Hello all, hope everyone had a good Christmas. I hope this internet is fast enought to upload photos but I´m going to keep typing anyway. So Christmas Day started with myself and Jess going to a church surface. We thought it´d be nice to experience the local celebration, and it was really nice, a sence of community, with kids singing and readings from the gospel in the Carribean acent. Then we got some kayaks, and paddled out to the coral reef, moored up and went snorkling, then paddled over to a palm tree lined beach and lay there for a while. All that built up an appitite, so we had our Christmas dinner from a BBQ. I don´t have many photos from Utila because I spend most of my time underwater, in a classroom, or sleeping. But here (hopefully) are a few...

Well it certainlly felt Christmasy......and you can forget Santa, even if he is in shorts, in a hamock, between coconut trees:

Me, on the boat, just about to dive:

Jen, my dive buddy for Open Water, (sorry the photo is so bright, it was just too sunny :-)

Fabian, my dive buddy for Advanced:

Sunset, coming home on the boat after a day´s diving:

A hibiscus flower (I think). I love my camera!!!:

Dinner:

Polly, the dive school parrot, trying to eat my camera:

I really enjoyed the diving, so much, that I stayed longer than intended and got my Advanced Open Water PADI qualification. I hope to use it again before the trip has ended. On my PADI card I´ll be wearing a Santa hat as I got my first qualification on Christmas Eve.

After all that, I got a notion to spend New Year´s Eve in a more populated location and chose Granada in Nicuragua. So on the 28th, I packed my bags, hopped on the boat, then bus and met a fellow traveller heading the same way. Brenda, from Canada, kept me company on the very long journey, and it was great to have her in the not so nice capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. The trip wasn´t made any shorter by one of the bus tires blowing up!

But here I am, in beautiful Granada, siting in an internet cafe with a good connection, on New Year´s Eve. My self and Brenda bought a small bottle of Baileys at the border and will share it later before seeing how Granada will ring in the new year???? I have no plans where to go after this but I think I´ll spend a little time in Granada and the surrounding area.

Oh, and I met Natalie today, in a market in a town called Masaya. She was the girl I spent my very first few days with in Mexico city. We just literally bumped into her.. Great! That market:

Well, til next time, Happy New Year to all.

Map updated