Time keeps rolling by.

I haven't blogged in over a week! There hasn't been an awful lot to say since I got back from Nica. I've just been doing work stuff.

One of the best things about coming back from Nicaragua earlier than planned was being able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Ma Fitzgerald sent me her recipe for Irish stew, I made "Guinness" with Coke and ice cream, and put on Leprechaun. The stew went down very well, and most people went for seconds. The "Guinness" went down well with those who wanted to get messed up on sugar. Rachel was the only one who made it to the end of Leprechaun. Alas, it appears my Raleigh colleagues are not fans of early 90s low budget, B-movie, so-bad-it's-good-horror, even if it does have a leprechaun on a tricycle and stars a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston. 21 years later, Jennifer Aniston is still hot. Hotter even. There's your thought for the day.

Big ass pot of Ma Fitzgerald's Irish stew.

Still hot.

The next event of interest was Sarah's birthday, where we had a bit of barbecue and a dangerously high level of sugar was consumed.

Ice cream cake. Good. In a bad way.
This caption links to the album in Google+. New plan for sharing albums!

Rachel's birthday was the next day, but there wasn't as much sugar. In fact, it was the start of second changeover, so there was a whole bunch of Project Managers and pups.

Changeover was weird, but weird because it felt so normal, when obviously it's not, and exists only in the Raleigh bubble. It was really great to catch up with the PMs again.

I stayed right the fork away from skit judging. Fork that. I opted for the far less dangerous jobs of opening the curtain. No problems.

But the best part for me was X-Ray 7's skit. They did it in the style of a TV show, and referenced my short visit to them in Nicaragua, by having one of the lads dress up in green and have a bad Irish accent to be interviewed on the show. The accent was so bad it could have been on Sons of Anarchy. It was a very short segment, which basically involved "me" saying it was shite in Santa Cruz (which I never did, and shite isn't even one of my words) and that there was no Wi-Fi (that bit was true), and then "I" said "there's no wi-fi here either, I'm out of here". It was very funny. Apparently they weren't sure how I'd react, but I loved it! Somebody asked if I knew about it beforehand, and I didn't, it wouldn't have been as fun. When the guy acting as presenter started saying how Fieldbase sent their Irish blogger up to them, I wasn't sure if they were gonna get me on stage or if one of them was going to be me, but I'm glad they had somebody being me, it was definitely funnier.

The afternoon after phase three deployment, a few of us left at Fieldbase went in search of Turri beach, which is a beach on a turn in a river behind the main CATIE building. We found it, we splashed about, and it was lovely and refreshing.

And that's pretty much been it. JJ asked me to help her with a job application, but she was going off with one of the trek groups, so I asked her to give me her CV, email password and link to the job, and I'm going to do the application for her. It's fraud for a good cause.

I've been getting back into my fitness. Having destroyed my ribs at the céilidh before phase one, and then cut my feet up at San Lucas during phase one, I've only just stopped hurting. I haven't taken painkillers in about a week. Yay! So I got back to my running and stretching and push ups and sit ups. It's good. Since I went trekking in phase one, my smoking has reduced lots. I'll only have one or two, on a bad day three, a day. I just can't be bothered. That might change after expedition when I start drinking again.

I haven't missed booze at all. There's the odd day when it's been manic and a nice cold beer would hit the spot, or sitting outside when it's particularly hot, and you know a pint bottle of Bulmers with loads of ice would cool you down nicely. I think we're too busy to think too much about it. Before coming out, friends were all "Oh my God! How are you going to survive three months without a drink!?" I did tell them it'd be fine because I wasn't an alcoholic, and it wasn't that big a deal. I was right.

I'm thinking more and more about getting back to the UK. I'm thinking of stopping at the Wetherspoons at BHX for fish and chips and a nice pint of ale. I might even ring ahead to see what ales they have on! I'm also thinking a lot about finding a job, because I've been talking to people about planning little bits of travelling adventures, which will require money. I was approached for a really great job just before phase two, but because of Nica, I had to reply saying that I wouldn't have internet access for two weeks. Needless to say, the recruiter didn't bother following up, but the salary that came with the job has given me a lot more confidence to apply for jobs of that salary level.

I'm also thinking a lot about immediately after I get back. I'm going to want to hide in my room for a couple of days and talk to nobody, or my head will probably explode.

I must do some work and then do some job applications.

Pura Vida!

Santa Cruz you're not that far...

...so sang The Thrills some years back.

Lies.

Contrary to my last blog, here is a new blog before 22 March. Things have been mad. Get the kettle on.

Day One.
Got up at 4.15am and set off from Turrialba to San José at 5am. The bus to Managua was at 9am, and we got to the border at about 3.30pm.

After we crossed the border, they started showing the film, Escape Plan, on the bus. It starred Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, with 50 Cent, Holly Flax from The Office and Dr. Alan Grant. It was dubbed in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. What's not to love? I was able to get the gist of  what was going on, but when the lead roles are Sly and Arnie, it's not going to be much.

We got to the hostel, dropped our bags off, and went to the supermarket to get a few bits. As we were eating dinner back at the hostel, there was some crusty old American dude really wasted and talking gibberish. It was pretty funny. In a weird way, you kind of have to admire somebody getting old, having a few quid, and just buggering off to Nicaragua to get wasted in a hostel.

Chilling by the pool after dinner, I could hear somebody playing the original Cum On Feel The Noize by Slade. It was very surprising, very random, and very lovely to hear a good Black Country band so far away!

By far the most exciting thing about the night in the hostel was the mattress. It was an actual mattress! With springs in it! Not a battered piece of foam. And there was a pillow!

I'm a borderline case

Day Two
We had a lovely sleep in until about 8.30am. And then some...

Eating porridge for breakfast is better by a swimming pool in a Nicaraguan hostel. We got a minibus to León and arrived there at about 1.30pm, got a taxi to the hostel, had lunch there, and went for a wander. Most things were closed because it was Sunday.

We stopped for a smoothie. One listed its ingredients as raptor, pineapple and ginger. Obviously I got excited because "raptor", but I didn't think they'd put dinosaur in a smoothie. I checked what it might mean on the Google Translate app on my phone and it said "abductor" or "kidnapper". I was pretty sure - and kind of hoped - that it didn't have that as an ingredient either. I decided that I'd spent enough time worrying about what it might be, and just ordered it. It was delicious, whatever its raptor was.

After more wandering, we went back to the hostel. I got an awful lot of reading done, which I was delighted with. The hostel was odd, because we weren't allowed to cook there, so we went to Raleigh's León office and took over their kitchen. After a run through of the road trip plan, I found myself watching one of The Matrix sequels in Spanish. Not sure which one because obviously we should all be trying to forget they were ever made.

While I was there, I wrote some notes to the ICS programme Team Leaders who I'd met at the development weekend in London before we came out. I received an email with a blog from one of the groups on project. It was flukey timing, because it was planned that I'd have no internet access after that until the end of phase. I forwarded it to Fieldbase.

I headed back to the hostel and bought Biffy Clyro's Puzzle for £1.99 from Google Play's classic albums deals, before they updated the selection. I'd had Machines in my head for days.

Went to bed with another mattress and another pillow!




Day Three
Myself and Lucy, left the Raleigh office in León an hour later than planned, with Olivia and Lisa from the Nica team, and went to Achuapa to meet Brigido, from the project partner, Cooperativa de Juan Francisco Paz Silva. We left Olivia and Lisa at one of their projects, where I got to meet Roxy, one of the Team Leaders from the development weekend. Lovely to see her again. Myself and Lucy went back to the Cooperativa to collect a lady called Tina up from her work there - we were leaving the car with her whilst we visited our X-Ray 7 group up the mountain. Waiting for Tina, Brigido gave us a quick tour. Their main product is sesame seed oil, which they sell to L'Oreal and The Body Shop.

After leaving Tina home, we set off on our trek up to Santa Cruz. I'd been told it was 7km, so I reckoned that going a steady pace of about 3km per hour, with a good break every hour and a couple of breathers, it should take about three hours. Tina sent a couple of young fellas with us to get us started, because the sun was high because we were setting off so late, she suggested we should take a more shaded route, but that had no roads. We got there just after 5.30pm, which was just as well, because it starts getting dark after that, and we would have had to find somewhere to stay without a tent.

We had a nice catch up with Project Managers Shaun and Marc, and Photographer Tess. We ate dinner and showered. The shower was a tap high up, outside, surrounded by a curtain to maintain some modesty. Marc advised that it was best to shower at night. If I needed to shower earlier, I'd need to keep my clothes on, because the cowboys pass on their horses and can gawk in. And apparently kids can gawp in too, and that's well creepy.

I slept that night in a hammock in the community leader, Don Antonio's, house. It was grand. First time I'd ever had to do that.

Downtown Achuapa.

Day Four
Woke up early, had breakfast - tortillas, beans, homemade cheese and homemade honey - and set off to meet the venturers at the local well for starting work. We threw rocks at each other. Not really, like, we were throwing them to each other, along a chain to get them to a water filtration system. After lunch from 11.30am until 1.30pm, I did some digging for a trench for pipes for a water system.

I was subjected to some accusations of being a Project Manager, which I vehemently denied. It led to a further conversation about why I was there, how I wasn't convinced about what I was getting out of it, how it compromised what I came to get out of Raleigh, and how I didn't see what benefit I was to the group. Basically all the stuff I whined about in an earlier blog. I said that I'd caught myself making the odd snarky remark, which in a day can be passed off as a joke, but in two weeks would be really negative for the group - I know what I'm like. After talking it out, I decided I'd ask to leave with Lucy and Tess the next day, when they were leaving for their road trip with the Nica team to visit some ICS projects - the group had their check in with Fieldbase coming up, so then was the time to ask.

I asked to leave and was asked why. I explained. I was told that was fine, but they'd need confirmation from the Country Programme Manager, and that they couldn't work the blog anyway. Essentially, having me do anything other than work with my strengths wasn't going well for anybody. I got my confirmation later. Happy days. We went back to our house, had dinner and another moonlight shower, and stayed up chatting for a bit.

Our crib in Santa Cruz.

Day Five - Escape from Nicaragua: Part I
Got up to leave at 5.30am, but it was after 6am when we eventually left. I know it sounds bad, but I was not sad to leave. The community were so lovely and warm and welcoming, and I didn't feel I had anything to offer in return. We got to Tina's house, got the car, picked up Olivia and Lisa, and headed to another ICS project where we were to stay the night. Petra, who I'd met at the development weekend was the Team Leader there. Again, lovely to see her.

And then, things got what myself and my band mates would describe as "a bit Nerve Centre".

Myself and Tess were told that we were getting kicked off the road trip. Two of the ICS projects had volunteers that needed to go to hospital, so they needed the car, and they needed myself and Tess out so they'd have room to bring them to hospitals. We were getting sent straight back to Fieldbase. I burst out laughing.

After much discussion about how we could do this, a plan was made. We'd stay in a building in Achuapa owned by the Cooperativa, then go from there to León, and from León to Managua the next day, then from Managua to San José to the following day, and then from San José to Turrialba and Fieldbase the following day.

All of this was made even funnier by the fact that myself and Tess don't have much in the line of Spanish. I explained that I was confident that with my Spanish dictionary, Google Translate apps on my phone and tablet, and some pointing, we'd manage. People were all like "Er... don't you need WiFi for Google Translate", and I was all "Er... no, I downloaded the Spanish package". What to people take me for? Jeez. As if I'd suggest using something that needs WiFi where there's mostly no WiFi. I did get told that I was a very organised Comms Officer. I was in Scouts yo. Be prepared. Suggestions that I'm organised would confuse some people though.

We got back to Achuapa and got a couple of bits. We were staying in a classroom in the Cooperativa's building, so we set our bed spaces up there. We showered and found somewhere to eat - two massive meals for about $2 each. We got back to our classroom, and the people who work there had kindly left a couple of foam mattresses outside for us! The people in Central America are so warm and generous it's heartbreaking. If you ever feel you need your faith in humanity restored, get your ass over here.

Our crib in Achuapa.

Day Six - Escape from Nicaragua: Part II
Got woken up earlier than planned after a terrible night's sleep - with dogs constantly barking and a truck outside starting up and setting off. We left just before 7am, but nowhere was open for breakfast. A place by the bus stop opened where we got biscuits and instant coffee for breakfast. We got an old American school bus to León. There was a market place next to the bus station in León, where we got a sweet cheese pastie thing, and a lovely refreshing Coke.

We hopped in a minibus to Managua. The taxi drivers when we arrived were insanely aggressive. The minibus hadn't even stopped and they were shouting in the window at us. We went with the least aggressive guy to get to the hostel. We chilled for a bit, and Tess found out that there were TransNica buses to San José at 5am and 9am. As we were expecting to stay in San José the following night anyway, we decided that the 9am would be fine. But then we got a call from Fieldbase telling us they'd booked us on the 5am bus, with the intention of getting us back the following night. Not impressed.

We went for a wander to the shops to get breakfast and lunch for the next day, and decided to vent our frustration at having to spend the next day on buses by eating a slab of cow for dinner that night. We went back to the hostel, splashed about the pool, showered and went to the steakhouse down the street. It looked so unassuming from the outside, and then went inside, and it was one of the swishest restaurants I've ever been to! Myself and Tess were there in our t-shirts, shorts and sandals, feeling suddenly very under-dressed, but they didn't turn us away. We were seated and given menus. The New York steak appealed to me. It came out. It was bigger than my hand, half my index finger in thickness, and its medium-rare was still pretty bloody inside. We got back to the hostel, pottered about a bit, and promptly descended into a steak coma.

Comms Team steak night!

Day Seven - Escape from Nicaragua: Part III
There's really not much to say about today. We went and got the bus at 5am, arrived in San José, just after 3pm, got the bus to Turrialba at 4pm, and landed back at Fieldbase at 6.30pm. There's not much excitement from 13.5 hours on buses.

However, when I got back to Fieldbase, there was a parcel waiting for me. I was surprised and confused. Then I saw it was sent from Castlebar and that it contained crisps and Emerald chocolates, and suspected that it might be from Ma Fitzgerald for Paddy's Day. Then I opened it and saw a card stuck on top of the box and I was more certain of my suspicions. And I was right. Nice to come back to, and reaffirmed that getting back early was for the best - she'd sent it before I'd been told I'd be in Nica, and if I'd stayed there, I wouldn't have had it for Paddy's Day, and that would have been tragic.

I know a Fieldbase that's getting a Paddy's Day party!

It's been a very long day. I should probably go to bed.

There's more photos here if you're interested. I've decided against the slideshow thing. It's far too much of a faff and looks rubbish.

Where it's at.

Not really much to update on since my last blog.

I've been pretty busy, getting blogs live that had been awaiting sign off, and getting as much planning and instructions ready as possible for when I'm gone to Nicaragua. I went to the post office at CATIE and found a gift shop that sells ice cream, and a playground with a climbing frame, see-saws and swings. It was immense!

Yesterday I started putting my photos into albums on Google+. I've been taking a lot more photos than I've been putting on this blog, and with me going to Nicaragua for a bazillion days, I'll probably take enough there for just one album. I also thought that with the amount of photos I was taking, it would take me months to sort through them after I get back, so I should at least make a start.

Even though it's not the leading social media network, and Facebook is still the social media network of choice for my peer group, when I take photos on my phone or tablet, they automatically get backed up to Google+. It's easier to create albums in Google+ and share the URL than to go uploading stuff again to Facebook. Here's an example with my latest pictures. After expedition, I'll put all the albums onto a single blog post.



OK, that little slideshow has taken almost two hours to sort out. Google+ doesn't give you a code for embedding a slideshow of your albums. How odd? There's a secret URL to a Picasa site that has your Google+ albums and the text is in Polish (?) and you can get your slideshow embed code from there. Except when you put the code in the HTML, you can't see it in the blog until you publish it. If you hover on the bottom right corner of the slideshow and click on the album title, it will take you to the album page on Picasa, but that looks horrible and some of the photo captions don't show up properly because of the Polishness. The album looks much prettier on Google+. Google's products have been so useful during this adventure, I'm not going to slag them off too much, and I'd be very surprised if a slideshow embed code directly from Google+ albums is something they're not working on.

Last night I was on radio duty, so had to spend the night at Fieldbase . As per last time I was on radio duty, I stayed up late with my creative juices flowing. It's probably the only way to get any peace and quiet and privacy on expedition. I recorded quick demos on my phone of two of the songs I've written since I've been here. I decided I didn't like the third and I need to work on it some more. Despite the nice multi-track recording app I got for my tablet, the microphone on it is just too damn awful to record anything.

Here's the first. The idea came from the road trip with the Corcovado trek's food drops after I'd been trekking with them for four days. I was the only one with tunes on my phone, and Oasis was the most agreeable with everyone. Heading up the Pacific coast in the Costa Rican sunshine somehow made these songs that had been with me for years sound different, better. I never imagined anything causing that to happen. I think it's actually more Frank Turner than it is Oasis.



This second one was inspired by a story told by a colleague who shall remain nameless, who spent a few days trekking with Alpha 3, where a puppy followed them, and they decided the logical thing to do was to put it in the toilet in a church they were passing, because somebody would definitely go to the toilet of a church, find the puppy and return it to its owner. This of course led to an onslaught of grief towards my colleague, who was promptly dubbed "The Puppy Slayer". It's a bit Beck I think.



After fighting with the slideshow earlier, I went to the supermarket to get a few bits for the trip to Nica and food for dinner. I was on dinner and asked Sarah to help, because if I didn't she'd only be standing over my shoulder, looking disapprovingly at everything I do, with the occasional condescending question. We had fajitas, with messy pancakes for dessert, then back into sorting stuff for Nica.

I've been thinking about how I really love my work here with Raleigh, but it'd be lovely to be able to go back to my man-cave house with my guitars and my fast computer and my N64 and my Dreamcast after my day's work. Everybody here is great, but private time to do your own thing is almost impossible to come by unless you stay up ridiculously late or get up ridiculously early.

I don't play guitar beyond gentle strumming when people are around, because I want to play, but I don't want to draw attention to myself because people will just want covers I won't enjoy playing, hence I really let rip when I've got the place to myself on radio duty. Living by myself, I don't have to worry about other people, I just do what I want.

I knew that would be an issue when I applied for Raleigh. Christ, it was years before I'd even write songs with my band mates who I played with regularly! But I guess that's another difference. Back in Brum, I mostly hang around with other musicians, so whether it's in the practice room or people in my house, if I'm playing guitar, just messing around, somebody will most likely join in. It might be a 17 minute riff of blues funk, or it might be three chords of silly with a chorus about mushy peas, but it's creative collaborators as opposed to people asking to hear Wonderwall or something. Or putting on an iPod or the TV.

I've been told that I should take a day off each phase. It didn't happen in Phase One, and it's not going to happen during Phase Two. Obviously there'll be a couple of "days off" on project where I won't be working, but I'll still have to be with the group and probably have to get involved in some organised fun. For me, a day off would be grabbing a guitar from Fieldbase and buggering off somewhere with a packed lunch to find a tree to play said guitar under, with my phone fully charged to record demos.

Although I did download a piano app for my tablet before I left. Maybe my creative outlet will be sticking in some earphones and putting some stuff together on that. Ooh. I think I could be on to something there...

Anyway, I've to be on the bus from Turrialba at 5am - that's in just over six hours time. I don't think I'll have access to internet until I get back on 22 March, at least not for long enough to write a good blog, so this will be my last post until at least then. Hopefully I'll have some adventures to share!

Pura Vida!

Seconds out... round two. (A load of skit.)

Last Sunday we had the Project Managers' breakfast. It was really nice. Allocations for Phase Two were announced, and I was told that I'd be going to Achuapa in Santa Cruz in Nicaragua for a chunk of Phase Two. Nobody could tell me at what point I'd be going or for how long, which bothered me because I had to know what planning I had to do for the corporate blog, and it's hard to plan things with no information.

The rest of Sunday was reasonably chilled.

But then I got asked to judge the skits that each group from Phase One had to do.

And then it was bad.

The groups had been told in radio comms the week before to prepare their skits, and that they'd be judged on originality, inclusivity, language, and comedy. I know each group was told this, because I was the person on radio duty telling each group when they called in. Each criteria was marked out of five. One group scored higher than all the others, so they won. Simples, right?

Judges were ordered to dress up for the occasion. That's me as the Grim Santa.

No.

One group did a really nice skit, that was super-original and had a lovely poem and was all sentimental and stuff. But they didn't make much use of any language besides English, it wasn't that funny, and there were no points for sentimentality. So the group who ticked all the boxes for the things we were told to judge on won.

Apparently, this was a bad thing.

The winner was announced and there was a stunned silence from the audience, which led to me being stunned because I couldn't see what the problem was. A couple of Project Managers complained that the sentimental ones should have won. Then I heard that the winners were unhappy because they felt the sentimental ones should have won. I made a conscious decision to get out of there and into bed as quickly and as quietly as possible. Some strops, however, continued into the next day.

It was pretty horrible. I opted for keeping my mouth shut and letting people get over it. As far as I was concerned I just did as I was asked. We've got about seven weeks left in each others company, and then we never have to see each other ever again. Having a strop with people for that length of time, to me, seems sad. What a horrible way to spend a few weeks?

I kept myself pretty much to myself in the wake of Sunday night's events, and shoved my face in my computer to plough on with blog stuff. I got as much done a I could but was finished by early afternoon. Then I had to wait for people to sign off the content. That's the time-consuming part.

I finally found out that I'd be heading to Nicaragua on Saturday. It'll take two days to get there. And then I'm being left there until the end of phase. I asked what would happen with the blog, and they said they'd manage it themselves at Fieldbase. It didn't bother me at the time, but after considering it, I'm not completely happy with it. It's not that I've got a problem with getting out in the field and mucking out with the Venturers, but one of the things that I wanted to get out of this, was the chance to extend my portfolio of digital content, both for writing and editing, and I just think that's been taken away from me, and the experience that I want and need to get out of this has been compromised. Like, if they're able to manage the blogs while shoving me out in the field for most of a phase, why do they bother taking on a Comms Officer at all? I really have no idea what their line of thought is, but I'm sure it makes sense to them.

Waiting for somebody to sign of one of the six blogs I had ready to go, I had a mooch on Google Play. A couple of weeks back, I saw they had classic albums for £1.99. A lot of them were the albums that you've heard of, and that I know they're classics and that I should own, but mostly from being skint I haven't got. I got Licensed to Ill by The Beastie Boys and Odelay by Beck. Yesterday I got Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. What an album!? They seem to update them. I may spend lots of £1.99s on classic albums...

After a late night last night because I don't know why, I had less than two hours sleep before the wake up call to get the pup and Project Managers up for Phase Two deployment. After a load of hugging and goodbyes, those of us left at Fieldbase gave the place a good cleaning, got some bacon and eggs on for breakfast, and passed out.

Breakfast is better without pups and Project Managers.

I slept for longer than planned, and got into job applications. It seems about the right time to start. By the time the recruitment people faff about shortlisting, it'll be a couple of weeks, and then they should allow for another month for people to leave their current job, which is about when I get back. It's ambitious, but it would be lovely to have a job to go back to. The worst any of them will say is no because I can't make interviews. I've offered to do an interview over Skype with my applications, and if that's an issue, they're probably not the kind of digitally progressive-thinking organisation I feel I want to work for anyway.

Good friends we've had, good friends we've lost, along the way.
I guess I'm thinking quite a bit about life after Raleigh at the moment. Between job applications and booking a couple of gigs with my band, a bit of reality is seeping in. It's been said that you shouldn't do anything major until a week or two after Raleigh, because your head needs time to calm down. I can see that. It's also been said that your mates won't have a clue what you've experienced, just won't be able to relate. I suppose in that respect, I hope this blog will help, but probably not completely.

I've thought about the people here with me that I'm sharing the experience with. I'll probably never see most of them ever again after expedition. I spent five years in university with people coming and going from my life, who for some period of one to three years were such good friends, and who I haven't got the faintest idea of what they're doing now, or even if they're still alive. I'll occasionally think of one of those people and think "I wonder what ever happened to them?" before remembering that if I cared that much, I would have kept in touch with them. I'd like to think it highlights how much I value the friendship of those I have kept in touch with.

We watched The Motorcycle Diaries a few weeks back, a quote from that sticks in my mind: "This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams." That's probably what uni was except with hundreds of people instead of just two, and what Raleigh is with about thirty.

Going back to what I said about mates not being able to understand what you've been through, that's probably where my Raleigh colleagues will come in. People to talk to who know what you mean when you talk about it and the impact it's had.

I slept too much after breakfast. This has been a pretty whiney blog. I'm going to bed.

Buenos noches.

Pura Vida!

To San José and back.

On Thursday, myself, Blue and JJ, headed to San José first thing. We had to leave the Land Rover in for some repairs, before meeting the Explorer group that evening. The Explorers are Venturers who are just doing the second and third phases of the expedition. It was funny going into the Land Rover garage and being surrounded by Land Rovers that are made in Birmingham.

With nothing in particular to do, we wandered around the shops picking up bits and pieces that we needed. Despite telling my bank that I'd be in Costa Rica, they blocked my card when I tried to withdraw cash, and made me phone an 0845 number from Costa Rica for the privilege of getting access to my cash. Ho hum.

After a nap in a park and some food shopping for the Explorers, we headed to the airport. Once we'd found most of them, I was sent in a taxi to the British School where we were staying that night. It was grand and I managed to muster up some organised fun. Blue and JJ arrived a while later with the last Explorer.

Not sure of the extent of The Beatles involvement
with this chain of sports stores.

Pretty sunset on the way to the airport.

Up at 5am the next day, we headed back to Fieldbase. I went back on the bus with the Explorers. It was grand. I spent the day catching up with some blog stuff. A girl on one of the teams emailed her mother to say she'd written a blog. Mummy started bombarding Head Office in London with phonecalls and emails asking why her angel's blog hadn't been published. We only received it the day before. Ho hum.

When I was waiting for copy to be approved, I helped the Logistics and Admin teams with some bits. I made sure to shave and shower last night - with changeover the following day, I'd be busy and the returning Project Managers would be more in need of a shower than me!

Plans for a banana and mango crumble were thwarted by a power cut at Fieldbase. We all went to bed early, which in reality was no bad thing. We all knew that changeover would be chaos.

I got up at stupid o'clock to help the Logs team, did a bit with blogs, and then the teams started arriving back, so I've spent the afternoon hugging people, helping with lunch, helping with the shop, hugging people, and frantically trying to sort out two blogs a Project Manager told me had been sent. They'd been put in a folder, but nobody told me they were there. Ho hum.

It's been a busy but productive and fun few days. It's been really nice catching up with the Project Managers. I've been continuing reading The Chimp Paradox which has given me lots to think about.

I've noticed in myself that I'm not nervous about doing things that I've never done before, like trying to get a group of people into the gym of a school with security men who don't speak English, or climbing about on top of a Land Rover securing bamboo with tarpaulins and bungee cords. It reminded me of when I was in Scouts - going off to camp somewhere I'd never been, but there was never any fear. It's probably something to do with youth that somehow dwindles when you get sucked into and get used to a life of no excitement or adventure.

Anyway, Project Managers' breakfast tomorrow morning. Should be good pup-free fun!

Pura Vida!