Left pic; a typical day at our school.

Hello, again! We've had a relatively exciting time this last week, including a small earthquake and, finally, our long awaited trip to the famous Pacaya volcano.

The earthquake was just a minor 'tremblor', rather than a more serious 'terremoto'. It woke me up at about 2am on Wednesday. It was an odd experience because I knew something was shaking, but it wasn't the bed, or even the house. It felt like the whole of reality was wobbling, for about 30 seconds, and then it suddenly stopped. I was expecting car alarms and wailing sirens, but there was total silence. It didn't even wake Richard. When we got up later that morning, I wondered if I'd dreamt it - luckily our teachers confirmed that they'd felt it too.

The volcano trip was (and I apologise for this, but I can't think of a better word) 'awesome'. Yes, this was the very same volcano that began erupting and was evacuated last week, which gave us some pause for thought. But the tour agent said that it wasn't 'very dangerous', and thus reassured, up we went. I'm glad we did, because we got to stand next to 12 foot high 'streams' of glowing red, semi-molten lava, simmering at about 2,000 degrees centigrade, give or take. Plus we looked down into the crater of a real, live, quietly erupting volcano. Which isn't something you get to do every day...

We'll post photos next week - look out for the burning stick shots (if you poke molten lava with a piece of wood it instantaneously combusts - an effective tool for controlling noisy classrooms perhaps?) On that subject, I've had a few encouraging responses to my teaching job applications...hopefully more on that next week :-)

Finally, we have a vague plan for the last 2 weeks we are in Central America. We will be visiting Mayan ruins in Copan (Hondurus), Coban and Tikal (Guatemala), taking in a bit of El Salvador and a few days snorkelling and bumming on the beach in Caulker Quay (Belize). Then we'll head back to Cancun for what promises to be a very enjoyable flight back to London via Miami (!?!?).

Sincerely hope that no one reading this has been affected by the recent airline chaos. Seems ironic that being here, rattled by gun-toting bandits, earthquakes and erupting volcanos, seems much safer than being at home...

Adios for now and take care of youselves,

Jakki