Just call me Lara Croft!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, yesterday I climbed a volcano and saw (and heard) real, live glowing lava. I am indeeed an action heroine, now fully equipped to ride horses, scale volcanoes, dive deep seas and do any number of other adventure-type activities!!! At least, that is what I will let you believe for these first, brief moments....

Would love to say that the hike was amazing, worth the effort etc, but it wasn´t!!! The volcano itself was amazing, and incredible to see lava - it really was like looking into the middle of the earth, albeit 25m below us. However, in order to witness this miracle of natural science, we first had to slog through the most hellish hike known to man. In other words 8km on the most dusty road (we are talking inches thick in dust) I have ever encountered and all in what we now discover was 96 degree heat! My lovely white t-shirt was such a bad idea! we then had a 2km (seemingly vertical) hike to the top of the bloody thing and i really thought at one point i wasn´t going to make it. However, realised this would make for a v poor blog entry and so decided to carry on - look at the things I do you for you dear friends, and you all thought this was a year of decadent self-indulgence! Anyway, managed to recover at the top, marvelled at the lava (whilst feeling simultaneously sick with my first bit of vertigo!) and then watched sun set over ocean (aarh!) before returning to camp for dinner and a camp fire. At this point the pain of the day was behind me, had pasta in my tummy and my legs weren´t aching anymore so felt at one with the world and even managed polite conversation with the token irritating German in our group.

This morning, however, after a horrid nights sleep (i either wore my fleece but couldn´t sleep due to lack of pillow or used fleece as pillow and couldn´t sleep due to being freezing - remembered at 2am exactly why it is I dont go camping) we then had to hike back down. Deeply, deeply unhappy by 8km on dusty road and kept falling over all the time due to poor combination of slight dehydration, extreme tiredness and poor co-ordination!! This was the first (and hopefully only) time I wished I was back at St G!

However, R and I are now safely ensconced in nice hostel, have scrubbed ourselves clean of the layer of dirt (Mum, if you thought i was grubby after India, that had nothing on what i looked like at midday today!) and aer now looking forward to a lovely ice-cream based treat! Flor de cana rum factory and then beach are beckonning tommorrow in the rather random world that is mine life at the moment!!!

¡Hace Calor!

yep, after my constant moaning that i am too cold, i am now in Leon where it is absolutely baking hot!!! luckily it isn´t humid so i can cope, but we have decided that siestas are definately the way forwards

had v fun night last night. We had pretty much exhausted what there is to do in Esteli, done the internet thing and weren´t yet hungry so decided a quick pre-dinner drink was in order. So found nice bar with patio overlooking the square and ordered the obligatory rum (with soda, as advised by a friendly local). There we were expecting a single shot with mixer when along comes the waitress with a 1/4 bottle, ice, lime and a couple of bottles of soda water for our very own cocktail party!!! Burst out laughing to the amusement of the bar and insisted we would just have a couple and save the rest. Unsurprisingly 3 1/2 hours later we wobbled out the bar with an empty bottle of flor de cana (andy, you were so right, best rum ever!). and then caused mayhem in the local pizza place. But the local was right, rum and soda = no hangover the next morning!

An adventure into the mountains

So after Tegucigalpa we had another epic journey over the border and into Esteli in Nicaragua, where I am now. Our lovely taxi driver arrived at the time we had agreed the night before (proudly annoucing that he was using tiempo ingles, or english time to you and me) and then we even managed to get him to drive us through the BK drive through to get brekkie. Slight translation difficulties through those horrid speaker things meant we both ended up with 2 brekfasts each but am happy to announce a new addiction to crossaintwiches!

Rest of the journey was quite uneventful with the exception of this lovely man at the Honduran border who was practicing his english on us and thought we were the funniest people he had come across! We were also amusing the people in the line behind and when i said that my friend was loco, an old lady behind burst out laughing. We like to think we bring happiness to central america!

Anyway, the last 3 days have been spent, on my insistance, in a big national park called miraflor. It proved quite difficult to get there as the Nicaraguans dont seem to believe in making it easy for tourists to get to their eco-tourist developments. But the guidebook said it was lovely and one of the top 5 places to see wildlife so we persevered and after 3 days there are happy to report that we saw a load of butterflies.....and thats about it!!! Even the orchids for which it is famous weren´t flowering. It was nice and all and an experience, but not somewhere I would desperately recommend! Am letting Rebecca chose all our forthcoming destinations! Did get lots of sleep in though as no electricity means not a whole lot of fun after 6pm and I have never been so glad to get to a shower in my life (no running water either)

Back in Esteli now and as a treat for our recent brush with roughing it, went to a cute cafe/park for first bread and cheese in a month! Unfortunately, Nicaragua seems to have more rules as I was told off for lying on the bench in the cafe and R was told off for swinging on the swings......chaos wherever we go. Leon next for a bit of nightlife (hopefully)...

fruit has been located

Bliss, found fruit stall today and filled up on bananas, grapes and blackberries. Made up for the crisps and diet coke we were forced to eat for breakfast in lieu of anything else! We are also staying in a posh hotel tonight with hot showers and cable tv to make up for having to spend 12 hours of our lives that we will never get back in the horrid city that is the capital of Honduras as we make a break for the border!

Have also decided to have a tortilla/crisps : guapa/bonita (words used to describe my loveliness by men here) count. Once the ratio goes in favour of the tortillas i know i am in trouble!! Today has been saved by aforementioned fruit stall and the rather lecherous nature of the men here giving a rather favourable ratio of 0:12

Horses and ticks

Yep, today the sun shone and we went on our horse ride through the mountains and I had the horse from hell! It didn´t want to move, then I went to dismount it thought it would try to kill me. Unfortunately I then had to ride it for 4 more hours with distinctly evil thoughts coming from said animal. Our guide thought I was possibly the most incompetant person ever to mount a horse, but was too kind to say so! Then just to cap said hideous experience, in the shower tonight I found a tick on me. It was just vile and thank god Rebecca was there to remove the disgusting thing. Going to have nightmares tonight!

Had good day really, just have to treat myself to a nice meal tonight to make up for the horror of the tick. Have found my phobia!!!

Still in Gracias

Having a pretty cool time in Gracias, mostly because of the cool people we are meeting and the fact that there is a bit of a fiesta going on here, which is kind of fun in the evening. So far we have seen the annual competition to be the fiesta princess (all 10 year old girls - general concensus is that red is the best colour but significant disagreement on their favourite fruit!) and I have won 10L (about 30p) on their version of roulette. I got quite excited by this and squeeled much to the amusement of the massed Hondurans!

Also went to visit this small village the other day (La Campa) which necessitated us hitching a lift on the back of a pick up truck (dont worry Mum, v safe and the preferred method of transport around here given the lack of buses). Was really fun and the village itself was a real eye-opener. Loads of NGO money appears to be pouring in and they have an internet cafe with the best computers I have seen in a long while. At first we wondered what we had done as it was drissling and the village looked really small, but ended up staying for 5 hours. Managed to get talking to the local family planning woman who appears to work out of her pottery shop and the family planning clinic consists of a white polystyrene box kept under her table which is full to the brim of pills, injections and condoms. She was the coolest women I have met in ages and really interesting. They are so big on family planning and immunisations here it is almost to the point of oppressive but it appears to be working.

Then on the way back we got talking to this guy who lived in La Campa called Alan who was waiting for a lift with us as he had an interview in La Campa for a job leading the education on issues surrounding rural development (we think!). Anyway, we seem to have arranged horse riding with him tommorrow but randomly got talking to a women today who lives in Gracias but knows Alan and says he is lovely and will look after us! Here´s hoping.....

Am looking forward to moving onto Nicaragua though, am hoping to be there by Sunday. As much as I have enjoyed Honduras, am now looking forward to a new country. Just hope they have some food that isn´t deep fried. Never knew it was possible to crave salad!!!

caroline climbs a mountain

well a small part of one! Am now in Gracias, another little mountain town which is pretty cute, but mostly famous for being near the Celaque national park, the proud owner of Honduras´most pristine cloud forest. Luckily I was talked out of doing the 2 day summit hike (I always overestimate my own fitness) as the little 900m climb we did to the mirador nearly killed me! Worst bit was it started to rain, got really misty and cold and the waterfall for which the mirador was handily placed, was not mirarable!!! But on the positive side of things only felt like i was going to die of exhaustion 3 times and, rather remarkably given the slippy nature of the descent, I only fell over once! Didn´t get to the cloud forest but saw lots of cool birds

Best bit of the trip was stopping for lunch at this mad old crone´s house. For about 60p we had a filling meal of carbs (yep, you guessed right, rice, beans and tortillas) and then she showed us how she made coffee from the coffee plants in her amazing garden. Bearing in mind this woman must have been about 65 it was quite a feat and apparently the coffee drinkers said it was v good coffee. She was so cute though and when my friend complimented her on her garden her eyes lit up and she launched into a rather detailed explanation of where the flowers had all come from. To cut a long story short, this was mostly the mountain!

Then a bit later on as we were walking back we came across a young white couple living in the middle of nowhere. Turns out they had been english teachers here, liked it so stayed and built a house. The woman had also, rather bravely, had a child out here and it was fascinating talking to her. The doctors were horrified when she said she wanted her husband to be there at the birth (apparently this would ruin him!!) and then were equally horrified when she said she would have a home birth as all midwives were charlatans! Turns out hers wasn´t great as she kept trying to get the woman to lie down "so the baby doesn´t drop out". As this woman pointed out, after 30 hours of labour that was precisely what she wanted. In the end though she had to go to hospital but the birth cost the bargin price of $3!!!! In a more enlightened fashion, have discovered that birth control is free here, as are STD and AIDS tests. But more worryingly, the pharmacists here seem to be able to hand over anything they like. Had to go for Rebecca and saw sitting there progesterone injections, drugs for breast cancer and all sorts of prescription only medicine for which it was obvious no prescription would be required there!

And still it rains

Well, its still raining a lot but somehow managing to have fun despite this. Seems to be a bit unusual as I saw a headline in the paper with a big picture of a flooded road under "look at the rain" or something like that. Think I made the right decision to leave Utila when I did though as I have just heard that there have been no boats or planes since Sat due to the bad weather! Its like being in the UK again.

Anyway, escaped scary La Ceiba and stayed in a jungle lodge instead in the pouring rain which was really quite cool then went white water rafting yesterday which was less cool as despite the river being huge, there wasn´t much white water. But the best bit was that I met some really lovely people who I ended up hanging out with for the rest of the day including a girl who is working with the Peace Corps teaching about AIDS etc in a beach town in N Honduras and another American girl who is teaching at a school in La Ceiba. So we took over her amazing house for the rest of the day and hung out with her gossiping and (me at least) learning more about Honduras. Apparently Dole have just done a big banana deal with Walmart which will increase Honduran banana sales from $3million to $7million. Not sure where the land is going to come from to grow these extra bananas tho and everyone suspects more jungle might be coming down. The US influence over here is just huge and in terms of the impact on the Honduran psyche and infrastructure is quite scary. Really quite a random day all in all and ended with me talking with a Danish guy in a Honduran house about Wind in the Willows!!! Also had the best burger I have had in ages at the "expatriates" bar across the road. Not going to lose weight at this rate!

So today have had mad bus ride across the country and we (have acquired travel partner - Rachel) are now in the cutest little mountain village called Santa Rosa. Somehow we managed to get ushered on buses all day making the journey v painless and thank god they were actually playing half decent (80s pop and backstreet boys now counts as decent!) music rather than the earsplitting salsa usually forced upon us which not even my beloved ipod can counter. Had my second taste of central american chicken buses as well - old US school buses that get piled full of Hondurans adn people can get on and off wherever they want. Takes forever to get anywhere (people selling tacos can usually walk faster alongside the bus) but its really fun, v cheap and i can practice my spanish by listening to the apparently obligatoy preacher. Learnt today that god loves me but not homosexuals. Also had a less pleasant experience when the traffic suddenly slowed and everyone started looking out the window so me thinking its a police road block takes a good look to be confronted by a dead man in the road with everyone just stood around looking, including the police. So strange.

So thats it for now, just a quick thank you for all the comments. Its lovely knowing you are all still out there!

And it rains, and it rains

Am not a happy bunny. Decided to leave utila this afternoon as it was still raining and thought i would spend a few days in La Ceiba. However, weather is also terrible in La Ceiba - we even have flooded streets with floating cars!- so am escaping from my dodgy hotel and going to stay in a jungle lodge for a couple of days. Its raining there too but at least it is in prettier surroundings and i am going white water rafting tommorrow (www.omegatours.hn). As the lodge guy said, its all there is to do at the moment! And worst of all, my much looked foward to trip to the Moskita wilderness on Monday may be cancelled due to the horrid weather. Ah well, guess it gives me longer in other places but am a bit gutted. Please everyone think nice thoughts about the weather and pray for it to clear up by sunday

A visit to Dr John

Got a true taste of island life here on utila with a visit to Dr John yesterday. My ear was still a bit wierd after my last dives so I thought I would go and see an English speaking doc while I could and am quite glad I did if only for the experience...organised chaos is probably the best way to describe it. You turn up and just wait, and wait and wait as is characteristic here on Utila, but with no obvious reason as to why you are waiting and loads of islanders are coming and going and having a chat. Then after I had waited for 90mins, the surgery closed for lunch for half an hour despite only having 2 people left to see (yes, I was one of the lucky ones). Anyway, finally got to see Dr John's helper Mark (a physicians assistant for those of you lucky enough to be working the NHS) who greeted me by saying I guess its your ears as I havn't seen you use the toilet! Am guessing they only see a limited range of conditions! So apologised for my lack of interesting symptoms, gave a history, and then the infamous Dr John arrived. Bless him! He looked like he should have been selling the big issue rather than treating people. Imagine if you will a quite tall man with shoulder length curly hair attractively topped by a rastaesque beret, a big bushy beard, hawaiian shirt open to the belly, shorts and a distinct lack of footware and there you have Dr John. But bless him, he managed to not tell me off (apparently I have an ear squeeze) and armed me with loads of drugs and sent me away with a warning not to dive for 5 days (no chance of that matey!)

Other than that, have done very little except wander round the island and sunbathe. Makes me laugh simply walking round this place and seeing all these old ladies on quod bikes and golf buggies crammed with 6 kids! Am forcing myself to leave tomorrow though as I really must get on with having some adventures rather than just sunbathing for 4 months and the sand flies here are having a field day with me. Even industrial strength DEET doesn't seem to put them off! Apparently baby oil is the way forward (the bastards drown in it before they can bite you) so am investing in some soon.

On a more personal note - Mum/Dad and Russell, all my e-mails to you keep getting bounced back to me. Am not ignoring you, think its aol being strange.

caroline gets certified

Yep, am now a certified diver and am free to take off into the wide blue ocean (with buddy!) up to a depth of 18m. All very exciting. Things were rather touch and go yesterday though as my first proper dive into the ocean was rather traumatic with me having a (characteristic) lack of control over my body and managing to nearly sit on the only seahorse in the vacinity (and which everyone gets very excited about seeing)! Then messed up my bouyancy a bit later in the dive and started floating away. Really started to panic at that point as i have this irrational fear about floating away in space and dying up there and it was bit like that. So burst into tears after the dive and didn´t really want to do another one but made myself and the other 3 dives were somewhat less eventful! Unfortunately I was still rather clumsy above water and managed to slip rather spectacularly on the boat and now have a massive bruise on my arse and on my foot. Am physical wreck!

Bank chaos

Yes, have just managed to cause chaos in the only bank on the island. Well, chaos is probably a little strong, but I failed to realised that the (never ending) queue is meant to follow a line of slightly darker tiles on the floor (somewhat like the yellow brick road but without being yellow). This caused much consternation! I also managed to get myself in a huff about old people pushing in the queue....until i saw a sign saying people of the third age (!) and pregnant women dont have to wait. This should have made me feel bad, but instead I just got crosser.....yes I am a bad person but I have also just had to stand in line for 65 mins to withdraw some much needed money. After the first half hour I would happily have made a one legged 95 year old wait in line behind me if it meant i might have actually been served sometime today!

Also managed to cause much hilarity at a 'pub' quiz we went to last night on account of being inutterably crap. given that between the four of us we had 6 degrees and had to a significant proportion of the world's countries we still only managed to get 4 / 10 in the first and 3/10 in teh second round. However, am happy to report a successful comeback to end up joint 2nd (out of 6!)

Almost a diver

Today I had my second confined (in the very loosest sense of the world as we were in the ocean, but just a v shallow part) dive and managed not to burst an ear drum (my biggest fear) but did manage to swallow a rather large gulp of sea water. 2 proper dives tomorrow so hopefully i might get to see some fish!

Just realised today that there are no cars on Utila (well, none that i have seen). Everyone drives around on golf buggies and quods, or a pick up truck if you are really flash.....but no cars. Other (more annoying fact) is that no-one appears to want to serve food between the hours of 2 and 5 which is a bit of a bugger when your dive class doesn't finish until 3 and you didn't have time for brekkie. Ah, the traumas of being away from home!

Had drinks last night in the maddest bar I have been in in ages. It is a bit like a Gaudi creation - a cross between Parc Guell and his house with the dragon on the top for those who have been to barcelona. Its an open air bar which goes back about a block with loads of levels everywhere and bridges etc with all the walls being covered with mosaic or bits of glass or shells or something. Its really hard to explain but it was amazing. And in honour I broke my self imposed rule of beer only in honduras (well, it was broken the night before but that doesn't count as 50p rum and cokes can't be passed up!) and had a rather lovely caiprinha.

Anyway, have to go and watch sunset whilst sitting at the bar (yes, am aware I must sound like a complete lush but have to pack in the socialising while i can)!

I'm in heaven!

Aaargh. Have just written loads and just rather cleverly managed to delete the lot. So you will have to have an editted version!

After having a strop in copan as my jet lagged self couldn't sort anything out and was feeling hopeless and friendless, I hotfooted it to the coast (Tela) to chill out and get in to the holiday / traveller mode. It was quite a nice place, and I met some really cool people, but its also quite odd. For a start it is meant to be one of the best beach areas in honduras but the whole place seems to shut at 8.30 and there are only 2 places to get food if you dont want the standard street fare of tortilla, guacamole, pickled cabbage and refried beans. Then there are loads of afro-carribean people around due to the Garifuna villages near by. Apparently in the 1700s some people in Jamaica revolted so the british shot loads, and those they didn't kill, dumped on a little island (roatan) of the coast of honduras. They flourished and now there are loads of Garifua all along the n coast. its really odd! the villages are meant to be really cool - amazing beaches and huts everywhere, so tried to visit them one day. But unfortunately I am not blessed with the onions sense of direction and despite simply having to follow the coast on my (really uncomfortable) rented bike, i managed to only succeed in getting a sore arse and a bag of lychees!

Next day was spent spotting monkeys on this nearly uninhabited forest island thing. The best bit though was that for lunch, one of the 2 families living there makes money by feeding the tour. So you tell them if you want to eat when you get there, then dad goes off to catch fish adn you get lun ch when enough fish are caught and you get whatever is caught. Fish doesn't get much better!

But the title of this entry relates to the island where I now am. Its called utila and I have come here as there is amazing diving and its world renown for being the cheapest place in the world to learn to dive. I am currently half way through my course with a company voted best in the world in 2003 by PADI for the bargin price of $200. And am staying in a hostel with a pool and bar for $3 a night. www.mango/inn.com. But the island itself is just gorgeous and I am seriously considering getting one of the bar jobs going and not leaving! It really beautiful with an amazing laid back, almost carribean vibe and with some fab beach bars / cafes to cater to the diving / backpacking crowd. Really touristy but doesn't feel overwhelming.

Just to make you all even more sick. Last night we went to one of the bars (all basically wooden shacks on piers going into the ocean) where rum and coke was 50p and a big chunk was cut out of the pier so we could sit there gazing at the stars then looking at the fish swimming by. It was just heavenly. promise that in the future i will have some adventures and crappy days but at the moment this is just perfect!

Anyway, have to go and do my homework (!!) looking at some charts before dinner. Think we are going out with this mad swiss couple we have met who despite them only speaking French, and me not speaking french at all i can somehow understand everything he says. Despite the lovely time i am having here I am missing you all. cant believe i was landing in Guatemala only this time last week

the lonely planet lies

Not sure what to do anymore, my bible is no longer all truthful and nothing is where it is meant to be here (am now in small town of Copan)

Apart from this, nothing much to report today. Had hideous bus journey next to NZer from hell (who I am trying to avoid now, v difficult in such a small town) and then saw amazing Mayan ruins. Best bit was probably this site about 1km further out where all the rich people lived. I was the only person there and managed to somehow obtain a free guide. Unfortunately he could only speak spanish but hey, in an onions-style he was free so its all good. And I got the gist - lots of beds that would have been red

My first taste of Guatemala

Well after all that build up I am finally here, and smiling! The trip got off to a less than promising start when i managed to leave my passport and tickets at my mates house (thanks for finding them before I got to the tube Harnish, I owe you a rather large drink or two) but after that things went swimmingly with a fab flight (despite the best efforts of the air stewards), a window seat and, shock of my life, my bag being the first off the carosel!

Then had my one bit of luxury for the trip with a pre-arranged lovely taxi man who picked me up and drove me to Antigua and my posh hotel (well, posher than the rest are going to be!) This also gave me my first chance to practice my spanish and whilst its fair to say that as I was knackered and he was a talkative soul he did most of the talking, I did at least manage to understand most of it and utter the odd sentence which he was kind enough to pretend he understood. Actually getting loads of chances to practice my english as the people here dont have that irritating habit common in spaniards of answering my rather rubbish attempts at spanish with perfect english. So have to struggle through and so far am just about coping.

So, minor disaster of mosquito repellant lotion exploding inside my toiletry bag aside(that stuff is impossible to remove, especially after a transatlantic journey and with a brain that isn´t working at its fastest), I am loving it here. Weather is gorgeous, town is beautiful and surrounded by amazing volcanoes and have been drinking lovely fresh OJ like its going out of fashion!! Its a funny little place as all the houses are one story so every thing seems really little (except the pavements which are about 1m from the road, an adventure every time you haev to cross the road) and despite loads of spanish schools, the place still feels very guatemalan (or at least, not over run by foreigners). Its also really wierd as there are christmas lights everywhere (not sure why, but i didn´t expect them!) and have even seen one house with a santa and sleigh on its roof, seems not even guatemala is safe from cheesy christmas-related adornments! They are also really proud of their nativity scenes so went to look at a couple. Not sure why they are proud but made suitable appreciative noises and told the guard i thought they were great when he asked (figured its always a good idea to compliment things to people with guns!). My last interesting(ish) observation for today is that on random curbs here there is a slopey bit with this teeny sign right at ground level (which i can only imagine is directed at rats) with a picture of a wheelchair and what i think says Antigua without barriers. This is a great idea, but made somewhat pointless by the fact that the roads that are cobbled, the pavements have holes everywhere and aren´t wide enough for wheelchairs and that only random crossings have slopes. So would seem that there Antigua does indeed lack barriers, but only for one particular route!

Anyway, off to copan in honduras tomorrow (at 4am - urgh - couldn´t find a later bus however hard I tried - seems to be some law against buses at normal times here) so joyous 6 hr bus ride in store. Thank god for my ipod.