Epiphany

I put my make up on in the car on my way to work. It started off as a thing I would do at traffic lights, then became something I do while I'm waiting at intersections or even drifting along in traffic.

Not a good habit I know.

Two days ago I was doing the drifty thing and a cyclist came up on the inside of me in the bycycle lane and gestured fro me to move back into my own lane.

Fair enough I thought. But I also thought about the fact that I hadn't noticed her up to the point she was gesturing at me.

20 metres up the road someone turned left without looking and knocked her off her bike.

Now she was shaken but not hurt and her bike looked ok. But I had one of those moments when you see someone do something terrible and you realise it was pure, blind, stupid luck that it wasn't you.

No more drifty makeup for me.

New Job

I have a new job.
It is my dream job.
It is marketing manager for a publishing company.

I am very happy about my new job.
I won't speak about it here on this blog but I wanted it on record
That I have my dream job.

Something annoying

I spell check my blogs and then I republish but it doesn't pick up the amends. As a result my typos make me look semi literate.
any ideas?

10 things my cats do that drive me nuts but that I tell as fond stories- now via my blog

1. Pinot brings in large live insects and sets them free in my bedroom while I am trying to sleep, Cicadas in distress and trying to find refuge under the covers with you are difficult to ignore.
2. Puck comes into the house making the longest, saddest mewls you'll ever hear and when you approach him to comfort him he runs and hides under a table so that you can't get to him as if his recurring experience is being beaten with a clothes hanger by you.
3. Pinot goes out through the cat flap, around to the front on the flat and scrabbles on the window until you let her in through the human door. Repeatedly. She also scrabbles on the full length mirror while I'm asleep making a continuos knocking sound against the wall and waking the entire house.
4. Puck waits until you're sitting comfortably, sidles up to you and lets you pat him for a second before moving five centemetres out of reach and sitting there expectently awaiting pats and scratchings.
5. Pinot knocks glasses of water off the table, deliberatly spilling their contents onto the carpet as she prefers carpet water to water that's in her bowl. She'll also do this with empty glasses just to make her point.
6. Puck reacts to the sound of the can opener EVERY SINLGE TIME and whines at you until you give him something. The only thing I ever give him that involves a tin opener is tuna and more often I'm opening chickpeas or beans or something else but he still whines.
7. Pinot waits until she can sense you're finally going to brave the day and get out of bed in just one more minute before climbing onto your chest and going fast asleep instantly.
8. Puck eats Pinot's food.
9. Pinot gets your attention by being deliberatly naughty. This may be the glass of water trick or could involve jumping up on the dining room table, kitchen counter or eating off your plate. The attention must involve a combination of shouting and moving towards her flapping your arms to encourage her to desist. Temporarily.
10. Puck, who is way less naughty than Pinot, reacts as if he's being told off when actually I'm shouting at Pinot about any one of the above things.

Domesticity

The thing about being a grown up is that an awful lot of the stuff that you're supposed to allocate time to is fucking boring.

A case in point is the ongoing saga of the washing machine. Here it is in synospis

1. For a variety of reasons, my washing machine has been at a friend's house for about two years.
2. I reclaimed it in about August of last year
3. In December it was nicked (our laundry was outdoors)
4. I put in an insurance claim
5. They decided I was dodgy and made me spend hours making phone calls, filling in forms, visiting police stations and talking to 'assessors' (investigators).
6. I was background checked for criminal record, bad debts and they even had a look at my online auction account to make sure I wasn't coincidentally selling a washing machine
7. Eventually they paid out about half what I had spent including interest on the loan repayments and mechanical breakdown insurance
8. The Flat (me and Claire) bought a second one online
9. While I was away it leaked, flooded the cupboard and short circuted the plug socket
10. We got that fixed... and just last week it broke down completely
11. I got a rental today after waiting three hours for the fuckers to deliver it
12. It's leaked all over the cupboard but luckily we haven't fixed the plug in there so at least that didn't repeat.

So there you are. It's all so fucking mundane and yet I reckon I've spent about 30 hours or so in the last four months on all of the many washing machines I've had in my life recently. And I don't even have a working one yet

30 hours? But that's not very long is it? Well it's more time than I've spent on the following in the same time span:

1. Attending the theatre
2. Watching DVDs
3. Catching up with several of my close friends
4. Skyping
5. Browsing in book shops
6. Taking lunch breaks
7. Going to the cinema
8. Doing voluntary work
9. Drinking cocktails
10. Trying on new shoes
11. Reading poetry
12. Sleeping in

I would much rather be doing any of the latter list but bloody grown up shite always gets in the way.

Maybe I should be like the Queen and only wear my clothes once? That could be solution. But for now I have no clean sports socks to run in tomorrow and that makes me ANGRY.

From Detox to Retox

I have been on detox. No refined sugar, no caffeine, no booze.

No booze?

Yes that's right. But I have had a number of scheduled 'breaks' on the booze front. I've had a few weekends away, some parties and the occassional other celebration where I thought it would be churlish to hot have a few shandies. Or a bottle of wine.

But all very well behaved and waking up without the taste of badgers arse in your mouth.

And then we hit Good Friday. See I was out for a few drinks on Thursday night and it all got away from me a bit. Suddenly they were flashing the lights and there was going to be no alcohol available for the next 24 hours.

I PANICKED.

And so I talked the people I was out with into coming back to mine where I had an unopened bottle of Tequila and an unopened bottle of Jaegermeister. Some of them required minimal persuasion.

The last thing I remember is the first shot of Tequila. And then it was waking up on the couch, covered in bruises and still absolutely hammered.

And then I found myself in a car on the way to Bluesfest in the Corromandel with eight people I had never met and two people I hadn't seen for six months. This was absolutely not my plan for the weekend and somewhat unexpected.

It was an excellent weekend though.

Drinking is great.

Why I listen to Mikey Havoc's breakfast show on bFM

I love Mikey Havoc. He's the shit. And Jose who reads the news is pretty damn good too. But today they were even better.

You see it was 8.30 and time for the news headlines. The bit that gets you all wamred up for the actual news at 9.00. Exciting.

This is exactly, verbatim how it went:

Jose: Today Dan Quail, American Vice President commented on the fifth anniversary of the invasion or Iraq, "We are still committed to blah blah blah, whatever"
Mikey (firstly in a sarcastic, sicophantic high pitched tone but towards the end getting genuininely irate): Oh thank you Mr Quail, you obviously have our best interests at heart, thank you, you reptillian, shapeshifter son of a bitch.

Fan. Fucking. TASTIC.

Post travel blues

So I've been home for a couple of months now and I've got back into 'things'. Work, pets, friends, doing housework etc.

Now this is obviously stating the obvious, but I REALLY REALLY miss travelling. In a tangible, physical yearning kind of way. It's not about being on holiday. It's not about not loving NZ. It's certainly not taht I can't wait to get away from friends and colleagues in this country, It's that I just want to be on the road again. Indefinitely. Is that so unreasonable?

I have had a number of thoughts about how this might be achieved (clearly I've been giving it a lot of thought). I could look for a job that will involve lots of travel. I could pack everything up and volunteer overseas. There's never going to be a better time to do it - single, relatively debt free, no kids. Well......

Except for Puck and Pinot.

And that's what's keeping me here. I would feel like I was abandoning my cats. I'm sure i could find a loving temporary home with someone who they know and trust (possibly Alex) but is that really good enough?

Poo. I really want to travel.

LAX II

Sorry it's taken so long... but here goes.

Where was I? Oh yes. Was planning to buy presents and then this happened.

I got in the queue for immigration. An hour later I was still in the queue for immigration. What was most frustrating about this was that they kept opening new queues but taking the people from the BACK of our queue over to the new queue. Which would then get procesed super fast while we stayed in our S.L.O.W. queue. So the Jamaican lady in front of me had a shout at the immigration steward who was moving people around with no regard to who had been there first etc. She pointed out that 'It's like a freeway. You never know which lane is going to move faster."

Philosophical.

No one else seemed to be philosophical about it though and pretty soon this lady was getting dogs abuse. At this point, I had been in the queue for two hours and my concern had moved from not having time to shop to missing my connecting flight. I spoke to the Aristotle of US Immigration and she told me that I should have told her when I first got to the queue that I had a flight to catch. I pointed out that two hours ago and fifteenth in the queue I thought I had plenty of time to spare. "I'll see what I can do." she said.

Apparently what she could do was to move herself to work on another queue. That queue was far enough away that I would have to leave my queue and lose my place to go and talk to her again. Or shriek at her and probably take 65 bullets to the face by trigger happy yank wank guards.

Here's a sugestion LAX- since you insist on people who don't even want to enter you're shitty, bullying, capitalist pig dog country clearing immigration, how about you have seperate queues for those people who have connecting flights. It's hardly a giant mental leap.

So EVENTUALLY I cleared immigration and I still had to collect my luggage, clear customs, check in, clear security and board. My flight was boarding in twenty minutes. By the time I got to security my flight was boarding. The line was (Now I know I'm prone to a bit of exaggeration but this is the God's honest truth) 250 metres long. I whiped past the line to the security guard, certain that I could skip ahead as my flight was boarding. The security guard looked exactly like Adam Sandler wold if he was a couple of stone heavier.

I fucking hate Adam Sandler. The conversation went like this:

Lorraine: (A bit breathless after sprinting quite a bit, but smiling and friendly) My flight is boarding now
Fat Adam Sandler (FAD): (Smiling delightedly with a vacant look in his eye) Uh
Lorraine:( in a 'oh sorry, it's my accent, you didn't understand me' tone) My Flight. It's boarding now.
FAD: (Still DElighted with himself and nodding) Uh Uh.
Lorraine: So can I go through please?
FAD: Nope

Now here's what I should have said in order to make my point that I am a polite if somewhat stressed passenger and he is not being as helpful as I'm sure he is encouraged to be by his supervisor:

"Oh I understand now, See when you said, "Uh" I just assumed that you were one of those moronic, slow wited morans that your country specialises in the mass production of. But now I see you are in fact a rude and unhelpful neanderthal."

What I actaully said was "Cock sucking mother fucker" Which although harsher, makes me look like the nasty customer.

I can visualise his face now and I really really want to SLAP it.

I fucking hate LAX

LAX

Los Angelus Airport.

I FUCKING HATE the place.

I will be including a number of inflammatory words and links in the attempt to make this blog noteworthy to the American Government and so get my complaint letter on record by any means necessary.

George Bush, Death threat, Saddam Hussein.

The thing about passing through America on your way to somewhere else is that a while ago, some terrorists flew some of their planes into some of their buildings. This is very very very sad. And as a result they are conscious of security the way I am often conscious of my head after drinking nine bottles of wine.

Jihad, Osama Bin Laden, 9/11.

That's fair enough. Now it's quite frustrating that the response to this terrorism hangover is that, on a stopover, from one country to the next, I need to clear immigration, have my photo taken, get fingerprinted, collect all of my luggage, clear customs and go and check it all the fuck back in, clear security, get xrayed and finally go to my shitty departure lounge because LAX was built before a single person in America had any notion of class, comfort or style. But that's the price you pay for transiting in the States and the upside is it increases your luggage allowance.

Terrorism, National security, Suicide bomber.

However.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam.

They seem to have a further obligation to make this process as frustrating as possible.

War, Attack, Invasion.

So on my way home I had a three and a half hour stopover in LAX. 'Ah' I thought, 'I will stock up on books in Barnes and Noble'(books are weirdly expensive in NZ), 'I will visit MAC and MAX my credit card, I will investigate the shops for a present for Dee Bee's birthday.'

Day of reckoning, American infidels, Communism.

No no and no.

Bomb, explosion, incendary device.

I'll have to tell this in installments. I'm getting too angry.

More stories

I have many more random travel stories that didn't quite make the grade while I was there. But I will include them here over the next few days/weeks.

I should say that the reason that I haven't updated here since I got back is because I have been in one of two states that precludes me from updating.

In work
Pissed

This morning it is Waitangi Day in NZ (the day they signed an agreement with Her Maj to let her have the country in return for her protection - this is the non controversial version of the treaty of Waitangi. In fact there are still a series of treaty claims and it's a big political lever. But this isn't really that kind of blog - google it if you're interested). Anyway the point is I'm at home. And although i have a hint of badger's arse in my mouth from last night's drinking I can at least type a sentence without gagging. That's probably because I restrained myself knowing that I was getting pissed today.

Anyway, which story to start with.....

Nearly over

I think I´ve finally cracked hyperlinking ... we´ll see

After two failed attempts to dive on this trip (and one in NZ just before I left) I was starting to think I was jinxed. But I´ve finished off the trip with three days of spectacular diving and I can´t believe it´s nearly over.

I did two reef dives, two at Cozumel (unreal wall of coral) and today, two Cenote dives. When I first did scuba diving in the ocean, I said it was like flinding another planet. Well today I found another one again. Completely different. I loved it.

And now all that´s left to do is pack, get a bus to Cancun (I´m in Playa Del Carmen), pick up some luggage at Dreams and then I´m on a plane home. Obviously I´m not DREADING going back to NZ, but to be fair, I could easily go another couple of months out here. I have fallen in love love love (with the place and people in general - not an individual!!)

For those of you in NZ... see you soon. For those of you not... come and visit, for those of you I´ve met on this trip - thanks for makign it memorable... and come and visit.

Travel roles

Alex and I have travelled a lot togethere. Having travelled a lot together we had certain roles that each of us took becuase we were better at it than the other one. Alex looked after money (boys´ clothes just naturally have more pockets), I always organised the accomodation (partly becuase I´m fussier, partly because it just seemed like I would get rooms when Alex had just been told they were completley full for the next six weeks).

Anyway, it´s not that I can´t work exchange rates or when Alex goes traveling he can´t find places to stay and sleeps rough. It was just that we had our roles.

However there is one thing that was Alex´s role that was purely and simply because I am SHIT at it. Navigation (that´s ´finding places´ to the rest of us).

I couldn´t navigate my way out of a paper bag. I have no sense of direction. I get lost on the way to the bathroom.

But on this trip I have embraced this flaw and just not tried to go anywhere that isn´t really really close to where I am without a cab, or someone else accompanying me who can find their arse with both hands. And I haven´t been lost once (well not really, really lost, just `oh well that restaurant has obviously shut, moved or melted, I´ll just go to this one instead´lost).

Which is why I was very disappointed with myself today when I suddenly realised that when I´d left the ruins at Tulum and gone straight I should have taken a right in order to get back to my hostal.

Here is the list of reasons why this is particularly embarassing:

1. My hostal is about 600m from the ruins. I walked about 2km before I began to think I may have gone wrong
2. On my way to the ruins, I walked past a market, an info booth and some lean tos. On my way from the ruins I walked past a ticket booth and about five hotels before I suspected something was up
3. The fucking Carribean Ocean was on my left when it should have been behind me.

As landmarks go - that´s a tough one to overlook.

Back in Mexico

Following the previous post I decided to catch the ferry from Caye Caulker to San Pedro and do some diving and a couple of wildlife watching tours. I had heard that San Pedro was an upmarket (and more expensive) version of Caye Caulker and they did regular jungle tours etc. Arriving on the Caye I went into the tourist office to see if they could recommend a good budget hostel. They recommended Ruby's which was also in my guidebook. They only had a double room for the first night but there were singles available after that. I was keen to get my bag dropped off and go and sort my tours so I said ok once I'd seen the double room even though even the single room was going to be the most I'd spent so far at US$20 a night.

So I went and investigated and realised that my budget wasn't going to stretch to a diving trip and a wildlife one. So I opted for diving and booked it for today. Yesterday I moved to the single room. It had a padlock on the outside to shut it and from the inside just a rusty bolt in rotton wood to hold the door shut. There was a guy sitting under my window (and when I say 'window' I mean ´fly screen' watching the world go by and drinking a bottle of whiskey. When I returned from a wander he was plastered and tried to come into my room with me.

I went out later and confirmed my dive for today and he'd passed out in the room next to mine with the door open. He soon revived though. From inside my room I could hear him shouting to women to come up to his room around eight. Not one but TWO pimps popped by to see what he needed for the night. He was very specific.

He had a buddy who he was yakking to and from the conversation (which was taking place about a metre from where I sat on my bed with just the fly screen to dull the sound) I discovered that he´d been in the US security forces, he came to SP every year and always stayed at Ruby´s, that he had plenty of booze and drugs for the night, EXACTLY what he spent his time (and money) doing and he was claiming that he had slept with me (amongst many, many others).

At this point I was pretty fucking miserable to be fair. It was only 6.30. If I was going to use the bathroom or get something to eat I was going to have to walk right past this asshole and I was REALLY conscious of the shitty lock on the door and the fact that I didn´t really have a window pane in the window hole.

The thing is this ridiculous travelling pride thing. Every backpacker has a cache of stories about shitty accomodation and transport. About food poisoning, bed bugs and near death experiences. They wear them like badges and trot them out to show how passionate they are about travel, what they´ll endure to make a dollar go further and get an extra day/week/month in Asia/Europe/Central America. And when I say ´they´I mean ´we´. I am absolutely guilty of it. I´ve had shitty rooms, dodgy food and caught buses and trains that were marginally cheeper for much lower quality. I´ve even stayed in a brothel in Singapore before and actually felt perfectly fine with a decent lock and the knowledge that in a couple of days Alex would arrive to meet me and we´d laugh about it.

But after an hour of his ranting I´d had enough. I reckoned that booze, drugs, shitty locks and a solo female traveller who knew no one in the town combo was just too big a risk. I grabbed my stuff and legged it.

Unfortunately my cards, passport and cash was in the office safe (as I was planning to be out all day the next day diving) and I only had US$40 on me to pay my national park fee. The office was locked for the night.

To make a long story a little bit shorter, I had to cancel my dive, use the money to book into the (expensive but safe safe safe) hotel affiliated with the dive shop and I got out of there as soon as I had my stuff and am now relieved to be back in Mexico.

What a day!

Today I awoke to my first hangover of 2008. I remember now why I stopped drinking beer. I doubt it will be my last but I really, really did not enjoy the experience. Particularly as the plan was to go manatee watching and snorkling. I had planned to go with Alan and Julie, a Canadian couple that I met on the way to Flores in Guatemala. Peer pressure prevailed and I went. So rough but so glad.

Manatees, rays, parrot fish, pelicans, storks and a whole day on a boat. Lovely lovely lovely. Best way to shift a hangover. Although I'm still a bit seedy and definitely not drinking tonight! At least right now...

I'm in Belize (Ker, I'm totting up those countries!) which is beautiful but a lot more expensive than the other places I've been so I think I'll do some wildlife watching in the next couple of days and get out of here. Back to Mexico, a final set of ruins and a few days on the beach before the mammoth trek back home.

A couple of days ago I watched the sunrise over the jungle and Tikal and heard howler monkeys, toucans and parrots wake up. One of the best things I've done on this trip and probably ever. For those of you in NZ, if you don't want to be bored to death by photos, you should avoid me for the first couple of weeks!

Why I love New Zealand

Facebook is the shit. It really is. While I was on there today loading photos I noticed that one of my kiwi friends had updated her status to ´is sad about Sir Ed´. Realising that she probably meant Sir Edmund Hillary I rushed to the NZ Herald website to find out what happened. Below is a small extract from the piece;

'To the people of the Himalayas, he was a god. Around the world, he was regarded as the greatest of adventurers, the man whose extraordinary endurance forever changed perceptions of human possibility.

And for New Zealanders, Sir Ed was everything a good bastard ought to be...'

Only only only in NZ would they say 'XX was everything a good bastard should be' on an award winning, media website.

Never in a million years would you see that on the home page of the The Guardian or The Washington Post or The Irish Times. Can you imagine? ´Today we mourn the death of the Arch Bishop of Canterbury - a thoroughly good bastard´,´Millions flocked to pay tribute to one of our nation's best bastard - Stephen Spielberg´, ´Our country is in shock on hearing of the tragic death of one of our good bastards, Eammonn Dumphy´ Atually if you left out ´good´in the last one I could imagine that in print.

I think it´s fucking brilliant. Full link below for anyone who would like to read the rest of the tribute which has some very endearing stories about a real hero.

Driving in Guatemala

Here are some things I have learnt about driving (that´s being driven in my case) in Guatemala.

1. Suspension is for the WEAK.
2. (Speedlimit + 40KMPH) x (Cobbled streets + 1000 years of earthquakes/subsuidence) = (Becoming airborne x a lot)
3. Vehicles in front of you are to be taken over AT ALL COSTS and regardless of speed, size or proximity to oncoming traffic.
4. Use of a single indicator makes you a pussy. If indicators must be used, use your hazards and keep your options open
5. Car jacks are not to be relied on. However this does not mean that you should inconvenience any of the people by asking them to get out of the vehicle while you change a tyre.
6. Sometime animals just like to hang out on the road.
7. If you´re taking the corners at the right speed, the centrifugal force should extract DNA from your passengers.
8. You should accelerate AS FAST AS YOU CAN as soon as all doors are shut. This will aid the passengers who are still standing to find their seats. If they find them with their face rather than their arse... well at least they´ll reach their destination 1/8th of a second faster.
9. If you are a passenger and attempt to rest your head on ANYTHING in an attempt to sleep, you will aquire a dent in it. This dent will be painful but you will be utterly unable to stop yourself from prodding it for the next four days to see if you can still fit your finger inside it.
10. If you get a ridiculously cheap fare it´s because they are paying their driver youth rates. They are paying him youth rates because he is a youth. I.e 14 tops.
11. 14 year old drivers are much more cautious and look like they´re going to cry when you all almost die. Which is nice.
12. If you are hot and the fans aren´t working. Simply mention it to your driver. He will very helpfully, scoot over to the passenger side of the vehicle and and open the other window. It´s important to note that he will definitely still be driving at the time. He may even be overtaking.
13. Sitting in the front seat or anywhere where you can see how close you almost came to hitting whatever if was is foolish, foolish, foolish.
14. Beeping is the punctuation of the highway. It is to be used regularly.
15. No matter how much you tell yourself that your outfit is comprised of sufficient layers to perfectly match all altitudes, speeds, seasons, times of the day and level of exposure to the elements/ open air nature of the vehicle, it fucking isn´t. You will be FREEZING at some point. At another point you will be far, far, far far far too hot. This may repeat depending on the journey.

Are you serious?

I will preface this with a disclaimer. I am not a touch typist and this keyboard had has all of the letters apart from qwypfj rubbed off.

When it comes to jewlellery, as I often say, I´m definitely quantity over quality. I generally prefer the look of tat to expensive stuff, I crave variety and I lose earrings at a scary pace. But occasionally when I travel I do like to try to get somehting ´nice´and local. The big four here are silver, jade, obsidian and turquoise. I´ve alteady stocked up on silver as that falls into the same price bracket as tat in many places. Now buying jade in CA and taking it back to NZ is a bit sand to Arabs and snow to Eskimos and obsidian - neh. But Turquoise is my birth stone, and pretty, so I´ve had a look at a few shops.

Today I went into a jade shop thinking they would have turquise also. They didn´t. But they did have a very smart looking and smiley man who I said good afternoon to and smiles at before realising he was holding a BIG FUCKING MACHINE GUN.

Tribute to a faithful travel companion

Having ignored the absolutely true adage, a stitch in time saves nine, my rucksack lid has needed major surgery to halt the decline of the seams and prevent it coming away in someone´s hand, possibly as it was being lifted onto the roof of a bus. Today it got to crisis stage and I finally had a chance to track down a needle and thread in a hardware shop.

I bought twenty needles, partly because this was the quantity they came in and partly because sewing through two layers of that fake canvas they make rucksacks out of, two layers of waterproofing and, in some cases, a triple reinforced seem, I anticipated it would take about ten needles to repair the twenty or so cm of damage.

Now I know that it´s a funny thing to pick as your first thing to RAVE about when you get to a new country (and let me be clear- I am finding Guatemala enchanting and will no doubt prattle on about that at some stage soon), but these needles were frickin fantastic. Seriously. I didn´t break a single one! You could sew rhino hide with these babies.

My sewing is rough as bricks and rucksack is not pretty but what rucksack is?

I bought my rucksack in Scotland and since then it has flown, bussed, hitched, ferried, trained, trekked, shuttled, cabbed, biked, sailed, hiked, driven, scootered and riden through 20 countries with me. It´s been thrown, slid, hefted, hoisted, dragged, dumped, dropped and pulled by every possible strap, support and grip on it thousands of times.

Its harness had to be replaced after a particularly disastrous attempt to hitch in a national park in Kangaroo island, South Australia, it´s missing one of it´s clips and it is truly truly FILTHY in an ingrained, will never again be clean, kind of way. I think this is its last trip.

The next inatallment

It´s been a whirlwind I tell ya. A real whirlwind.

I´m currently in Panajachel in Guatemala having just crossed the Mexican border a few hours ago.

After the blissful holiday with the clan in what was really really a BEAUTIFUL resort, I have gone solo and have visited Campeche, Pallanque, San Cristobel de la Casa and, as mentioned, am currently in Pana on Lake Atitlan. So much to tell so will share some highs and lows.

HIGHS (in no particular order)
Seeing the fam
Having dolphins under the bedroom window every morning while I was in Cancun
Completely, completely relaxing after a big year
New Years in Mexico with my clan
Old buildings - some of them really old!
Lovely, lovely people
Realising that arriving in a new place will never, ever lose it´s appeal for me
Being able to do exactly what I want

Lows
Getting slightly sick for the whole time I was in Cancun meaning that my one attempt to dive turned into an expensive lesson that equalising is not possible when you´ve got a runny nose
Getting groped outside a church and realising I don´t know the Spanish for 'fuck off'

I think that´s it for the lows. Not bad for three weeks of travel I reckon.

For those of you on Facebook I am trying my hardest to upload some photos but it´s proving a challenge. For those of you not on Facebook.... get on there, this is 2008 for chrissakes!