TravelStream™ news feed for member bexstable on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/bexstable en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:32:39 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1171743540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1171743540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1171743540/tpod.html Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:32:39 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

Although I have already arrived home safely, I felt for the sake ofcompleteness I should finish the last week!  Just to reassureeveryone that I did make it home from Costa Rica and have not decidedto be a travel bum permanently.Last week we had a beautiful relaxing time in Manuel Antonio, jungleand forest and stunning beaches.  On the first day we discoveredsunbathing in real comfort with the help of a huge gazebo to lie under,heavenly. We also discovered why the hotel we stayed in was 'junglebungalows', we had iguanas falling off the roof, monkeys playing in thetrees, hummingbirds and even a tame deer that tripped over the fence tocome for food. Never a dull moment.  In the national park we sawlots of wildlife and finished with a swim in the sea, like a hot bath!To complete our wildlife viewing we also did a mangrove swamp boattrip, and saw the smallest crocodile in the world, smaller than my arm,terrifying and lots more birds and unusual animals...a rare ant eatinganimal that looked more like a little teddy bear. All in a veryrelaxing last few days, the final day we just took it easy on the beachand enjoyed the waves and perfect sunset. The journey home seemed to take forever but was considerably betterthan the way out (a nights stay in Madrid helped delay things!). We hadforgotton that we had a touch down in Panama on the way back, anotherairport to add to the list and a nice one at that despite it being 10pmon a Friday night. Got home 7pm on Saturday feeling very grubby andvery confused by the time changes. Sad that it is the end of my monthsof travels but excited to be getting on with my life and no longerliving out of a backpac.  It was strange to come home and find aroom full of stuff and clothes that I had totally forgotton about!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1171241280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1171241280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1171241280/tpod.html Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:08:11 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Jaco, Costa Rica

We finally got off the sunloungers up in Tamarindo and headed inland to see...a volcano! Shock horror a volcano in Central America?! We spent 2 nights in La Fortuna, in the shadows of active volcano Arenal. On arriving the weather had the check to start raining and it didn't stop for most of the day.  This made our family walk to what Lonely Planet rated as a nearby waterfall a failed mission. An hour in we were not near, we were soaked and the waterfall park was closing and we still hadn't seen this supposed volcano, our trip to Arenal seemed doomed! The next morning, a fraction brighter we took the lazy option...a taxi to the waterfall, we still had 600m to climb down a hill to see it. It was very beautiful, hidden in the jungle and woorth the walk back.  That afternoon with the cloud lifting, we finally saw the stunning Volcano, not surprisingly it looks exactly like you would imagine a volcano in geography lessons and went on a nature trek to a lookout.  As the sun set we watched lava bombs glowing red roll down the volcano side. Spectacular and this time I didn't have to climb across the hot lava field but could relax and enjoy. Will this be the last volcano I get to take photos of on this trip I wonder?Whilst making our way onto a boat to cross Lake Arenal to get to Monteverde and the cloud forest, our next stop, I heard a voice.. Rob Friend with his mate Nick from uni were also about to board the boat and head to Monteverde for a few days. Fate rather than good planning on our part but was very nice to see another friendly face on the otherside of the world! We went to Monteverde to see the jungle and cloud forests but this time the weather reversed our fortunes, it was bright and clear the morning of our cloud forest trek. Too hot to see many animals but we did see a great deal of green mossy trees and get to watch our guide making animal and bird calls for 4hours. Very amusing, although completely ineffective! Rob and I had few nights out in the hip hop and not so happening little down of Santa Elena, Rob was sad to discover that in salsa clubs it is best to salsa and that there are rules to salsa not that this stopped him from bopping around all the locals having their Firday night disco.Left Monteverde yesterday am, Rob and Nick headed north to nicaragua and me and the parents took a bus south, back to the coast. On the way we stopped (and nearly missed the bus) looking at crocodiles chilling on the river bank, made me think I was back in Africa for a  while! Spent last night in Jaco, just down the coast from where I stayed last time I was in Costa Rica. Today we hired bikes and sweated our way around the headland and down a long rocky sandy track to the turtle house and beach. It was even more beautiful than I remembered and made better by Marco, the craziest ranger of all being there to entertain us t\with his crazy spanglish and cries of 'Oh my god.' The house had not changed that much-still not electricity or running water but the turtle project was thiriving, awaiting the next turtle season in June. Tomorrow we are heading further down the coast, our last stop before we fly home as my mini-gap year is rapidly coming to an end.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170262020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170262020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170262020/tpod.html Mon, 05 Feb 2007 11:48:46 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Ometepe, Nicaragua

Just the map pin entry!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170693120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170693120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170693120/tpod.html Mon, 05 Feb 2007 11:45:29 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Tamarindo, Costa Rica

I am writting this whilst taking a break from the sun lounger by the pool in Costa Rica. It is so hot here, in the 30s so hiding in the shade and pool most days. Tough life! Think my last entry was from Granada, after that I headed down to the Lake Nicaragua and out to a volcanic island called Ometepe. It was ok there although the food was average at best and we were a little stuck in the middle of nowhere with no other option but the hotel restaurant! 2 nights was plenty there. I also spent a nice morning horseriding although it almost turned into just an hour along the beach when the guide was like ok we are finished, now we walk back!? With some persuading in Spanish and of course the promise of more money the guide seemed happy to take us back on the horses, with a nice scenic detour to enjoy views of the Lake and volcanoes (yes more volcanoes!).Leaving Nicaragua and crossing the border was a long drawn out process, lots of queueing and pay 1dollar here 2 dollars there, fill in this form, change your money with this random man, join another queue and fill in these forms we got through. 3hours later we got the midday bus instead of the planned 9.30am bus. O well, its not like I needed to be anywhere! The bus journey was incredibly hot, crowded and sweaty, taking 6.5hours to reach San Jose, the capital, where I met my parents. On Saturday we then drove back up the same central highway (about the only tarmaced road in Costa Rica) and headed off to the beach town. Since arriving here we have done variations of nothing! Lots of sunbathing, reading books, swimming and eating. Heavenly, particularly in February!  Tried going surfing but the waves weren't great so will prob try again further down the coast, more oppotunities to pose with a board! The plus side of all the American tourists here and their real estate is.....huge American portions! Yummy, but not good when you want to wear a bikini.  Right, back to the sun, building up an appetite before the next big feed!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170008820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170008820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1170008820/tpod.html Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:37:01 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Granada, Nicaragua

After leaving paradise there had to be a bit of a downside to even out the karma I guess. on Thursday night whilst out for dinner it started to rain, which was weird for the dry season and we crossed our fingers it would all be better for the ferry crossing to the mainland the next morning. Next morning was dry, little cloudy and got to ferry terminal early to discover the ferry was cancelled but how about flying? Good idea, so rushed off to the airport got tickets to fly back to the mainland at 9am. By 9am it became clear that the plane was still on the mainland and not going anywhere. So we waited...and waited, eventually flying on worst bumpy little plane at 1pm. Most of the flight spend gripping the seats and praying collectively. Interesting, glad it was only a 30min flight. Not the smartest plan, too rough for a boat...fly! On mainland we then had huge delays and hassles sorting a bus down to the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. Arrived there at 1am, eugh and left again at 9am the next morning for another long coach journey to Nicagarua (which seemed about enough time here incidentally!).Coach yesterday was 1st class, air con, very nice. Until it broke down about an hour in! Problems with the radiator, but we battled on slowly steaming our way to capital of Nicaragua, Manangua and switching on to a local bus for the last hour to Granada.  Arrived here 8pm last night and it is beautiful. Very colonial, pretty streets, churches and a hotel on the central park! Luxury! Back to being a tourist (please no more long joruneys for a few days!).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1169749140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1169749140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1169749140/tpod.html Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:26:38 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Roatan, Honduras

Just a short entry about my second time I have found a paradise island on my gap travels.  The first being Zanzibar of course, but the second with a slightly shorter but equally bumpy ferry ride over was last week to the Bay Islands. About 2hours off Honduras and surrounded by beautiful reefs and ship wrecks, it was the land of pirates in the past!Had great 4days there, relaxing and stayed in a great hotel. They had just finished cementing the pool about 5minutes before I got in the pool, timing! Got into scuba diving again, which I hadn´t done for over 2years, which clearly showed when I set up all my kit back to front and did not know what was going on. The diving was incredible, once you get under water the cliche of a whole world opens up to you happened. Huge walls of reefs, brightly coloured and some monster sized barracudas and lobsters pottering around and lots of weird looking things hidden in the reef. Got a littel hooked on the diving again (probably all the extra oxygen going to my head!) and few dives later saw 2turtles when we were diving. First turtle swam alongside me for a while, just pottering looking a lot more graceful than me with tank, kit and flippers and the second turtle was munching on the reef! I could hear him chomping. It was so exciting and a huge highlight for me, loved Roatan, could happily go back and spend weeks there on the beaches and diving every day. Heaven!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1169500500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1169500500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1169500500/tpod.html Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:18:35 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Tula, Honduras

Finally an entry not written from the Spanish School Interent cafe in Antigua! I left Guatemala on Saturday morning. The last two weeks of school flew by and then the end of last week there were so many goodbyes- to all the kids, the family at the school, the family I stayed with and all the other volunteers. At the school when saying goodbye the kids all line up to hug you goodbye.   It is really cute, but really tough saying goodbye to the kids in my classes. Last week we had some cool lessons, a reading comprehension with a wolf and 4rabbits and a machete weilding mummy rabbit. It was only when I was half way through translating it I discovered it wasn`t entirely appropriate but the kids loved it and wrote their own stories with wolves eating princesses, teachers and dogs. Lovely. I also taught them fractions, which actually seemed to sink in with a few of them, or else they just enjoyed colouring in half of circles and on my last day I even did some arty stuff with them. Out of choice! All in, a pretty great last week. The morning of the last day turned into just myself and Richard taking 60kids up to the sports field. Its funny that this had become a normal way to spend a morning, skipping, passing around a rugby ball, playing football, rolling around in the dirt and dust, chucking the little ones up in the air and trying to stop the kids from leaping off the cliff edges! I really enjoyed the Fridays when we just got to play with the kids. When the little ones faces light up with delight its really great. Made it all worthwhile! It was funny leaving Antigua, I suddenly realised how settled I was there and had a nice but very busy routine going on! I am so glad I did the project and stuck it out. After the first 2 weeks I thought they were mad to give me classes to teach in another language and complete freedom to chose what I will teach. It still is quite amazing that they let people do this and takes some explaining to people but I managed it. I`m sure I took more from it than I could possibly give although the kids definately know what verbs are now. When I mentioned Verbs at first I got blank faces, last week I got groans, so something made an impact!Anyway, I am on my travels again, crossed the border to Honduras on Sat, stayed in small town over the border called Copan Ruinas and met up with Caroline a volunteer who runs a school in Honduras, but had been in Antigua for Christmas. Visited some Hot springs which was lovely, like a huge hot bath and combined with an entertaining journey in a open top truck through lush jungle and with a short break down on the way home. When I got back about 11pm, I went to see Caroline who suggested we go out for a drink. Went with her and few locals she knows, in the bar they sat down the biggest bottle of rum I have EVER seen, a bucket of ice and bottle of coke and announced that the three of us were not leaving until it was finished. Needless to say I got back to the hotel at 4am, and the next mornings trip to visit Copan Ruins, beautiful mayan ruins was an effort. Maybe not the best way to enjoy them fully. Today I am travelling towards the coast and out to the Bay Islands for a week of diving and relaxing. Its super hot too, which is taking some readjusting too but I hear there have been storms at home so no complaints from me!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1168379400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1168379400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1168379400/tpod.html Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:15:03 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Antigua, Guatemala

After being here for just after 6 weeks I have some thoughts and stories (ok only 2) which are about to follow in no particular order just as they pop into my head this afternoon.Sad story, first day back at school last week and one of my favourites from the morning class comes running down to see me.  He looked thinner, gaunt and so tired. Clearly the Christmas break for him had meant no food and lots of work out in the fields. After hugging all the breath out of me he started asking for bread, he could hardly wait 5 minutes for school to begin. As soon as school started he grabbed his tiny piece of bread put it in his pocket and left, running down the hill to meet his father and young brother.  He told me the next day when he did stay in school that the bread was for his brother and he was sorry he didn't stay. So far he has only been in school for 1 day. He was not the only kid looking semi-starved after the holidays. It was pretty hard to take in after our holiday excesses.Guatemalan people are very smiley and friendly. On the chicken bus to school every day, every greets us and each other and smiles and giggles away.  The benches on the chicken bus, old USA school buses and designed for about 2 people each, will often cram a whole family in, with kids and siblings on laps next to whoever was already there. 6 on a bench is easily possible with the right attitude! When the kids are getting off the bus conductor will jsut pick the little ones up and carry them off. Its cute. The bus conductors are eternally tolerant, we give them ridiculous concotions of change daily to make up the 20p fare or else demand loads of change. Equally they will carry anything, other day we arrived to see the conductor helping unload about 20huge sheets of corrogated iron off the top of the bus. No idea if they charge extra to haul all that stuff about.The money situation is still stupid here. The Guatemalan banks took loads of old notes in before Christmas but haven't yet got around to issuing new notes. Cue big queues at cash points which run out of money by 10am daily. Ridiculous!I have enjoyed the last few days back at school, with the exception of some unexplained sickness yesterday. The kids have all been good fun and amusing as usual.  I'm not totally convinced that mine think they are there to do any work but definately there to play and wind up their teacher! Its nice that they know when they come to us it is a safe place that they can chat to their friends, relax and play games- it makes it normal for them. The fact that they play up a little in lessons also helps to make them more normal and much more entertaining/challenging to teach.Went away on spur of the moment at the weekend to place, 30mins from Antigua called the Earthlodge. Set on an avocado farm with the most stunning view went up for Saturday night and had great time. Met lots of fun and interesting people and had huge family style dinner all together in the evening. The place is beautiful with a view right across all the volcanoes and very into eco friendly and sustainable tourism.  It was great to visit to escape the partying in Antigua for a night. Wish I had discovered it earlier in my time here! We could see Volcano Fuego (fire) puffing out smoke them a minute later would hear a boom like a whale blowing out smoke travel across to us. Clearly light does travel faster than sound! And apparently its better that it erupts a little and often, means its not holding in for one huge eruption!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1167344880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1167344880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1167344880/tpod.html Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:33:13 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Antigua, Guatemala

Christmas Report! Thank you for the Christmas emails and msgs and questions! Christmas here was interesting, although it did begin with  all the volunteers feeling a little homesick and lost on Christmas Eve. 4pm here was midnight at home, everyone felt a bit weird and wondering what they were doing in the sunshine on the other side of the world with no idea what Christmas there entailed. To make it feel a little more normal we went to the pub, an Irish pub at that and I had a baileys which cheered me enough to do something different and go to Mass...proper Catholic mass in a huge church in centre of Antigua.  Weirdly they let off millions of fireworks before the service at like 10pm. We stayed for half an hour, not bad going before realizing that mass in another language and lacking enough carols wasn't a lot of fun. I then got home to find the family watching....Mass on TV! Great fun. Felt little depressed by this so went for a lie down, to be woken at midnight by the family, incredibly excited full of Christmas cheer and fun and hugs, we grabbed presents and became Santa Claus, delivering presents to their 2daughters families, who live next door and across the road. Cue and hour of present throwing and running around mayhem, and presents for me! Which was lovely of them...a cute bag, scarf and beautiful bracelet. So generous but also felt normal being with  a family and very excited children who ripped open their presents and had the MP3 players glued in their ears. Then the eating and drinking began, which did include roast chicken, rice and a salad that contained marshmallows. Interesting. The family were lovely, when they say grace they always give thanks that I am with them then began plying me with about 6 different drinks...fruit punch, huge rum and cokes, wine, baileys, kahlua, whisky....you name it. Made it feel more like Christmas though and was most amazing and fun night, got to bed late or early depending on your point of view!Christmas day, struggled slightly to get up then went to meet all the other volunteers about 15 in total at a beautiful restuarant. The owner, American guy called Bill had generously given us the restuarant for the day to cook our Christmas lunch and enjoy, which was really great! I cooked brownies, standard and helped cook huge Christmas dinner, we had roast potatoes and chicken and masses of veg, but no brussel sprouts...yay! We did secret santa between ourselves which was good, a nice day, kindof felt like Christmas, we were certainly stuffed full of food and drink and had presents but no Queens speech or Eastenders!Boxing day...chilled but had comedy breakfast. The food they eat here on special occasions, called Tamals, potato and meet conncoction wrapped and cooked for hours in a potato leaf package, I thought I had escaped this but not so,the family had 'saved' me one for breakfast on boxing day. Interesting.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1167781560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1167781560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bexstable/guatemala-2006/1167781560/tpod.html Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:21:46 -0500 Bex's tour of Central America, beginning with teaching primary school children in Guatemala (teaching them in Spanish, no I don't speak it... yet).

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Antigua, Guatemala

Happy New Year!! 2007 already! And the blog is behind, so a rapid and hopefully brief update! Photos will follow soon!After recovering from Chistmas excesses i did a flying day trip in a tiny plane to the North of Guatemala to visit Mayan ruins called Tikal. Lots of precarious temples to climb built about 800BC and views of the jungle and monkeys made for a great day. Usual lack of health and safety rickety ladders and no barriers made it very interesting but the views were always worth it. Also made friends with a family who are living in Guatemala city, the father is a diplomat at the US embassy, a useful connection and lovely people to spend a day with. Really enjoyed Tikal and should be interesting to compare it to future Mayan ruins I should be visiting.After returning I headed off to visit lake Atitlan, about 2hours from here. The journey there was pretty hard going after a late night in town the night before but made it and survived a 45min boat ride to our destination a tiny place called San Marcos. Spent 2 very very relaxing nights there. Was literally nothing to do but relax, eat some nice food (lots of melted cheese and nachoes here!), have long naps, read and have massages (normal and shiatzu massages, i'm now well versed in the differences). Found myself chatting about having my energy realigned, my aura and general spiritual, mental and physical well being (clearly didn't know what I was talking about).  But very important in San Marco and we became chilled out hippy chickies for a few days. All quite amusing and very pleasant way to relax before New Years mayhem!Back from the Lake on the 31st...about the same time as most of you would have been throwing champagne around Henley Rowing Club and seeing in the new Years. We were starting to feel like the only people left in 2006 for a while. Spent the early part of the evening at Dom and Doreen's house (project managers) we had a BBQ for all the volunteers, i made more brownies and we stuffed ourselves with more food.  At 11pm we headed out to the center of Antigua for a huge street party around the central park and the Archway. The streets were heaving, lots of street performers and alcohol flying around. The fireworks at midnight were spectacular and went on in all directions for at least an hour. No one loves fireworks more that Gautemalans who owww and ahhhh at every one. Highly amusing and lots of fun! After the sky fireworks began the craziest thing ever, man stapped on a wooden frame with lit fireworks attached and is called El Torro...The Bull then runs through the crowd as the fireworks go flying off into the crowd!! Completely ridiculous but also slightly hilarious at 1am on New Years Day! Causes mayhem and we left shortly after to bop in a bar to Guatemalas hottest punk band! A night without salsa dancing but moshing and bopping around was a great end to a very memorable and crazy New Years. Spent yesterday convinced I might die, standard New Years Day behaviour and shared by most of the volunteers. Almost everything was shut here, so no internet and no nice cafes with comfy sofa and free films to entertain us so spent much of the day in bed and failing to plan my lessons. OopsToday, equally memorable, was the Civil Wedding of Dom and Doreen! Very exciting and really beautiful ceremony in a hotel, only 50people, including all the volunteers and a lovely meal after. Had steak for first time in a month and had a generally great day. Their Church wedding is not until next November but felt really lucky to be able to share in their special day (cheesy?!).  Back to school aka work tomorrow so off to make a plan. Verbs I think!
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