cookies and spiders

for some strange reason my computer has gone all european, it keeps automatically redirecting google.com to google france all in french, and the yahoo page goes into german. i thought this might be some internet hacking by some angry non english speaking person who wants the international language of communication to be something other than english. but i think that was just my conspiracy theory paranoia getting the better of me. perhaps it's just a setting on the computer but je ne peux pas le figurer out....

so last monday me and robert were down in placencia - he was headed to the island for the week, and we were  doing some banking at belize bank before he went. there was a girl outside the bank, with braids in her hair and lots of homemade bracelets on. she was at the pay phone and had the phone in one hand and a piece of paper in the other, about to call somebody. it was my friend kim, and she was about to call me to say she was here! quel coincidence. i knew she was in the region, and was heading that way from livingston, guatemala, but i hadn't heard from her since my last email. she has been cycling from panama for the last 8 months, she started on a macmillan charity bike ride which went from panama to nicaragua, through costa rica, and from then on had been on her own. (we met on the mexico bike ride in march 2009). she is very cool, has been doing art projects with children along the way including 3 months painting a huge mural on a hostel wall in salvador. she is very chilled out and always smiling, which is pretty essential when you're doing such a huge ride on your own. she's met loads of nice people along the way and not had any trouble being a single female cyclist, and i think it's so inspiring that she's done all this on her own. kim, i salute you.

we hung out for the day in placencia and robert headed to the island to check on the work out there and supervise it. tuesday i took the bus back to cayo, with friends belinda (the yoga teacher) and jude (her husband) - they were headed to guatemela to look at tikal before heading back to canada. belinda was looking forward to eating sushi and other such things that don't exist in belize. kim set off on her bike towards dangriga, and from then to cayo to see us again. i hung out in cayo at the house there, did some cycling, spent most of my time at the lovely neighbours - len and cathy from canada. they are staying in belize for another 6 months, then maybe heading to uruguay. cathy makes the best cookies i have ever tasted anywhere in the world, i'm going to get the recipe from her. my baking tends not to be too successful, apart from that amazing loaf of brown bread i once made - remember helie? (helie was pretty upset as she was teaching me how to make bread and my loaf rose more than hers even though i'd been complaining the whole time what a procedure it was and couldn't we just go buy a loaf instead - i said it was beginner's luck - maybe it was reverse psychology and the bread wanted to prove me wrong by being amazing).

kim turned up again on the friday morning having cycled up the hummingbird and stayed with some interesting people along the way. friday i cycled to belmopan to meet robert who was headed back to cayo from the island. he got there before me, but fair enough he was in a car. it took me 1hr 45 mins, not too bad, it's 26 miles more or less. a little hilly but nothing serious. i had to stop to give my poor feet a break after an hour or so, they get really sore due to all their silly problems. i'm hoping this will sort out in the next 6 months and stop being a problem altogether then. 

we have had a tarantula in the house on 2 occasions recently. the first time he was sitting right by the toilet on the wall in the bathroom. we yelped a bit, and then robert put him a box and took him outside. we showed him to len and cathy first. tarantulas are pretty docile, they don't tend to run around really fast like little spiders do. for this reason i don't mind them too much. they really aren't aggressive, and will only bite you if they're really provoked apparently. i wouldn't want one in my house generally, but all in all i think they're cool. we found a really huge cricket type bug at the hangar which was pretty crazy too, he had bright red wings underneath when he flapped them, and long spindly legs. kind of like those praying mantis things.

in other news - we have eaten a lot of pancakes with orange and sugar; the climate has changed and got much cooler and less humid - this really really helps - we sleep with a blanket on now and no fan on; i have read a book called always a game - by a guy who made his living from gambling, and who len and cathy met through a house swap holiday thing, it's a really interesting book. i am now reading our man in havana by graham greene, and might carry on with it now with a pancake. we had an amazing ultralight flight yesterday morning. will post some pics on the next blog.

over and out x