Villa Las Margaritas Plaza Cristal Jalapa

Moved into an Ashram today - only 60 pesos a night including chanting, tai chi, meditation & yoga - first lesson 5.20am! - thought I might hang out a few days if I can stand the heat - no fans! - but more importantly no beer and no coffee!!!! It's only 15 mins walk to the town of Coatepec, the coffee capital of Veracruz, so I can get my daily fix! Day one & already met the guru & done 1 hour of yoga with him. Reduced program of ...

I heard about couch surfing dot com so I decided to try it out. It's a bunch of people that are willing to let random people sleep on their couches. It's a pretty cool idea but it's a little sketchy at times and you never really know what you are going to get. Fortunately I ended up with some really cool people the first time so ...

... sehr freundlich. Wir kommen an kleinen Haeus**n vorbei, die hell **leuchtet und offen sind, in denen wir Gruppen zusammen beten und singen sehen. Vor d** Kathedrale hat sich eine riesige Schlange gebildet, und imm** mehr Leute scheinen sich dazuzugesellen. Nach einem vorsichtigen Blick hinein **inn**n wir uns, dass heute ja Asch**mittwoch ist, und die Leute stehen an, um vom Priest** ein Kreuz aus Asche auf ihre Stirn zu bekommen. Frueh am naechsten Morgen brechen wir mit Yasmin ...

Written from Jalcomulco, Mexico: A phone call was just received directly from Jordan at 19:35 our time. Joel is awake and recognizes his brother as well as other friends and family. He has little memory of the incident but is making jokes and talking about kayaking. One lung continues to labour but the doctors plan to take him out of the ICU tomorrow. The family will be sending us further updates as they come along.

Written from Esprit in Jalcomulco: 15:00hr We have had a particularly good but particularly long night hence the delayed update. Yesterday evening Joel's condition was trending very favorably and many of his vital signs and organ functions had drastically improved. Joel has displayed normal function of his heart, stomach, kidneys, liver, pancreas..... his lungs are drastically improving but remain laboured and potentially susceptible to infection. Although still ...

We are still in Jalcomulco despite the fact that we should have travelled to Huatulco on Saturday. It started when the bus and van broke down last week and were not fixed by the time we should have left. We had a day finishing our first aid testing on Saturday then a planning day on Sunday for a two day Barranca Grande trip, to be planned and carried out without any instructors, starting on Monday.<br><br><br><br ...

... a very Mexican thing I think) the ants moved in for the kill. They were in my pants and my sleeping bag and on my arms and over Jim's face and Stef`s clothes. And they bite! I did the ant dance for a while until Stef and Jim got up. Jim went off to find somewhere else to sleep and wede-anted and woke up the others. We ended up creeping into the house in the middle of the night to move into their front room. We did finally get agood night`s sleep though. To be continued....

... it had not kicked in. We went to Jalapa because our friend Walter Garcia wanted to show us Jalapa. It's where his family live and we stayed with them. There was a boy who stayed off school to go on a hike with us, and before we went on a hike just by ourselves to the hill with the cross on top. The cross was made of wood. Jalapa is near the border of Honduras and is higher up in the mountains. When we went on the big hike, we walked by a river ...

... me get me wrong its still fun to teach but sometimes the institutions are somewhat lacking in direction or at least some type of understanding. For example, I already said I wasn't coming back at least in Colegio las Hayas but now they think that my 5 year olds should at least be producing in English to each other. I dont mind really in trying to make it work ie. stopping them when they ask ´´dejame ver ...

... this Dec.!!!) and a few other volunteers on what is quite possibly my favorite ride EVER!!! It was completely unattended to and we were constantly dodging hanging vines, trudging through mud, getting poked with spiny plants and all other kinds of fun stuff that happens when you are out in the wild. I had a horse named "Arbolito" and he was very competitive, not unlike someone I know, ahem! Hehe and he constantly raced with the leader so I was cantering around non-stop ...