TravelStream™ news feed for member jamie88 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jamie88 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:41:48 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1220881200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1220881200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1220881200/tpod.html Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:41:48 -0400 Jamie's Central American Adventures!

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Leicester, England, United Kingdom

So we've been back a week now the bags are unpacked, bed-bug prevention measures have been taken and any tan that I did have is fading! So now is the time to wrap this blog up unfortunately, I know you're all going to miss it!
The first thing I've learnt is that eleven weeks is a long time and, although every week was fun-filled and action-packed, when you've stayed in two places with bed-bugs and creaky old bunk beds in your final two weeks you do start to miss your home comforts; baths, football and my own bed for me in particular! However it was fully worth sacrificing these things to have the experiences and times that I have had.
I'm not sure if I'll travel again, they talk about people being bitten by the 'travelling bug' but I think the bed bug got to me first so it might have missed me. I think that one trip may be enough for me having seen a major part of a continent and when the total cost of the adventure was about £2,000 (including flights) it's not something I'm sure I'd be prepared to be saving to do again! At least I can say I've done something.
Going away I knew I would learn things and maybe change as a person but I didn't expect my outlook to change as much as it has. I don't want to sound all "travelling changed my life man!" but I think that you can't help changing and reflecting when you're out of your home environment for such a long time, and I think others in the group found this too and have made changes themselves.
I've learnt many small and insignificant things: the girls pointed out that I always wear blue and if not black, working out bills has told me my maths is actually alright, turtles don't like bright lights and I've learnt a few new drinking games! But I've also learnt a lot of important things about myself and other people.
As a group, the five of us were somewhat thrown together and, me and Oli aside, none of us knew each other before we went away. We had met a few times in a bar at university but until we got to Costa Rica we didn't really know each other. The way things happened we were only really a five for our time in Costa Rica and maybe the first week in Esteli, which in many ways is a shame because we had some good times together and a lot of laughs. By the end of our time in Esteli Oli and Natasha had decided that they weren't going to be joining us in Mexico and would go elsewhere instead, but if people decide to separate off from the group then that's a decision that they make and you just have to get on with enjoying the rest of your time and we did.
With eleven weeks being such a long time to spend with the same people day in, day out I knew there would be ups and downs and maybe some arguments, it's pretty inevitable in such a situation. Thankfully, there were no major arguments. Oli and Natasha didn't like being mentioned in this blog a few weeks into the trip, as things progressed, but it was only meant to be a light-hearted, simple description of my experiences during my travelling for my friends and family to keep up to date with and I didn't mean for anyone to be offended by anything - I tried to be sensitive to the fact that some of the group had told their friends/family to read it, so certain details/events were omitted!
After Oli decided to move in with Natasha, being in a Spanish-speaking house alone, unable to speak the language, gave me a lot of headspace and thinking time in particular. Although I'd always meet up with Ellie and Rachael to do stuff in the evenings or afternoons that we weren't at university, there was a lot of time where it was just me, my thoughts, my iPod and a reading book, until one of my family spoke to me, then the phrasebook got involved too! In the end this little surprise didn't turn out to be a bad thing but you can't expect other people to treat you as you would treat them.
So as the group turned from five to a trio and a couple, I spent more and more time with Ellie and Rachael, two great girls that I wouldn't want to lose touch with having shared the times and experiences we have. Although we'd probably both accept we didn't really bond fully until Nicaragua, Ellie was easy to talk to, spend time with and have fun with, which made the week it was just the two of us enjoyable. I don't think the trip would have passed half as smoothly if it wasn't for her meticulous planning and preparation - even if she does worry about the smallest of things!
As for Rachael, I've learnt that she can't take photos, can sleep on a bus no matter how rough the ride is, reads books at geek speed, is sick because of anything, is a lightweight, couldn't write a decent blog even if I gave her lessons, is rubbish at table tennis, and pool, and swimming, and 'Who am I?', and monopoly, and Frisbee, eats slower than a snail, can't open a bottle to save her life, takes an eternity in the shower, is scared of the Tica bus and thinks she's a therapist in the making! However the easy victories in the many competitions and contests we had always made me happy.
I think every one of us would say that the best part of the trip was Esteli. In Esteli we met some brilliant people and a lot of characters that we had some good times with. At the leaving ceremony in particular, with their generosity and abundance of gifts, despite their limited resources and money, it really hit home what nice people they were to treat us so kindly. The laughs, jokes and good times we had with them taught me that you don't need money to be happy and in one of the world's poorest countries we found some of the best people we're likely to know.
Although I couldn't speak Spanish and a lot of the people in Nicaragua couldn't speak English, I found that the language barrier with some of the students and people in everyday life was manageable and I did learn a little bit of Spanish to get by in situations such as in taxis, shops and restaurants. I think it's something that I may look to continue and learn more of but I'll have to see in time.
In order to make sure this isn't a book I'll finish it here. I hope I've kept everyone relatively informed and entertained with this blog, I did enjoy writing it, even if the novelty wore off towards the end of the trip!

Take care, Jamie xxx
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Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Our final week was spent on Isla Mujeres, a small island a 30 minute boat ride from Cancun. Despite the island being small we didn't really see much of it as most of our time was spent in the hostel, on the beach or walking along the promenade that led to the supermarket. Laura was with us for our first few days before she left our again bed bug-infested dorm to head back to Cancun for her flight.
Most of our time at the hostel was spent in the beach bar which was really good and we rarely went to bed before 5am throughout the week. This started when me and Rachael decided that we'd try and not go to bed and sleep on the beach instead. We made it through to 7am before cracking having seen the sun rise, escaped the attention of a beach thief who was sneaking around in the trees behind us whilst we sat listening to music and having met the world's most agreeable security guard. A typical conversation with the security guard would start with him suggesting something: "you guys should go on the beach", us replying: "no, we don't want to there's some guy sneaking around in the trees" and then him agreeing: "you guys don't want to go to the beach, there are thieves there who will steal your bags, bad idea to go to the beach"!
As well as the security guard, we met lots of other interesting people including Yaniv, the barmen, Robert and a load of toffs from Bristol, who played a practical joke on Rachael by giving her sea water to drink when she was drunk. Rachael was determined to get her revenge however, coming into my dorm at some crazy hour to soak every empty bed with water because as the beds were empty they clearly belonged to the culprits!
Saturday was the last full day of our trip and we planned to spend it on Isla Mujeres before getting the boat back to Cancun early Sunday morning but hurricane Gustav meant that there was heavy rain and the possibility that the boats could have been cancelled so we decided to get back to Cancun. Deciding to spend our last night in comfort we returned to the Radisson where we had the last supper there before our flight the next day.
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Tulum, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

We spent three nights in Tulum at the Weary Traveller hostel just down the road from the bus station. Our first night was spent around the hostel, sitting in the hammocks, cooking some food on the barbeque and drinking beer. Just as we were heading to the room for the night a guy named David from Oldham, who we have now seen in Puerto Viejo (Costa Rica), San Juan del Sur (Nicaragua) and Tulum, asked us if we fancied going to a bar down the road. Ellie was feeling ill and Laura was tired from working at Legoland 23 hours a day before she joined us, so it was just me and Rachael left.
After Rachael had spent an eternity getting ready, we headed downstairs to join the group going out but we were too late as they had just left. After some poorly orchestrated stalking by Rachael, we had lost David so went to the bar across the road from our hostel where they sold us a beer in a plastic cup and told us they were closing. We thought we knew vaguely which club the group were going to so we drank our beers on the five block walk and ended up in 'After Discoteque' where the group wasn't to be found but Sean Paul, salsa and dirty dancing middle-to-old-aged couples were. A good night and four hours later we walked back, stopping to buy some "Mayan crisps" and water along the way, before we arrived back at the hostel at 5am!
The following day was spent on the beach before we returned to the hostel to get showered before heading for 2 for 1 pizza at a restaurant, pizza 'con cebolla' as I had specifically asked not to have! It was Saturday night that we realised why the room was as cheap as it was, because without the aid of alcohol the lack of air conditioning was felt.
Sunday was again spent on the beach but the day began with a nasty discovery as a guy came to fumigate our room, telling us that we had bed bugs, explaining the bites we had all got. When we got back from the beach we decided to try and speak to the hostel manager to ask why our room wasn't checked and fumigated before we had slept there for two nights and to try and get compensated in some way. Me and Ellie locked into Apprentice-style negotiations with him in his office and, despite catching him out several times, he clearly wasn't going to give us anything except his kind advice that we should steam our bags before we left to stop the spread!
A bit pissed off with his attitude we went for a nice meal and a few drinks. When we got back to the hostel the manager told Ellie there was something on her bed. After wondering whether it was more bed bugs, fleas, leeches or some other nasty parasite, it turned out to be a note from him explaining that he had had a hard day and was sorry for the way he had been with us! Faced with the prospect of a final night in the infested and boiling hot room we went to numb the senses at 'After' again.
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Cancun, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

We arrived in Cancun early on Sunday evening and checked into the very basic but very cheap (fiver a night) Blue Hostel near to the bus station before heading to the hotel where Rachael had been staying with her boyfriend Miffy for the week. When we arrived we made our way up to their room before going for dinner in the hotel restaurant. After dinner we had a few drinks in the room before getting a taxi back to our hostel to check out the Sky Blue Bar on the roof of the hostel that supposedly had a jacuzzi and was open until late. When we actually got to the bar all that was there was rubbish music, rubbish bottles of beer, a dirty bath and a bolt on the wall where the seating was that gave an electric shock if touched/brushed against! When Ellie informed the barman he just laughed and said: "yeah we know!" In our guidebook it says of Blue Hostel that it isn´t one for people who like an early night and for once Lonely Planet hadn´t lied as the rubbish music continues, very loudly, early into the next day!
On Monday morning we got up and had a shower in the communal showers of the hostel then headed round to the hotel where we had arranged to catch the free shuttle bus for hotel residents to the beach with Rachael and Miffy at twelve. When we arrived we found the ´do not disturb´ sign on the door and two hangovers! In the end it was just me and Ellie fit enough for the beach so we hopped on the shuttle bus to the Beach Club where we gave a bogus name and room number to get into the place for cheaper. On the way in to the Beach Club there is a sign saying ´you are a few steps away from paradise´ and there are blue seas, sun and comfortable sun loungers.
By the evening I was a little burnt on my forehead but as I knew, and as I told everyone, it was going to go brown so it was fine by me! With it being Miffy´s last night of the holiday we wanted a good night so in the end it was decided that we´d do something really special and go to Hooters! It was an interesting experience and typical of Cancun which itself is tacky and sleazy but not cheap. After a drink and having maxed-out the Hooters vibe (including the part when everything stops and the waitresses and managers line up to do the Macarena!) we went to a couple more bars for some drinks before a taxi ride home where the driver tried to rip us off, meaning that it turned into a two-taxi ride home for me and Ellie because we didn´t want to pay double for the extra part of the journey to our hostel.
Tuesday afternoon was spent at the Beach Club with Rachael who unluckily for her was moving to our hostel, a far cry from the Radisson where she had been staying. In the evening we went for a meal where we did some maths and decided that checking into the Radisson the following morning would be worthwhile as we could spend the day in the pool there and eat at the restaurant to save on taxi fares.
Once we were up we lugged our bags into a taxi, said goodbye to our filthy hostel, and checked in with a booking on their free internet upstairs (a room for three people with two double beds - despite the fact that Rachael´s friend Laura was joining us that evening for a week, meaning that there was in fact four of us), to make sure we saved the extra pesos! The rest of the day was spent round the hotel pool. When Laura arrived in the evening we smuggled her bag upto our room for three!
Thursday brought a return to Beach Club, this time with Laura, but also a nasty surprise as my forehead decided to play snake instead of turning brown as expected so I now have a nice, new, red forehead. Having learnt from my mistake I went to the local flea market to purchase a fetching Corona baseball cap to replace my lost hat so I now sport a true ´Brit abroad´ look with my cap, sunburn and football shirts! Thursday evening was probably the highlight of our time in Cancun as we decided to go to Coco Bongo´s which provided a show that suits Cancun down to the ground with cheap drinking for tourists and all miming and all-dancing Kiss, Guns n´ Roses, Madonna, MJ, Queen and Jesus and his disciples impersonators! This show followed our pre-drinks in Coco´s bar with sleazy waiters and waitresses who are forced to do stupid dances and try and sell shots of spirits that come with a free grope to the punters! On Friday we were up bright and early at 12:30pm, having been partying at Coco Bongo´s until 5am, ready for our 1:00pm checkout and we went to the bus station to catch a bus to Tulum.
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Merida, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

To reach Merida we took a night bus from Palenque at 11:55pm so that we wouldn't lose a whole day to the nine hour journey. We paid for a bus with more leg room which made sleeping a little easier but it wasn't the best sleep I've ever had! However we were both glad to be in Merida for 9am and still have a full day to explore. When we got to the bus station we took a taxi to a hostel recommended by both our guidebook and a Spanish couple on our excursion in Palenque.
The hostel was one of the best we have been to and we got a free breakfast and internet access on arrival, and ended up as the only two in our six bed dorm as the place was empty. After looking round the town centre, which was very European and didn't have much interesting to offer except a beggar lady with a massive tumour across her face, we went to an anthropology musuem to learn a little more about Mexican history and culture.
In the evening we went for a nice meal at a hotel nearby that the Spaniards had recommended, however most of our time there was spent watching the Olympics on TV and cheering the Brits in cycling and rowing, before heading back to the hostel for a few cheap beers in the garden.
We were woken up bright and early by people walking through our dorm to the bathrooms on Sunday morning so decided to get up and catch the bus to Cancun earlier than planned. Once we had showered and packed we went back to the bus station only to find all the earlier buses were sold out so we had to wait there for an hour and a half. Four hours later and we had ended our week of travel across Mexico to reach our destination - Cancun.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1214249760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1214249760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1214249760/tpod.html Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:07:15 -0400 Jamie's Central American Adventures!

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Cahuita, Costa Rica

We headed to Coco`s bar on Friday night at around 8:00pm ony to find the place desserted, in Cahuita people only head to the bars after 10:00pm at the earliest and apart from a brief moment when, no exaggeration, at least twenty Costa-Rican police officers entered the bar to check for ID and make their presence felt. As the night got older it became evident that in Cahuita it is the men that tend to go out with the male to female ratio at least 4 to 1, something that the three girls exploited to the full - getting free drinks, practising their Spanish and being dragged around a dancefloor to Salsa beats! Speaking little Spanish, me and Oli could only sit back and wait to provide the bouncer-esque escort back to the appartments! As despite our beauty and charm, no senoritas chanced their arm!
Saturday was spent relaxing on the beach and around the hostel, scratching the many mosquito bites that we have acquired now that we have moved to the coast, with Oli (rather ironically as he didn`t take his first malaria tablets until we reached San Jose) racing into the lead with multiple bites from our time in this malaria zone! However, we are all fast catching him up. Following a nice meal where I had the `catch of the day` shark, we decided to play cards back at the hostel whilst listening to some music. When Natasha and Oli returned from their pursuit of cigarettes they explained that they had been in Coco`s again and that there was some live music happening there. Unfortunately, Ellie had already retired to bed but the rest of us grabbed some money and headed for an impromptu night out. Although we didn´t get to see much of the music because it finished just after we got there, we stayed out for some more drinks and a little bit of dancing where me and Oli ruled the dancefloor with our European dance moves!
Despite our late night we had to be up early on Sunday for the trip we had booked to see an indinginous Costa Rican tribe. First stop was at an iguana farm where a lady showed us the several stages of iguana breeding, an animal that has been brought back from the verge of extinction. The lady also took us around the surrounding forest, showing us all the different plants and how they make use of them. The second strop was at a chocolatier whose tribe had only been brough into modern civilisation in 1997 when some Christian missionaries taught them to read the bible. She explained that the purification given to humanity through Christ´s sacrifices brought an end to many of their old tribal rituals that they believed were needed to purify themselves. We were allowed to taste the many different types of food and she showed us how chocolate was made Blue Peter-styley! Our third and final stop was at a shayman who showed us more plants from the rainforest that are used for different remedies.
After having arrived back from the trip we stopped for a photo with the organiser - who claimed to be Cahuita´s last ever cowboy - then headed for an afternoon on the beach where, inspired by earlier, I sculptured an amazing iguana in the sand (heartlessly destroyed by Rachael´s foot) and I taught a little girl how to play frisbee. She certainly learnt more about frisbee in the two minutes I was teaching her than Rachael has learnt in her whole lifetime judging by how she can now throw a frisbee and it was nice to have a game of frisbee where one person isn´t always running to fetch a dodgy throw! The day was rounded off with an Italian meal where most of us ate huge pizzas and then we whiled the night away drinking and playing cards.
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Palenque, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico

Our bus to Palenque was about half an hour late and took six hours rather than five, but we had loads of leg room and got a free drink so were happy. As the bus was late, we got to Palenque at about 10:00pm rather than 8:45pm so we decided to just get a room at the hotel next to the bus station rather than risk not being able to find somewhere to stay. The room was of a decent standard and cleanliness but the bathroom stank! We dropped our stuff off and headed out for something to eat. Whilst we were out we booked a tour to the Chiapas ruins and Agua Azul the following morning and a night bus at 11:55pm Friday night for the nine hour journey to Merida.
Friday morning and, as usual, we were up bright and early for our tour. We went to the Chiapas ruins first but on arrival were surprised to find that entry fee wasn´t included in the price of the tour - we hadn´t checked our tickets! Because we didn´t have enough money to pay for a guide as well as Agua Azul later, we just went round ourselves which worked out well in the end because we could see what we wanted to, understood a bit and saved some money. The ruins are over a thousand years old but still pretty well preserved and there were four zones to look around and a museum. We had to be back at the bus for 12:00pm to go to Agua Azul and as usual some people were late - the people we were going to be paying to go on the tour with had we had the money!
En route to Agua Azul we stopped at another waterfall, not too different from the one we visited in Costa Rica but we still had to pay 20 pesos to see it. A crazy taxi ride with some of the most dangerous overtaking manouveres possible from our driver, and we had reached Agua Azul - a series of freshwater, blue lagoons that you can swim in - safe and sound. When we first arrived the weather was really nice and we went for a swim in one of the lagoons which was freezing cold so really refreshing. Ten minutes later however we were running for cover as it was chucking it down and we ended up in a restaurant with a Spanish couple and two old, American ladies from our bus who are only a few days into their travels but are clearly going to end up sick of each other judging by the three disagreements they had in the space of the day we were around them!
Most of the tour was switching buses on the way back to Palenque and going to San Cristobal whilst me, Ellie and the Spanish couple were going back to Palenque. After the brief stop for the rest of the minibus to change onto a coach and for an Italian couple to demand their money back and acuse our taxi driver of being in the Mafia, the Mafia taxi driver took us back to Palenque - a little slower following the Italians´ criticisms of his prior driving! When we got back to Palenque we had a meal and wasted away the few hours until our night bus to Merida.
We had left our bags locked in a cupboard in reception at the hotel all day and when we went back to collect them my small rucksack has disappeared. Thankfully it didn´t have anything valuable in it so I wasn´t panicking majorly but was still pissed off because it had been at the front of the cupboard, the last thing to be put in there, but was now missing. After asking after its whereabouts and preparing to get angry and threaten to call the police, the guy on reception did what me and Ellie had failed to do and found it in the back of the cupboard. Whether it was a simple mistake that the bag had been moved to the back of the cupboard, or whether it was someones handywork having seen the bag with a padlock on it, I don´t know but I was just relieved to have it back and we could go to catch our bus to Merida!
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San Cristobal de las Casas, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico

Our stay in San Cristobal was short but sweet. We got the bus from Tapachula early on Tuesday morning and arrived late afternoon/early evening. Having booked into the hostel that we had found in our guidebook, we went to have a look around and found San Cristobal to be a really nice place in a little mountain town. After our long time travelling we fancied a good meal so we searched in vain for a pizzeria. At one point we did find an Italian restaurant but after I had polished off the free bread they came to take our order and told us that they didn´t have a menu or serve pizza, so we upped and left!
After ages walking around in search of a restaurant in the guide, we gave up hope of finding it and instead just asked people where we could find a good pizzeria. It was at this point we discovered that Mexicans won´t tell you if they don´t know where something is and will instead just direct you any old way. An hour, and four or five people´s directions later, we asked one final person, a street seller, who eventually gave us the correct directions to ´Pepe´s Pizza´. The pizza at Pepe´s was okay but not worth the massive treck.
We decided that we would make the most of Wednesday because we had lost the previous day to travelling so we got up early and headed to the market in town. There were lots of stalls and plenty of indigenous goods but I only bought a new belt. After we had seen all of the stalls we headed for a minibus to a Mayan village, stopping at a store where I bought a fake Mexico shirt and a Real Madrid shirt on the way. We got a little lost again and encountered the same problem as when we had been searching for the pizzeria - Mexican directions. This time we didn´t waste too long and found the minibus, already holding some Mexicans and the chickens that someone had bought at the market!
A short ride later and we were in San Juan de Chamula . It is an old Mayan town where people still dress traditionally and live according to old customs and their own religion which states that if you take a photo of a Mayan then you steal their spirit! We went in the church for a while and paid a little boy to explain the significance of everything (the pine needles on the floor, the statues of saints wearing mirrors and people drinking coke whilst praying!).
Because we have tried to pack a lot of travelling into this week our schedule is pretty tight and we had booked a bus to Palenque on Thursday afternoon but which arrived there at 11:00pm. After a few hours hassle where we couldn´t phone any hostels in Palenque because the phone numbers in the guidebook were wrong, we changed to an early bus to increase our chance of finding somewhere to sleep in Palenque and to allow us to go on a canyon tour in the morning before we left. The rest of the evening was spent in a little bar near the hostel drinking Sol and eating tapas before we went to the bar nextdoor to the hostel where there was a drumming show.
The canyon tour on Thursday was really good. We got a minibus from near the hostel to Sumidero Canyon where we boarded a boat for the tour. The walls of the canyon went as high as 600m and there were monkeys climbing along the rocks. After we had seen a couple of waterfalls and a shrine halfway along the canyon (where you could see Jesus´ body in the rocks), the boat turned round and headed back. It was on the way back that we saw howler monkeys and several crocodiles (one was about 8ft) about 10 feet away from us on the banks of the canyon. After a short stop in the town centre, the tour bus dropped us off at the bus station in San Cristobal in plenty of time for our bus to Palenque but also in time for some of the worst torrential rain I have ever seen. Luckily we didn´t get too soaked and could board our bus dry.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1218639060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1218639060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1218639060/tpod.html Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:16:09 -0400 Jamie's Central American Adventures!

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Esteli, Nicaragua

Our final week in Esteli went way too fast. We began our final week of teaching on Monday but thankfully didn´t have to do our cultural exchange dance class in the afternoon because the girls choreographing it had had an argument and couldn´t agree on the next steps! The morning had been a pretty packed day of teaching, as I got scared that I hadn´t actually taught my class anything and had just spent the time listening to English songs and playing games, so I crammed in a load of grammar work into one morning!
On Tuesday, Rachael´s crazy assisstant Sobeyda had organised a cultural food exchange. Me, Ellie and Rachael (well just Ellie really!) cooked a curry and most of the students cooked various Nicaraguan dishes. After trying lots of traditional food including some Nacatamales - after which you can´t drink milk or soda or pretty much anything, or you will die - we were stuffed but the students still tried to feed us more, with everyone wanting us to try what they had made. The rest of the morning turned into a photo session as pretty much everyone wanted a photo of, or with, us and the cheeks were aching from all the smiling.
Wednesday was the final day of teaching so we did lots of work before I had my final sports class, in which I organised a´my class vs.´ game of footy which we edged 5-4 - it was a nice way to end the classes. In the evening I had to write the test for the following morning and me, Rach and Ellie planned to go out to celebrate once we had finished them, but it never really materialised and we ended up just having a couple of beers at my house instead.
Thursday was the day of the exam and it began with a present from one of my students, Vielka, who had bought me a large but very nice yoghurt, milk, coconout, strawberry frozen thingy that her mum had made. It was really nice but I told her it wouldn´t get her extra marks. After all the students had finished I marked all of the tests and all but one student in my class had passed. It was a real shame that the lad who failed was Carlos who had been really kind to me, teaching me some Spanish, attending class everyday and showing me a softball game one afternoon - although I was generous with his marking I still couldn´t find a way to pass him! When he turned up in the afternoon with a few of the other students who were practising theatre and dance it was really awkward.
In the evening we went to Vuela Vuela, a nice bar near Ellie and Rachael´s house. After a few drinks and a food platter we were just about ready to leave when a man came across and asked if he could join us. We said yes and the man turned out to be every inch of the character he looked. His name was Richard (or Ricardo) and he was a middle-aged, Anglo-Argentine, translator with a handlebar moustache, who had just moved to Esteli as Washington was too expensive. He spouted a load of pompous nonsense in his RP accent and I was biting my tongue extremely hard at certain moments - particularly when Rachael asked him to expand on his family´s work in the meat-packing industry. However there was more to him, and eventually he started telling me about his problems with drugs such as Ritolin. Rachael couldn´t find such sympathy and had a heated debate about Shakespeare with him instead!
Friday was the last day at the university which meant that we had the closing ceremony which was planned for 10am so after a lie in I got a taxi to the university for the last time. In Nicaragua people share taxis and the driver decided to take a fare from a woman wanting to go somewhere in the opposite direction of the university so I ended up arriving at 9:50. Being Nicaragua, it started at 11am after we had had a brief feedback session with Delia from Third World House anyway!
The ceremony was really nice and after a couple of speeches and the national anthem, we gave out the certificates for our students and were given one ourselves from the university which was nice, even if my name was spelt ´Bernard´ on it! We also had presentations of the cultural exchanges so Oli and Natasha showed off their murals and Rachael and Ellie´s fantastic Nicaraguan adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was performed, it´ll be on in the West End in no time.
After these two presentations each class gave us some presents and so did a related organisation in Esteli (I´m not sure who they came from!). I ended up with two Abu Hamza-style shirts and two key rings whilst the others got varying presents, but at least one Abu Hamza each. Unfortunately the last act of the ceremony was us performing the dance that we had mastered in our dance classes - not on TV as Ellie´s assisstant and host dad had us believe - but still in front of everyone. Three minutes of embarassment later and it was all over and we spent some final time with our classes - in true teacher fashion I had a lolly for them all - then the photo-taking recommenced.
It was arranged that we would go to a bar called Rincon Regal at 8pm that evening and after meeting with Susana (my older but very religious student who didn´t fancy the bar) at a quieter bar, me, Ellie and Rachael made our way to Rincon. Quite a few students turned up and we spent a few hours drinking, dancing (we even cracked out our the dance we´d learnt again) and chatting. By midnight, most people had left and Oli and Natasha also left to head home but us remaining three went to a karaoke bar with Fran and Wilfredo, where we ended up singing and Ellie and Rachael murdered ´Gangsta´s Paradise´!
Saturday was our final morning in Esteli as our bus to Managua was at 3:15pm but my family was nowhere to be seen so I left them a postcard saying goodbye on the dining room table before heading round to the girls´ house. After some speed-packing Ellie was ready for the bus but Rachael was nowhere to be seen and we didn´t know where she was. As we were catching the last bus to Managua and couldn´t miss it (or else we would miss all our other buses) we had to leave her behind. Catching the bus was less crucial for Rachael as she was going to Cancun to meet her boyfriend for a week and was flying there because she was scared of the Tica bus and begged her parents to pay for a flight instead! Literally with one minute to spare, Rachael rocked up at the bus station - the clock on her computer in the internet cafe was 20 minutes slow and she hadn´t realised how fine she was cutting it!
After one final present from Reinaldo in my class who had gone to the station to give us all presents, we boarded the bus away from Esteli, the first leg of our journey to Mexico. It was just the three of us leaving Esteli as Oli and Natasha have decided to go elsewhere in Central America to visit her cousin´s friends and we´ll be meeting them in Mexico sometime before we fly home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1218661260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1218661260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamie88/1/1218661260/tpod.html Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:07:48 -0400 Jamie's Central American Adventures!

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Tapachula, Pacific Coast, Mexico

The second day of our journey was far more comfortable than the first as we had two seats each. In the morning we travelled out of El Salvador and into Guatemala where we stopped for some lunch, before heading onwards to Mexico in the afternoon. After some checks at Mexican customs we were in Mexico and heading to Tapachula, just across the border. When we got to Tapachula we booked into the hotel next to the station and as the best thing about the place seemed the bus station, our tickets to San Cristobal! In need of some dinner we headed to ´the best place in Tapachula´ according to the security guard at the station - from the standard of the food, we can say it wasn´t just the place that was nasty! A third consequtive early-morning start was required for our bus to San Cristobal...
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