The best of Central America

There are some advantages to having to spend 10 hours in Los Angeles Airport waiting for a plane, one of them being that there is plenty of time to catch up on everything I have been too busy to do lately... at least in terms of virtual responsibilities. So where have I been and what have I been doing. As per my last couple of blogs, since I left Bolivia I have been in Central America doing a little tour El Salvador-Nicaragua-Honduras-El Salvador. The purpose of said tour was to work with our Central America on their preparedness systems. It was a lot of long hours of office type work, so none of the grand adventures I’m afraid that you lot like to hear about, but from an intellectual and professional point of view it was actually really interesting work for me and I have actually enjoyed it quite a lot (being the boring workaholic sod that I am when it comes down to it). There are two great things that are worth talking about on this trip. First, I know I have dished the highly north americanised cultural landscape of Central America aplenty, so I won’t do that again. But what really redeems and makes Central America is the lovely people. There are a lot of really great people I work with here who I really like and who have made my few weeks here fun and enjoyable despite not doing much other than work. So I think it is worth honouring them in this here blog.

The second thing that made this trip fantastic was my little weekend visit to Roatan, an island in the Caribbean in the Bay Islands of Honduras. The Bay Islands sit off the second biggest reef system next to our own Great Barrier Reef which comes down from Belize to Honduras. The Bay Islands in the Caribbean were once occupied by the British, the Spanish, and at one stage were occupied completely by Pirates, before finally being made part of Honduras. The result is a pretty fabulous mix I must say. English and Spanish are the two official languages and the culture is a mix of English, Latino and Caribbean which suits me just fine. Think reggae on the beach, salsa in the bars, beers in the ocean, and being able to speak which ever of my two languages I feel like at the time. Then the place itself is beautiful. Laid back, underdeveloped, drop out and relax kind of place with stunning beaches, lush green landscape and beautiful snorkeling. Paradise. Its definitely on my list of potential places to run away and drop out in… if I ever go missing you could start looking there…

So anyway, after a busy, whirly wind trip as usual, here I am on my way home to Australia. It has been 8 weeks since I left home and I have been to Italy, England, Switzerland, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, and I have to say I have loved it and am feeling pretty good. Not my usual tired self at the end of a long assignment, though if anyone tries calling me in the next couple of days I’m sure I will be very jet lagged! I am off again on Friday for Yemen for two weeks, which I know is a bit insane, but its just the way it worked out and there are some extenuating circumstances. I’ll be back from Yemen around 10 July, and really hoping to have some quality time at home for a little bit to see you all. Until then, I’ll put some photos of Roatan up for you.