What an amazing weekend I've just had!  On Saturday it was Mother's day here and the lovley family I am staying with gave me a gift.  I was so touched (even more than usual!!).  After breakast we packed up the car and headed for the beach which is about 1.5 hours drive from here.  We were heading for Manuel Antonio National Parque which I was told had wonderful wild life and amazing beaches.  Both statements turned out to be under-statements!  We found a hotel that had a room to sleep 5 - yes all 5 in one room!!!!!- at a cost of 135 dollars for the room.  That worked out at about 20 UK pounds for me!

The hotel was lovely and had a pool.  After we had explored the town and I had had my first ever Pino Colada, we went back to the hotel to swim.  By that time it was dark and it was a wonderful experience to swim in the pool, in the dark under a tropical sky. That was followed by a meal in a restaurant just out of the town.  I had the biggest prawns I have ever seen from the barbecue that was roaring away on real logs! 

On Sunday we headed off early to the National Parque.  By 9a.m. it was 31 degrees and very humid!!  Mascara is not much use here as it ends up all over your face!! I didn't realise that we were heading for a beach - I thought we were going to spend the day looking at the wildlfe so consequently when we arrived at the most perfect beach, I had no swimsuit or towel with me!!  Misunderstandings due to not speaking the lingo!!  Mariana was with us but she hadn,t realised I hadn´t understood!!!  I still really enjoyed the day though.  The park shuts at 3p.m. so we went back to the hotel to use the pool and have lunch. 

After that we showered and headed back to Atenas.  We went throught really heavy rain but as we hadn't had any rain all weekend, no-one really minded.  The roads really have to be experienced to be believed!!

Today I had 2 hours of Spanish lessons followed by an hour in grade 3.  Lunch is at 11.10 as the children start school at 7.30.  This afternoon I was in 11th grade doing drug education and all was going well until the heavens opened and the sound of the rain hammering on the tin roof and thunder like you have never heard drowned out my voice!!  The session seemed to go well though.  The students are so amazingly polite here and all appear to listen and don´t text when you are trying to teach!!!

I´ll try and update again before Friday.

Keep the messages coming!!

Love from Pat xxxxxxx