Papaya and Jane Eyre

I am writing this from my new bedroom. It's a tiny, light filled room, on the ground floor, facing the rest of the compound where the family live.  It's a nice little room, with its own bathroom and enough cupboard space for all my party dresses and Russian literature, so that's good. I picked some jasmine yesterday and have plopped them in a jar by the bed, so it smells like coffee and a Lush bath-bomb. I feel quite at home. 

The house itself is beautiful-in a 'Homes and Gardens' way. Very chic; everything is visually balanced and stylish, which isn't surprising as Claudia (the mum) is an artist.  It's all very modern and functional too. It's always a initial thrill for me to stay in a house with functioning, top of the range cooking implements, power showers and wipeable counter tops.  Actually though, I never appreciate the tumbledown loveliness of my own old house more than when I'm in ones like this, however nice they are to visit.  The family I'm au pairing for are really lovely and they have made me feel very welcome.  I'm not sure about the legal implications of writing online about your employers, but I'm pretty sure it's morally dodge, particularly when it's involving a child.  Therefore, I will try to recount my last few weeks without mentioning them too much. This should make for some pretty lean anecdotes, but never mind. 

Their house is situated in a compound in a town called Chia. It's a town outside Bogota and I wouldn't really recommend it. It's just a nondescript little suburby-town. Saying that, it does have lovely surrounding hills, and it's popular with tourists because of a restaurant called Reyes, which is about two minutes walk away from the house. It's a famous meat restaurant, and it's AMAZING. I say this from my Tiny Tim/Little Matchstick Girl position on the wrong side of the window, as I haven't actually eaten there. It's extortionate and I have also been on a rigorous detox (more on that later you lucky, lucky souls), to which my old chum meat is now a delicious, succulent, salty no-no. It has a brilliant reputation though, and I can tell you it's a visual treat. It's enormous and has loads of kitsch, life sized, multi coloured cow statues outside, fairy light filled trees, and glittery, gold windmills. Glitter, fairy lights, pork chops and paper mâché animals; a predictable hit with Ann G Cluness. Anyway, it's one of Colombia's most famous eateries, and I believe the reson most people visit Chia. There isn't really much else here other than a pretty town square and a nice little market that I went to yesterday. I love a market abroad. When everything looks strange and unhygienic! I like how in a single five minute amble, your olfactory nerves undergo a journey from rapture over a chocolate and candied peanut stall, to distress at a beastie laden meat counter, which besmirches every delicious pork-belly centred memory you've ever had. A place where the fruits look like GM shiny versions of the puny specimens from home, but the vegetables all look crap. Where you can munch on a chorizo empanada with one hand, and select a bunch of roses for a dollar with the other. Where everything is noisy and vivid, colourful and exotic, yet you still get a thrill of familiarity when you see a Heinz HP sauce bottle. Sorry for going a bit Lawrence Olivier there, but I really do think markets are one of my favourite things whilst away. Although, if we step away from food for a moment, the thing-y ones are rarely as good as you imagine in terms of treasures. I did however go to one in Ethiopia once, that was like something out of Ali Baba's treasure caves. It's said to be the biggest in Africa and you seemed to be able to buy literally ANYTHING. There were stalls for pottery and china, stalls for brass lamps and tin cups, fragile glassware and carved wooden boxes covered in engravings. There was a camel section, a donkey section, a pig section and a goat section, with randomly placed boxes of kittens and puppies everywhere.  There was a mechanical quarter where you could buy yacht engines, car bonnets, radios and oven fans. There were huge warehouses with beautiful carpets from Persia, silks from Asia, gold threads from Iran and hundreds and hundreds of traditional African block-printed fabrics. There was a whole street of GLASS BEAD SELLERS!! where toothless old men sat with hundreds of bright baubles draped over their shoulders, and every second shop was selling the best coffee in the world; dirty little airless rooms, serving perfectly heated lattes in dainty little green glasses. The markets that I've seen here are a relative anti-climax, but they are still great for a nose about, and they have a lot of great llama wool produce (so cozy). 

When not watching endless repeats of Harry Potter and Greys Anatomy, I have been doing language exchanges with Daniela, a cousin of family. Her and her boyfriend took me bowling the other day. That was nice; mainly the human contact thing. It was in their families country club and we had a good afternoon; I played a round(?) of bowling (very badly) and also a game that was like pool, but you only have three balls- you have to hit all three each time. It was extremely dull to play and thus even more so to recount, and am not sure why I just did. Perhaps because the rest of my week has been so spectacularly uneventful. The family have gone to Cartagena for two weeks and I've been home alone for 9 days now. I sometimes fondly imagine myself to be quite resourceful and independent, but given any opportunity to exhibit these traits in the face of solitude, I turn out to be quite the opposite. I am not only bored and lonely, but cross all the time too because I don't like being bored and lonely. I've finished all my books, except Turn of the Screw (which I am too scared to read) and I'm genuinely sick of TV after watching it solidly for the first 5 days.  I have wandered around Chia a few times, but it's not much fun on your own. Particularly when confronted by latino lover 97 year olds shrieking at you from bus stops.  I have also recently developed an irrational fear of being spoken to, and having to reply in broken Spanglish.  I bought some papaya yesterday and almost fainted when I got to the counter and the woman asked me an Unfamiliar Question. I actually felt sick and abandoned plans to buy eggs, and instead scuttled home under the cover of darkness to watch Jane Eyre. This cheered me up no end until it finished and I moped around feeling Rochesterless until I went to bed. I got woken up super early today by the cleaner which has meant I have been lurking around my room all day. I hate being around when a cleaner is there. Not that it happens much at home (hah!), but sometimes it does at my dads, and it's just so bloody awkward. How can you not seem like little Lord Fauntleroy if you're lounging about the house in the middle of the day, reading the Guardian and picking your nose whilst poor Svetlanka pulls the matted clumps of hair out of your shower plug holes. I'm pretty sure that sentence is racist and elitist in some inverted way that I am too bigoted to understand, but its how I feel. It's embarrassing. It seems to be a cultural thing though, as everyone here has a maid if they can afford it, and it doesn't seem to have the same connotations as it would at home. Anyway, this lady comes a lot usually, but only twice since they have been away. She seems to be finding a great deal to do, considering I haven't left the sofa except to trot to the fridge and the bathroom. Speaking of fridge, I was going to detail my papaya based detox, but I don't have the heart, and it's a lie anyway; I've eaten almost a whole box of frosties and a jar of peanut butter.  All surreptitiously of course, though who I'm hiding from in an empty house is unclear. Maybe I think if its eaten furtively without utensils, it doesn't count.  I was so bored earlier I tried on all my clothes and then started to customise a top. Scissors and boredom are always a mistake, and I am now confronted with a destroyed vest and a pile of sequins glinting at me from a dejected heap on the floor. I didn't think sequins could be dejected but these ones are brown and the shine effect has come off. All feels a bit symbolic. 

And on that note, I'm going to go and try to do some Spanish. I haven't done any since they left and I am beginning to feel sick with guilt. Hasta Luego and so on.

San Jose no way

It's hard to put into words just how exceptionally crap the last 20 hours have been, but I shall do my best. Seek ye not objective, rational reporting here, as I am actually perspiring with fury and indignation, and experiencing mild hatred of Costa Rica in general. In fact, I should start with a disclaimer that this is 98% rant, 2% bad grammar.

Last night after I finished wallowing around in self pity, I went to bed to ready my new book. I was v.excited as its a Dave Eggers. I know I like it as i've read it before, and furthermore it wasn't a book about the problems of the Middle East, which cannot be said about most of the others in my collection (no, I don't know why either). My dorm room as aforementioned, was blessed with one of the most crackers women I've ever met. This isn't her fault, and I understand she probably has medical problems to which people should respond with sympathy and understanding, but I am still going to slag her off for the next paragraph. 

She was asleep when I went in, which initially relieved me, until I realised she was snoring like a 600Ib drunk man, rather than a 80Ib wee old lady. The young lass in the bed opposite kept groaning in despair, and burrowing further into the bed sheets (an olfactory error in itself). I however, knew it was futile to attempt sleep under such conditions,(JM experience taught us something,eh boo!) so I whipped out my torch and started reading. It was impossible to concentrate though, she was SO loud, and the snoring was punctuated by looooooong periods of silence, where I was worried she had died. This went on for about 2 hours, toward the end of which she had begun to fart too. A particularly exuberant burst of gas hit her, and she actually woke herself up. She immediately began shouting "Jesus! Jesus, God damn hell! I've lost it! I've really lost it this time! Oh boy, there's gonna be hell to pay. Gone! It's gone!". I initially thought she was just mid bad dream, but then she began demanding to borrow the head-torch of someone in the room, and I realised she really had lost something. Thus followed 15 minutes of searching frantically while her head flailed around, directing her head-torch beam into everyone's face (there really was a head-torch too). She eventually found the critical object, and went back to snoring and farting. I must have somehow fallen asleep, as I awoke to find a strange and enormous man looming over my bed and shaking me. I couldn't understand what he was saying and after a few seconds of bellowing he keeled over, presumably in a drunken state, and literally crawled out of the room banging into things. By this point I was genuinely freaked out, and as the three other girls in the room had GONE despite fact it was 5am, I presume I wasn't the only one. Crackers was absent too, but she came waffling back again to tell me the man had been ejected from hostel "ya get some FUNNY ONES DON'T YA?!?!" Fart fart fart twitch twitch twitch. 

I left the hostel at 11am, as even though my flight was at 6pm, I wanted to get the bus which was a buck as opposed to a taxi which was $22, and I thought it wise to give myself plenty of time. 

Finding the bus station looked easy; San Jose is on a grid system so Calles(streets) go one way, Vias (ways) go another. Lonely Planet said I had to go to Calle 12/14 and via 2 which was 15 mins from the hostel. It was all comprehensive enough, so off I trotted, naively clad in a dress and tights as everything else I own is dirty. After days of chilliness, it was of course roasting, so within moments I was hot and bothered with a bright red face and a clammy back. Got to the designated place, but couldn't see a stop or station. Asked a nice boy who said it was all the way over town. I smiled pityingly at him and ignored his advice because LP said differently, and also, I couldn't be sure of my Spanglish translation. Asked another man. Similar response. Hmmm. Asked again. And again. On fifth try decided to walk in direction all Costa Ricans had advised, and it slowly dawned on me that if I got to zero, the calles probably started ascending again, but in the other direction. WHY would you do that? I don't know, but they do. So, turns out 12/14 was actually quite far away, but what with the having no money, and the ever expanding size of my arse I thought I would trot up anyway. Half an hour of 20kilo backpack slogging later, I saw the bus for Alajuela which is the one you get to drop you off at the International Airport. All very simple, except the buses don't have to stop, and this one was driven by a total pig.

I got on and said "el aeropuerto por favor" in my admittedly tragic accent, and he barked something aggressive back at me. I was visibly perplexed, but to be fair to him, I did also do that weird inane grinning thing I have taken to doing when I don't understand (aka all the time), which is often mistaken as comprehension by others. He snatched my money though, so I figured it wasn't anything important and got on. I had only been sitting for a few moments when a lovely man came over and said "he isn't taking you to the airport, he isn't stopping there. He just took your money but you will end up lost, so get another bus to the airport" I got up in a fluster as the villain of the tale was starting the bus. I dashed up the aisle and politely asked him for my money back. He said no; because I should have learned Spanish before I came to Latin America. While I think this is a valid point, I expect there are more morally lofty ways to express it. I asked again less politely, and at this point the nice man and other passengers were getting involved. They began to shout, and the driver was getting aggressive and beginning to drive again. I had a moment of clarity i.e ITS ONE DOLLAR so I jumped out the door and he slammed it behind me. I furiously threw an apple core at the door and watched his stupid bus zoom off. I had already started back the way I came, when I realised that in the rush/rage I had left my brothers Nikon camera on the seat. I had a moment of vanity where I considered how embarrassing it was going to be to run through streets on a Saturday, carrying a backpack; worse still from a bus I had just been ejected from... But girding my loins I gave chase, like a graceful young bullock. I gave chase for a couple of blocks and managed to catch up while the bus was stuck at lights, but despite banging on the door and giving the international sign for "let me back on! I've left my camera" he somewhat predictably ignored me. Major temper tantrum regret re the apple... However, maybe the lovely people in the bus didn't see my Violet Elizabeth Bott behaviour, as one of them dangled the Nikon out the window and I caught it as the bus bombed off. Faith in humanity crushed, then restored in one 4 minute period. Faith in self firmly crushed when I realised that my skirt was caught under my backpack and I had been exposing my holey tights and nether regions throughout the whole bullock-gives-chase-to-abandoned-camera scenario. 

 

With help of kind and sympathetic old lady, I got another bus with humane driver to the airport.  At check

in I was ready to have nervvy B number two, as there was a problem with my American visa, therefore my stopover in Miami. Absolutely lovely lass from airline said she would just change my flight so it was direct to Colombia. I suspect she saw the manic glint in my eye, but maybe she was just a good person.  Will deal with lack of working visa at a later date, but for now, I am merely relieved to be in departures, devoid of my nemesis The Backpack. I'm looking forward to Harry Potter being on the inflight media options, and to finishing my book without the soundtrack of snorey-gut explosions. Then I am looking forward to sleeping in a bedroom sans international maniacs, in a clean goonie, after a hot shower. Roll on Colombia. San Jose you will NOT be missed. 

San Jose, chicken fish, and the elderly and mad.

I am sitting in the living room of a hostel in San Jose. It's a nice temperate evening, just warm enough for a t-shirt, but without even a hint of the clamminess that has plagued us on this trip. Sadly I don´t have a t shirt, as all I took on this trip were bejewelled halternecks, strange old lady shrouds and four pairs of shoes. So, I am dressed like a nut nut in a red raincoat left by Kim.  San Jose, though it pains me to say it, is a dump. With the exception of Accra in Ghana, it's the ugliest and most boring capital city I have ever been to. It doesn't seem to have much culture, and considering Costa Rica is so expensive, it doesn't even do swanky cafes or bars that well. Through a series of unfortunate events (largely the fault of the creepy commune from earlier in the week), we have been here for five days, when in an ideal world you wouldn't give it more than one. It's very flat, and the architecture is mainly low, scabby, concrete houses. While it must be conceded that the roads aren't as crazy as the rest of Latin America, it still smells of musty pee everywhere, and drivers still persist in hooting their way around every corner.  In San Jose there are also trains which go over the roads and bellow loudly every few minutes. This is presumably to alert people to the fact that a rapidly moving train is about to be in their midst but it´s pretty annoying at 3am. They do however, have a rather fabby food market right in the centre of the city.  It's a general goods market, so has that fantastically bonkers and eclectic feel that I love about foreign markets. Lots of odd wee things like carved piggy banks glazed in vividly awful hues, quilted bags, tin cups painted like gypsy caravans and beautiful little herb stalls, with everything you can think of, from calamine to dried catnip. I so wanted a photo of one stall which was haloed in dried marigolds and herbs, and manned by a beautiful old woman, but she looked pretty furious when I tried to catch her eye, hopefully wafting my Nikon about, and I always feel a bit funny asking people for photos anyway. The market has an amazing seafood section, and we found some lovely fleshy fish (can't remember it's name but it was almost like chicken; Tailapa maybe?)bought some ridiculously overpriced vegetables and made a nimmy fish curry. It was to be my last night of indulgence as my jean zipper burst, proving irrefutable evidence that this trip has done nothing to help my waistline. The expansion of my gut was tentatively confirmed by poor Matt, and I am NOT going home fatter than I left so have said goodbye to my dear friends empanadas, popcorn, tortillas, churros, guacamole, re fried beans, candied peanuts and all the other small treats I have been filling my languid days with.  The food here isn't even that delectable, compared to India say, but it's so filling and comfortingly stodgy. I do love the fruit though and that's a good option I suppose, but dearest fried starch, how I shall miss your salty, wonderful, ways. Anyway, back to the Last Supper. It was really tasty and nice to be cooking again, after a few nights of eating out, and not very well. At this point we were staying in a Quaker hostel, which was predictably naff (and cockroachy) but it had a telly showing Pride and Prejudice so I was utterly content despite the fact Kiera is a poor man's Jennifer Ehle. 

We moved hostel the next day to Costa Rica Backpackers which is where we have all stayed a few times before. It's ok; reasonably roomy with a lovely kitchen and outdoors bit. Yesterday we went to the Modern Art Gallery (shut for repairs) and another art gallery http://www.musarco.go.cr/instalaciones.php which was showing some lovely wee exhibitions by Juan Manuel Sanchez amongst others. It had a lot of pictures of sad street dogs that I liked a great deal, and beautiful delicate line drawings of bairns playing (as well as the lovely deers at the top of this post. I liked it a lot, and it was so great to get out of the streets and into a quiet, air-conditioned building. Afterwards we went to the park which was hilariously ugly and barren and watched ducks on the "lagoon" which turned out to be a grimy little pond full of kids flailing about in life jackets. Lonely Planet has been nothing if not consistent in its fictional descriptions of truly shite places. We managed to fit some live dance into our packed schedule of wandering the streets and whinging, and stood for all of 4 minutes watching an unfortunate teenager flail about in her stockings on stage in a square opposite the National Theatre. It managed to be creepy and boring at the same time. 

We spent last night (our last together) subdued. Bought a bottle of rum and drank it with a mad Dutch guy who showed us YouTube videos and joined in a conversation that spanned feminism, sexual abuse and eugenics in one fell swoop. My conversational offerings were as lightsome as ever and I managed to exhaust everyones spirit and induce retirement to bed, earlier than everyone might have done, had we continued to watch links of monkeys riding piglets (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_sfnQDr1-o&noredirect) He also kept referencing Braveheart, which we have found to happen a lot over here. Whilst I find it disturbing that Mel Gibson provides the face to Scotland for many a foreigner, I suppose it could be worse. 

This morning I said goodbye to Angela and Matt and had a good cry on a bench, watched incredulously by local youths. It feels so strange not to have Angela here after 7 or so months of living together; even sharing a bed for most of it.  They left for Nicaragua, and I fly to Colombia tomorrow. I am excited if a little bit anxious about it. I'm au pairing with a family and while they sound delightful it will be odd to live with strangers in a family home at the age of 27. I hope my Spanish improves. It couldn't get much worse, and it will be interesting to see how I get on without Angela´s more confident and adequate attempts.  The family live in a suburb on the outskirts of Bogota which is great as I LOVED Bogota.  I thought it was one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to with a wonderful atmosphere and arty feel to it. I hope it's a great place to live too. I'm delighted at the idea of being around a child as well. I miss having bairns around. When you're in hostels everyone is the same age. Well, except for the 50+ mid-breakdown sufferers who seem inexplicably drawn to me wherever I go. There is one in my room just now, eating cereal loudly. She keeps shouting obscenities and making me jump. When I read this back again it seems even odder. I'm pretty sure she has Tourette's but she also keeps referring to herself as "neurologically messed up" and "mental". I can't say I'm inclined to disagree and have successfully avoided her all day, but as night approaches I find myself resisting the urge to invite her for a cup of tea. She must be a bit lonely. Pot, kettle, black.

Cilit Bang and Cervice

So, our quartet is down a man after the sad departure of wee Kimbo yesterday. She left with one of her cheery grins and the sound of her incredibly bad Spanish drifted slowly oot on the breeze as she drove off with yet another crazy taxi driver. It felt subdued after she was gone, but we quickly got on the bus to our new home for the next while; an incredible and inspiring Eco village up in the mountains of Costa Rica. This worthy project is peopled by the creme de la creme of Americas progressive youth as they attempt to carve out a different, meaningful existence in a geographically paradisiacal setting. Except its not, and once more lonely planet has scumbagged us. 
We turned up in this crap Roystonveisy-ish little village where we were meant to meet someone connected to the Eco lodge (this part for me is vague as I was letting Angela deal with the logistics as usual) the hostel was empty- dank peeling paint, creepy shutters on the window- the usual Lonely planet recommended fare- so we went to have a small baked treat at Costa Rica version of greggs. Stale. 
After a while we scampered back to the hostel where we were met with one of the most singularly Unattractive human beings I have ever encountered. Small, exceedingly smelly and with a Dickensian oily gleam about him, he seemed exhausted by our presence, was really unenthusiastic and said there wasn't anything to do up at the farm but we could go and make our own work if we wanted....what type of work was unspecified. He then said we could stay in his freezing shed in exchange for cleaning his restaurant kitchen. "Was the the restaurant connected to the Eco project" I asked hopefully, no, no, it was his own private endeavour. Stagnant at moment as he can't find a local who won't ROB AND STEAL with their horrible brown hands.  He showed us where the industrial sytrength oven cleaner was, made from the breath of rare butterfly's as they perish to death or similar, and left us to it. Me and Angela that is. Matt was cleaning up literal shit from the front garden. 
The shameful part of the story is that instead of swanning out on a (secretly relieved not to be spending weeks in a tent) wave of indignant glory, leaving only cutting retorts in our wake, we merely put on rubber gloves, cleaned his kitchen and made fun of his unfortunate appearance behind his back. Then we ran away back to San Jose. 
This turn of events is ok for me; I have absolutely zero interest in Eco farming, communes or indeed any kind of alternative living unless its in the form of having caviar drizzled on your toast by a servant on your private yacht. I'm not proud of this but nor is it one of my top five shames. I have also become obsessed with jungle bugs a result of  a young man we met in Panama who had been jungling about the joint in Costa Rica and had a massive minging lump on his head. I chummed him on his way to the doctors and when I left him he was blithely assuming it was a mosquito bite, a wee infection that was all.  The next time I saw him, he had a look I'm his eyes of a man who has been to the brink and will never be the same again. The doctor had begun to cheerfully clean his "mosquito bite", at which point the scab had begin to quiver, and pulse and next thing he knew his head had burst open and a writhing and fully formed BOTT FLY had emerged. The event and its graphic retelling has had quite an effect on me, creating a sense of unease in the presence of anything green and a general mistrust of any blemish on my person. I am at this point riddled in suspicious bites and have taken to touching them in a quiet place and listening for a responsive pulse or buzz... Horrid, and I can only imagine what advances form my neurosis would have taken in a muddy tent in the dark. Anyway I decided to accept an offer of work in Colombia. I'm going to be au pairing for a family in outskirts of Bogota. They look lovely and I'm thrilled. Hope that the other two find something soon, and we can regroup later in the year. It's silly to have come so far only to head back the way again but everyone already thinks I'm silly anyway. That PR ship has sailed. 
We spent today roaming San Jose. It's a bit of a dump to be honest; the centre has some nice architecture and a nice wee food market where we had cerviche today - cerviche is a chilled soup made out of marinated seafood, generally fish. It's raw but "cooked" in lemon and herbs. It's sometimes amazing, other times a bit like fishy lemon barley. Hmmm. Today was nice but muy piquena for old fatty puff here. After lunch we wandered and found a charity shop!! What bliss. Bought several ill advised items and was almost seduced by some dungarees with Winnie the Pooh on them. Thought not best outfit choice for first impression as responsible adult who can look after your child, and reluctantly returned them to the shelf. Still I have 3 more days is San Jose so there is still time.  

Costa Rica numero uno

Hi. This is my first post, and I am wondering how to write this whole thing without feeling woefully narcissistic. I think it is impossible, so maybe I will just go with the flow, and think at least it is not as bad as when I used to make everyone in my family sit and watch me recite lines from Grease. Is it?

Anyway. I am writing this blog to document my travels, not because they are in any way particularly interesting, or indeed that I have an especially wonderful turn of phrase. However, I do seem to be addicted to updating my facebook page, and even for the sake of diluting that and its effects on my reputation (not to say decreasing FRIEND FIGURES)I feel an alternative outlet for my ¨experiences¨ to be documented can only be a good thing. Plus, just say I decide I want to be some kind of John Snow figure in the future, it would be good to say LOOK! look at the sheer lyrical brilliance expressed in my youth(ish) via the medium of cutting edge technology.  

Anyway, I am currently travelling latin america with some chums, and whilst it is hardly Jack Kerouac and Gertrude Stein (or whatever), I imagine at some point in the next decade when I am at home alone with my 29 cats gently gnawing the sagging flesh of my elbows, it will be nice to read this, look back and remember all the times I stayed inside a hostel frantically bent over my iphone recording things that probably happened to other people.  

We are in Costa Rica just now, a country I will remember largely for its insect population and the havoc they have wreaked on my wimpy Scottish skin.  It is a really gorgeous place (REALLY???WHO WOULD EVER HAVE KNOWN)but it feels a bit less authentic than the rest of the places we have been.  Not enough poor people walking around by half.  You still can´t flush toilet paper down the loo though which is a sign of exoticism.

Before Costa Rica, we were in Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. Most of the trip was me and Angela, a pal I met at the prison camp sorry restaurant, we both worked in in Scotland. In a last ditch attempt to avoid Being A Real Grown Up, we both did a TEFL course, saved our tips and worked every shift we could get to scamper over here as soon as we could. Despite our best laid plans to be fluent in Spanish by now, working in some ethical school, saving the world etc etc etc, four months later, we somehow find ourselves in Central America living it up on a beach with two other pals from home.  Still, impending financial doom, and dare I say it BOREDOM of the life of leisure have dictated that when dear Kim leaves to return to sunny Bristol, the holiday period will be officially over, and we will start working towards being functioning members of society. Manana manana. On that note, I feel I have exhausted my powers of thought for the day.  I am going to go and eat a three day old croissant that the other suckers have overlooked, and then we are going to a serpent farm imaginatively called Serpentine.  Me and Kim went to a Butterfly Farm last week, and it was like some kind of avant garde surrealist piece on purgatory.  We got dropped off by a water taxi, which we told to come back in two hours (the look of sheer disbelief on the face of the 5 year old driving the boat should have been a warning to us).  The ¨farm¨ turned out to be a strange mildewed tent, manned by three sinister men, who charged us five dollars each for the pleasure of standing in the rain looking at some crippled butterflies who flew listlessly (and lopsidedly) around aforementioned mildewed tent. The other 1 hour and 52 minutes was spent standing by a stagnant swamp waiting for the boat and talking about all my past relationships. Heavy duty Freudian shit going down there as the insects made us scratch uncomfortably and the stench of rotting vegetation wafted around our sunburned snozzles.  
Ah well. Onward and up! Hasta La Vista.

p.s I am not sure what avant garde actually means.