Jules & Rita visit.

Another busy fortnight whizzes by and I think to myself where did that go? Sim’s folks have been here visiting and we managed to enjoy some time down at the beach, a visit to Suchitoto and they made good use of our car and the local “buses” to explore plenty of the San Salvador area. Unfortunately, two weeks just flies by and it felt like they were leaving having only just arrived. They had a pretty good time though. Jules was lucky enough to spend his 60th birthday watching the four best cricket teams in El Salvador battle it out in the end of season deciders for the league title and Rita managed to leave with a better tan than me and I’ve been here for nearly 8 months. No big surprise according to Sim.

The beach at La Perla. I hate it when its busy like this!

Relaxing by the pool.

The hotel in Suchitoto. Slumming it again.

Breakfast in the garden.

Mum & Dad

What catalogue did you say this was for?

Auditions for Pop Idol El Salvador were well attended.

Jules and Rita getting involved in the cricket taking charge of the scoreboard.

And Judge dispatches a short ball toward the boundary. (Unfortunately to where a fielder was stood)

In other news school had their annual Spring Fair a couple of weeks ago. Annoyingly on a Saturday morning and attendance isn’t voluntary. Although it’s only Primary staff, so Secondary staff have no obligation to work on weekends. We’re all on the same contract so it seems a little unfair to me, especially as we had visitors from the UK here at the time. Still it wasn’t the worst day of my life, just inconvenient and by the end I was pretty bored, 4 hours is way too long.

The crowds of people lining up to dunk me in the tank were huge.

Simmie was in charge of a dressing up race. The QPR kit proved very popular with the locals.

I’ve also at long last got round to buying myself a drum kit. Not quite ready for a video performance yet, but hopefully soon just give me some time to practice. It’s been a while.

Hasta luego B & S xxx

Antigua, Guatemala

Hola,

Life continues it's non stop whirlwind of work, visitors and excessive amounts of alcohol and food. Mum leaves on Friday and as I write this Sim's Mum and Dad are in the air from Housten due in about 90 mins.

Spent last weekend in Antigua, Guatemala which is an old Spanish colonial town, not disimilar to Granada in Nicaragura. More tourists in Antigua though and more of all the stuff that more tourists bring. Still a very nice place though with a really nice feel about it. We spent quite a few hours just sitting in the main square watching the world go by. Sim and I will be making another visit in the near future. we'd quite like to climb the live volcano nearby and just spend a bit more time there.

This is the garden of the hotel we stayed in. Very nice.

This is the cathederal in the main square. Interestingly the burial place of the Spanish historian and Conquistador Bernal Diaz. The man who was a member of all three Mexico expeditians, including the one with Hernan Cortes that led to the destruction of the Aztec Empire. 

 

Mum relaxing in the main square.

There were some lovely views almost around every corner.

And again with the volcano.

Antigua was the capital of Guatemala from 1541 until a large earthquake in 1773 destroyed large parts of it. Much of it is now preserved as ruins.

Cobbled streets and a lovely clock tower Tourist heaven.

All the streets pretty much look like this one.

Unfortunately we didn't manage to get any footage of our little gig- ben on the drums and sim singing.

Mum and Adam's first weekend.

Obviously we have been very busy recently, so apologies for the lack of activity. As I mentioned before Adam and Mum have been out visiting and I've just about managed to get some pics of their first weekend onto flicker. I've added the link below so you can browse the pics(the ones entitled Hols part 1) at your leisure. We went off to the lake for the weekend and then on the Sunday visited a couple of towns in the the mountains which offered us some entertainment and the chance to buy some locally made merchandise (crap).

Flickr: Organize your photos & videos

Weekend at the Beach

Hola,

more drivel from me I'm afraid. About to start a v. busy time as various people come and visit over the next 3 months. Mum and Adam arrive later today and Sim's Mum and Dad arrive at the end of the month. Kate and Gav will be here in March and then my Dad arrives just after the Easter weekend, when I could well be going to Belize to play cricket.

Still having a great time here and it's ace to be able to be at the beach on a Friday afternoon after school. This past weekend a big group of us went down to a place called El Zonte. Did some surfing, played some beach cricket and watched some turtles being released along with the usual drinking beer and eating some awesome seafood.  There is video of this but it's on facebook so you need to be on facebook to view it until I can work out a way to put it on here another way. The link is

http://www.facebook.com/video/?of=728551108#/video/video.php?v=306902772222&subj=728551108

More soon,

B & S xxx

surf weather report

El Zonte Surf Report and Forecast

visit to Suchitoto

Hello again,

So while Steve and Tiff were here they went to visit Suchitoto and old Spanish colonial town, north of San Salvador about 90 minutes drive. Simmie and I had never been there before so we decided to go and visit this weekend.

We stayed in a lovely hotel that overloked the square and had a fab time. Very laid back and totally different to San Salvador. It's on the edge of a man made lake which looks fab from a distance but turned out to be a bit of a disappointment close up, but the walk there and back was good exercise. Great place though and well worth the visit I'm sure we'll be going back at some point.

If you can be bothered check out the pics at the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjudge/sets/72157623160898467/

Laters

B& S

First visitors

So we got back from Mexico on the Friday night and on Monday Stephen Keeling (old friend from school, for those who don't know Steve) turned up for a week long long visit from his current home in New York and was joined by his wife on the Wednesday.

Had a great time and it was great to see Steve again, it had been a while. Discovered some cool things while they were here including a really nice restaurant halfway up the volcano and an excellent place to stay on the coast.

We also took them to some, already, old faves including Kamkura the best sushi in town and Cafe Sunzal which has some good food and even better views. Some good stuff to look forward to if you're taking the plunge and coming out to visit at some point.

More news tomorrow.