Hello again

time for another update on what's going on this side of the world!

HELLLOOOOO

that was a big hello from Honduras to be passed on to everyone.

I went away for the weekend again, I am ashamed to say that just about all of us lied to Richard
and said we weren't doing anything this weekend so he went to tegus with John, who can put up
with him better than we can. Then we all went away to different places! He's not bothered
though.

I went with Derek to a small town in the mountains called San Juan, we had a great weekend, we
hitched there on Saturday morning and arrived at lunch time, we had  a delicious lunch, watched
a demonstration of coffee roasting and had a go ourselves, then went to an open air swimming
pool fed by natural warm springs to swim around in the sunshine.

We stayed the night at the house of a fantastic old lady, she's 82 and still carries around huge
sacks of flour for her shop! On Sunday morning we went on a guided tour, we rode horses up to a
coffee plantation and had a look around then hiked to see some waterfalls, one was called the
waterfall of the elves, hollows in the rocks make different sounds as the water passes over and
it sounds like music, the other waterfall was a triple fall, there was one that was about 20m
high into a big round pool and 2 more waterfalls going down from the pool about another 10
metres!

the hike was a bit of a nightmare, the path was really muddy and as you were walking bits of it
kept falling off!!

we hiked back to the horses and rode out to a hill that's called baldy hill because everywhere
else is covered by trees but this perfectly round hill just sticks out covered in grass looking
like a bald head! it's slap in the middle of a circle of mountains and from the top you can see
the tops of mountains in El Salvador! we could see the whole of the valley and we watched a huge
cloud dropping rain on one of the mountains, then realised it was coming towards us! we had to
jump back on the horses and try to get down the hill (of very slippy mud) in torrential rain...
and my horse was refusing to go faster than plodding walk pace.

That was until we were back on the road and a very pretty mare started tossing her mane and galloping alongside us in the
field, then he managed to crank it up to a trot to try and impress her!
Derek had never ridden a horse before and couldn't control where his was going at all - it kept
wandering off the path to eat the bushes!

The entire weekend, absolutely everything and accomodation and food cost us 12 pounds each!
bargain, and that includes some coffe I bought for mum and mart which I roasted myself.

We tried to get home on Sunday but there were no buses and it was raining so hard that we ended
up sleeping at the house of one of the Save the Children workers and getting the 6am bus on
Monday just in time to get to school.

It was a cool weekend, and I found out that Derek is Mr Gadget, everything he owns was specially
bought for the trip and it's all the sort of stuff that has it's own little pouch, clothes,
waterproofs, glasses, multitool, binoculars, each one takes 10 minutes to get out or put away!

Then I went to work yesterday thinking it was a 2 day week and I could go travelling and Oscar
informed me that although 3 of the 4 teachers are going away for 3 days, the children will still
be coming to school so can we help out!!!

I said I'd go in for the mornings to help Claudia but Richard didn't turn up today so I'm not
sure if he'll be coming - what fun! ALthough as I left today Peter the Teacher told me not to go
to school for the rest of the week because the children probably wont turn up... and I thought
Arnot St was bady organised!

Did I tell you about Helena's leaving party? I can't remember... oh well, if I've told you
before just ignore this bit, or think of it as documented deja-vu...

Helena, who I've probably told you about, has been here for 6 months and she left last weekend.
we had a party on Thursday and a load of her Honduran friends came. Some of them greasy
middle-aged men with lots of bacardi. One of them took an instant liking to me and spent the the
first hour telling me I am "beautiful, very beautiful in my eyes"  obviously I am beautiful but
he was a bnit freaky, when he later grabbed me on the dance floor and told me I was a sexy
dancer it was time for the lads to intervene. This guy was trying to press himself against me
and Stuart (god bless his socks) actually danced like a fool and hand jived his way between
us... what a star! I then had Andy and Stuart by me at all times ready to block gready-bloke's
advances. I told him I had a boyfriend and he just said it wasn't important to him - what  a
slime!

Fortunately we managed to get rid of them and we went out to the river to finish off the night,
it was so funny, we lost 4 people on the 10 minute journey because without us realising, they
got into some guys car to go to his house and drink tequila! the found us again later, Richard
kept pulling out alcohol that he'd stashed behind trees and hedges... he has a serious problem!
and georgina got really drunk - at one point we were talking about kickboxing etc and Richard
told her to hit him to show that girls can hit and she punched him in the face! it was about 1am
by this point and we were trying not to laugh too loudly because this town really does have a
10pm curfew enforced by the police!

anyway, we left Richard drinking by the river on his own and we all left at 2ish, we walked
Georgina home then all went to our houses, I'd taken the key and got in without waking anyone
but some of the others were told-off by their families!!

well, I think that's you all up to date, although kind of back to front...

I'm only here for another  10 days or so then I'm off to my island in the sun. It'll be weird
'cos I'm kinda settled here now but I'm looking forward to doing something new.

only 8 weeks till I'm home!