Hola my lovely friends!
Well, once again, I have to start with an apology for how
long it has been since my last blog post but I hope you can understand that my
time here flies by and I often need to be reminded that months have passed and
that I’m due to update you all!! I guess, while you all anxiously await my
posts, you could bear in mind that no news is good news, right? ;) Well in my
case, good news doesn’t even come close to describing how amazing my time here
is and has been so far.
I’m now back at home in Siguatepeque after an absolutely
incredible 2 and a half months of travelling around Central America, of which I
have shared very little (unless we’re friends on Facebook!) so I will try and
sum up our adventure without boring you. After our trip to Costa Rica we spent
a couple weeks in Nicaragua (mostly in a town called San Juan del Sur famous
for its surfing!) before returning to Honduras for Christmas and New Year. We
spent the festive period on a Caribbean island belonging to Honduras called
Utila (the smaller, sister island of Roatán, where we were for Honduran
Independence Day). Ione, I and the 4 other volunteers we were travelling with
rented a studio apartment for the majority of our 3 week stay. (Our original 10
day plan got extended more and more as we realised how hard it was to leave
Utila!!) The apartment we were staying in was meant for 2 people and there was
only a curtain separating the bathroom from the rest of the ‘apartment’, so the
6 of us got pretty close… in fact, by the end of 2 and a half months with them,
we were more like family! There were loads of little adventures on Utila from
getting stranded on a tiny island in a tropical storm on Christmas Eve to
treasure hunts for presents on Ione’s birthday, huge ‘pot-luck’ dinners at the
dive shop and much more. It was very strange being away from home for Christmas
(even stranger spending it in a HOT country and swimming in the ocean instead
of the usual ‘wrapped up’ Christmas walk!) but we did make the most of it and all
had a very special and memorable day! After Christmas I took my Open Water
Scuba Diving course (best Christmas present ever, thanks Mom and Dad!!) along
with about 8 of the other volunteers. It was one of the best experiences of my
life and I have well and truly fallen in love with scuba diving… Though I’m not
sure it’ll be quite the same experience back in Scotland!
Christmas Eve on Water Caye
The jetty of our 'home' over Christmas
Caribbean Santa!
We even decorated a palm tree for our presents!
Out for dinner on NYE/ Ione's birthday (thanks Mom and Dad!)
The dive boat!!
Once we finally managed to pull ourselves away from Utila
again (and face the infamous ‘vomit comet’ ferry that goes back to the
mainland… the name says it all) we headed through Honduras again and on to
Guatemala. We travelled first to a small town located in a very beautiful area
called Rio Dulce (the sweet river). This place was just stunning, all transport
to and from the hostels was done by boat and though we only spent a couple days
there we really had the most amazing time. We visited a hot spring waterfall
(one of the only ones in the world!!) where the water falling was really hot
but hit the cold water in the pool at the bottom, forming lots of steam. It was
basically a natural spa, we went all out and covered ourselves in mud too… such
an amazing place!
After Rio Dulce we
headed north to a town called Lanquin. This is where we discovered one of our
favourite hostels of all our time travelling, Zephyr Lodge. This town was way
up in the Guatemalan mountains and the hostel was set right in the middle of
them, resulting in the most beautiful scenery. I remember standing in the
showers which looked right out onto the mountains and valley feeling veeeeeery
calm and at peace with the world (even if a little too exposed!) Whilst in
Lanquin we visited a national park called Semuc Champey, famous for its amazing
staircase of turquoise pools and also spent a day white water rafting on the
river…. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Our raft boat was, quite frankly, a massive fail
(we’re blaming the ‘curse of the GoPro’ for our problems) and we resorted to
‘plan B’ a few too many times for my liking but hey, we avoided ‘plan C’ (thank
God, I have no idea where we’d have ended up!) and it also made for a very
funny video to remember the day by!
Connie, Ione and I at Semuc Champey
Unfortunately due to our extended time in Utila (not that I
regret it a bit!) we didn’t have much time to stay in these places so it felt a
little bit like we flew through Guatemala to start with but at our next
destination, Lago de Atitlan, was a lot more relaxed. We stayed in another very
awesome hostel called Zoola, which had incredible food and a pool, for about 4
or 5 days. I think you’re just going to have to take my word for it that ALL of
Guatemala is just absolutely stunning and the lake was no exception. Our last
stop in Guatemala before we headed off on our journey back to Honduras was,
what we had all been waiting for, Antigua!! Antigua is just the most beautiful
city I have ever been to (definitely one of my very favourite places in the
world!). It’s a fairly small, old, colonial city that I think was once
Guatemala’s capital. I can’t really even place why it was I fell in love with
Antigua so much or what it is that makes it so charming but what I can tell you
is that, if you ever get the chance to go, TAKE IT! Antigua will not
disappoint. The city is well known for its incredible markets, truly they are
amazing! The colours and the wonderful materials blew me away, I probably could
have spent my whole years’ worth of money just shopping and buying Guatemalan
gifts for everyone… I wish I could have! But I can only hope that for now,
photos will suffice.
The view from the hostel in Antigua
Lago de Atitlan
So sorry that was so long - it was just so hard to cut parts
out! And there are maaaaany more stories that I’m sure will come up in
conversation over time… I wouldn’t want to give them all away in a blog post!!
Anyway, now I have been back at school for about a month and
I have to say I am loving it more than ever!! (If you’d asked me last year I
wouldn’t have even thought it would be possible to love it more!) I had the
slightest worry that coming back to work after all that amazing time travelling
and exploring would be hard but thankfully I was completely wrong. You know you
love what you’re doing when you don’t even get post-holiday blues, eh?! My
schedule this year is much fuller than last year and I’m now doing Grades 3, 4
and 5 maths and science. I’m really glad I managed to keep 2 of the same
classes, I definitely feel like it’s made it easier to start again this year
already knowing the students and having a good relationship with the classes.
And my new class are Grade 5… they are just awesome. They’re the oldest ones in
La Providencia and they really are mature for their age. I can joke around with
them and have so much fun whilst teaching them (… okay there’s also the chance
I’ve just become much more immature but either way it’s great!) and because
they work so hard it means we have more time to do fun activities/ experiments.
It’s just going so well this year!
I’ve started a small Tae Kwon Do class with some of the kids
and it’s just going down an absolute storm. They love it and some of them
actually have such potential for martial arts. I just wish I was staying long
enough for the club to really get underway!
Outwith school, again, I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve started
rock climbing again and made really good friends with a group of bilingual
Honduran guys who have been taking me with them! Last weekend we hiked up a
mountain behind Siguatepeque into the forest and up to an amazing waterfall and
spent the day climbing rocks up there… well the guys did… and I tried my best!
Haha. It actually felt like I was an explorer in a movie or something as we
were hacking our way through the plants and trees with machetes! 
Well I think that’s about it for what’s been happening over
here in Honduras. I think you’re more or less up to date with what’s been going
on but if anyone has any questions about my work here or anything else please
get in touch!
All my love, time is flying and I’ll be seeing many of you in
less than 5 months now!! (Scary scary scary!)
Un gran abrazo y besos,
Kayla xxxx
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