Journey to Honduras

Hi

I am still not certain about this blog, is it a diary where I write down my deep thoughts and give profound pronouncements or is it more of a journal. I feel the former may lead to embarrassing Ellen Macarthur moments but we shall see where it goes.



Anyway, it was an early start, 3:15, for the trip to Heathrow. Naturally I gave Matt, Sam and Ollie farewell hugs the night before. Diane very kindly drove down but it was all a bit quiet naturally at that time both inside and outside the car. I thought I had a good deal at the checkin when they promised me an aisle seat in the emergency row but it was not to be when I got on the plane at Madrid but too late to do anything about it then. It was eleven and a half hours flying from Madrid to Guatemala and it certainly dragged. I first looked at my watch and only 2 hours had gone by. I have to say that Iberia seem to have a wierd policy on music playing at take off and landing. Leaving London it was a sort of house music and on the Madrid flight it was children sing songs such as Jingle Bells. Very irritating both times.



Anyway, the time passed by with the help of Will Smith and Jackie Chan and arrived at Guatemala where immigration went smoothly. At the airport, I met Charlotte the project manager and Graham who had also flown on the same flight. It transpired that Graham leaves in Carterton and sometimes works in Enstone. That was a surprise and we chatted about floods in Witney where he works as a parttime postman.



We were taken to Antigua which is a pretty town some 30km outisde Guatemala where GVI also have a project. The hotel was very pretty with candlelight corridor but that was also practical as electricity was erratic.



In the morning, a good breakfast cooked by Rufus who was also coming to Copan. Rufus is a mason and Graham will be spending his week working with him making stoves. I will put in a link to stoves later(http://www.gvi.co.uk/pages/expeditionDetail.asp?page=moreinfo&expedition=111) but essentially they use only a quarter of firewood which is good also for the environment and smoke is ventilated outsde, the number of people having smoke related illnesses is phenomenal and also allow cooking temparatures to better regualted and reduce risk of burning and fires.



The journey to Copan was mean to take about 6 hours but our driver did not have a brake or a break and we made it in four and a half hours. Then it was to meet our host family. Graham had a lovely room looking over Copan. I was further down the hill, he can through a stone onto my house. Again I have a room which iin the house which I will cover in the next post as Diane is on Skype to me.