Feliz Navidad!

Happy Christmas everyone.

Tonight seems to be the big party night, so we are all meeting up for some food followed by many drinks.

Tomorrow Christmas dinner somewhere and recover ready for travelling on Boxing Day.

Hope everyone has a good Christmas and gets lots of presents.

Future plans

So, as soon as christmas is over it's going to be time to pack my bags and start travelling properly. Antigua has been a great place, but now it's time to move on.

Current plan is to catch a but on the 26th to Rio Dulce and then from there try and find a boat to Utila, which is one of the Bay Islands off Honduros. I'll spend a few weeks there learning to dive and think about what to do next.

Will post a map wheb I have a better connection.

Buena Vista Social Club

According to people who know about these things (in the photo below) the above pictures contains some of the original members of Buena Vista Social Club. The music sounds familiar, so I guess it must be true.

Playing Santa - 20 Dec

Someone at our school arranged a collection a while back to by some presents for the children of a small impoverished village up in the mountains. Today we had a school trip out to the village to distribute presents and be generally nice to people.



There were so many children. God only knows where they all came from. They all lined up outside the village hall and then came in small groups to play some party games and get a present. It was all quite moving. Brought a tear to my eye.



Of course as always, it´s not the present, but the box that is the most fun thing.



All in all, a fun time was had by all.

Into the big city!

On Sunday I took a trip into the big city to see some friends perform in a band. Rather than take the tourist shuttle bus I decided to venture into the unknown and jump on a chicken bus into town. The bus was pretty full when I got on and I spotted an empty seat and jumped on it without fully realising why people were avoiding it.

I ended up sat next to a rather rotund lady who took up most of the seat, but there was still plenty of room for me. At least there was until everyone else got on the bus and it was 3+ to a seat. Most unpleasant...

However, the trip was pretty uneventful, no robberies, no chickens escaping. Pretty dull all in all.

Once in the city I jumped in a cab and went to a place in the city called 4 grados norte (4 degrees north). Had a few coffees and met up with my friends. I had no idea they were quite so talented.




Coming home was quite an adventure. Foolishly I forgot to take any notice of where the bus dropped me and tried to rely on the map in the lonely planet book. After about an hour of driving round town trying to find the bus depot. We decided to give up on buses and I jumped in a cab home (thank goodness I'm not on a budget and can spend my way out of trouble).

Got back to Antigua and the locals were up to their usual crazy shenanigans. This seemed to be some procession involving Mary, Joseph and a Donkey.



As a special treat this morning at 5am we were treated to possibly the loudest fireworks I have ever heard. Every 5 minutes for an hour they would send one up above our house.

6am the mad monks who live in the church at the end of my road started off their usual bell ringing frenzy that goes on until 7am. It's no wonder I'm feeling a bit tired!