Dear boys and girls

after a recent purchase of world nomad insurance I found that they had not only great prices but a free blog yeahhhhhh. which has inspired me to get back into actio and let you all know what I have been doing. It's been ages since I have written anything down and really let anyone know the shennagings ive been getting myself into. Please note, that if you have a concern for spelling and or punctuation then now is a good time to stop reading....mum...read on at your own risk!

Funnily enough, it's taken me a frick load of time setting this thing up and consequently dont have time to write anything long and funny or good. So quickly, I'm living and working at the moment in Morzine, a French Ski village in the French Alps which is 2 hrs from Geneva in Switzerland. Life is sweet, trying to master snow boarding and working long hours in a 30 bed challet and trying to fit in late night drinking has meant there are few hours for sleep and even fewer for emailing...apologies.

Enough for now, my heads not in the game but will soon sort this thing out and add photos and a few videos and a few stories from the past year of adventure

good times and great clasic hits

paz