A few nights out with the gang

As our time at the Casa winds up we still continue to enjoy everything that this place offers. Unfortunately as time goes on we are starting to see some of the volunteers we started with beginning to leave. Recently we said goodbye to two girls from Spain - Emi and Xaro who started the same weekend we did.

The girls were great value and we spent many a funny night out with them on the precious few days that we get to leave the Casa. We celebrated in what is pretty well our typical Wednesday or Saturday night out....

Happy hour at the Sundog, onto Joseyn´s for a cheap feed, and then off to the nightclub at the Hotel Backpackers (which raises money for the Casa). As always one of the highlights of our nights is when they play what has become know as ¨the volunteer song¨. It´s a Spanish song (so I don´t know the name) and when it comes on all the Volunteers get up on the bar, link arms and belt out the words. Before and after usually involves Lyds and I getting better and better at dancing to the grooves of Reggeton and other Central American Latino music (We haven´t gone far enough south yet to tackle Salsa music).

As we said goodbye to the girls we said hello again to a former Volunteer Co-Ordinator - Tita. She recently got married in Spain and as part of her honeymoon, she and her husband came back to the Casa. Lyds and I shared our house with Tita when we first arrived here before she headed back to get married, so it was great to see her again. Tita worked at the Casa for 2 years before she left so she´s a big part of the place. For her return we had a special dinner and a ¨mock¨wedding at the Backpackers which was a lot of fun for everyone.

With our own time at the Casa winding up, Lyds and I also took a few hours out recently to make the trip to Rio Frio. It´s a little river about a relaxing 1.5 hours walk from the Casa. The walk was fantastic as it winds it way through the jungle, cow pastures, little local villages, metre long grass and open fields. At the river we bascially had a nice little spot all to ourselves to just relax and chill the day away. We love our time with our boys, but it was certainly nice to get away for the day and see more of the surrounding countryside.

Here are some recent snaps


If you can´t see the above gallery, check out the link here - Some recent pics

Roatan: Open Water Diving Certification

Well we are officially Open water diver certified!!

After having to postpone our last planned trip to Honduras due to Hurricane Felix, we finally made our way to Roatan last Saturday to get our PADI open water certificate. Due to some childhood problems with my ears, I was unsure as to whether or not I would be able to equalize under water, however I was thrilled to discover that I could do so quite easily in the end.

We started our trip off with a night in Rio Dulce sleeping on the deck of a huge Catamaran owned by our good friend Babette (she runs the Sundog - which is our ¨local¨ here in Rio Dulce). It was a beautiful night and a great beginning to our week off.

After a series of bus and a ferry rides, we hit Roatan and started our course the day after we arrived.

We began the course with two Dutch girls, one unfortunately became too nervous to continue, and the second became sick and couldn´t continue beyond the second day. Sad for them, but great for Doug and I as we had private diving classes the last two (and most important) days. Due to the weather we did the course in a different order then usual with a full day of theory...(all textbook and videos) on day one, followed by some shallow water training (getting comfortable breathing under water, what to do if you lose your mask or regulator, running out of oxygen etc.).

It wasn´t until the third day that we actually got onto a boat and did our first deep water dive. Admittedly I was a bit worried that I had done all the training for nothing, (not to mention both of us acing our exams) and physically would not be able to descend. Thankfully that was not the case and although I took things slowly, I was able to equalize my ears with minimal discomfort.

The four dives we did were wonderful and we both agree that we are completely hooked on scuba diving! We saw some wonderful marine life (hundreds of species of fish, turtles, crabs, lobsters, etc) ..and I even had the fun experience of having my hand stung by fire coral. I guess I brushed a little too close for comfort, because all of the sudden I felt a seething pain in my hand as I watched a long line slowly swell across my fingers and down toward my wrist. I am very proud of myself however as I didn´t panic, but simply got our instructors attention and showed him my rapidly swelling hand. He took one look, pointed to some coral, I motioned yes, he asked if I was OK (one of the many hand signals you learn) and we all happily continued on with the dive. My hand stung for many hours after and I still have a long red line where it made contact, however all was fine and I now have a cool little entry in my log book of my first (and hopefully only) diving mishap.

All up a fantastic trip. Its certainly getting harder to come back to Rio Dulce as we are very keen to start seeing more and more.

Here are some snaps of the trip.


If you can´t see the above gallery, check out the link here - Our trip to Roatan

Children's Day and a little trip with the boys...

Hello all,

Another quick update on our lives as parents at the orphanage.

The last week(s) have been very busy, which has been great and helped our time fly by before heading to Honduras for our break. One of the fun events at the Casa was a day called "Dia de Nino" i.e. Kids Day. As the name implies, this is a special day built entirely around spoiling the children rotten. We're talking special meals and snacks, games, the teachers and Volunteers (i.e.: us ) singing, dancing, and playing for the entertainment of our little ones, and finally CANDY, CANDY, CANDY!!!

At first the idea of learning a Spanish song, and putting on a Spanish play was not an ideal scenario for any of us, however we had to admit that at the end of the day we enjoyed ourselves immensely both in the prep, and final performance for the children. The song we had to sing was beautiful, despite the fact that we were paired off and forced to sing certain lines on our own. Doug was lucky...his partner belted out the words...I however was left quite alone with my tone deafness and microphone. :o)

The play we put together was a take off of the Pied Piper where the orphanage was filled with rats...(haha.......um ha) and the volunteers paid the piper to get rid of the rodents with his magical pipe. After the rats were gone however the orphanage refused to pay and so (as the story goes..) the pied piper coerced all the children to a magical land far away. It was a very cute story but I have to say that a highlight was watching my adorable 6'2" husband play the invalid little boy who gets left behind due to a maimed foot. Doug played his part, said his SPANISH lines flawlessly, and got many hoops and hollers from the audience as a result. (Alright...mainly from the Canadian woman backstage but I know everyone was impressed!!)

Here are some snaps of the Children's Day at the Orphanage.


If you can´t see the above gallery, check out the link here - Children's day at the Casa

Another special day was when my two partners (Gabby and Raul) and I took our boys to a little river about an hours walk away from the orphanage for a getaway. The river's name is Rio Frio (Cold River), and for a very good reason....brrrrr. The day itself was a lot of fun, filled with swimming, covering ourselves in mud, catching (and eating) marine life, and diving off little ledges here and there. All in all a fantastic way to end a week before our time off in Honduras where we are currently in the midst of our PADI divers certification, but more of that to come later...

Here are some snaps of the Rio Frio trip.


If you can´t see the above gallery, check out the link here - Lyds trip to Rio Frio