Tomorrow we’ll sing auld lang Syne, which isn’t an obvious time to go trail riding around Chichester, but there you go. It could’ve been different, but family got fraught, enough for me to head for the hills.

The weekend started with everyone piling onto a crowded bus to Rivas. We had just finished teaching at the centre Friday afternoon and ran to catch the last bus. After a two hour standing journey over increasingly bumpy roads, we arrived in San Juan del Sur; a focus of tourism in Nicaragua, famous for its beach,…

Last Sunday I went to a city called Masaya with another volunteer, a friend from the same house. We were looking for ceramics classes because Masaya is famous for its pottery, but when we arrived we discovered nearly all the schools were in a nearby town called San Juan de Oriente. After exploring the locally…

Can an entire country be quiet? I think it can certainly be quieter than another. After having been in Nicaragua for about a month, I think England is a pretty quiet country. I’ve mentioned how I think the language you speak profoundly influences the way you think and act, so on a larger scale surely the…

I’m volunteering at a learning centre in a southern district of Granada called La Sabaneta. Away from the cheerfully painted colonial centre of the city, here the roads turn to dirt tracks and skinny horses roam about eating the grass that grows from cracks in the stone. The walk to the centre is about twenty…

The volunteer accommodation is on the Calle la Libertad, a minute’s walk from one of Granada’s main Cathedrals and central park. Like the majority of the houses in this part of Granada it has very tall ceilings and big double doors – the main room could easily accommodate two floors and an attic but remains…

Tomorrow I’m going to Nicaragua. I’m currently in the fleeting space of time between college and uni or work where you arguably experience the most freedom of your life and I want to enjoy it by seeing the world and what it’s like to live completely differently. A few of my friends have gone straight…

It was M’s idea to go away, so here we are in the Peak district atop the ridge behind Hope Valley just before the wind blew up and turned us back. We played a lot of pool, in the oh so swish Loosehill youth hostel, and a lot more on the super swish table in…

    A few weeks ago my Dad and I drove up to shingle street, an almost completely deserted beach near Southwold to celebrate me finishing the end of my A-levels. We killed the first day swimming, reading and talking until as the dusk gathered it was time to light a fire, cook some food…