Well I made it! Now settled in with my host family who are very warm and welcoming as most South Americans seem to be. They are feeding me so much and it is considered rude to refuse their food especially when you are the only one at the table with meat on the plate. This is a relatively wealthy family as well, we have a maid called Sophia who is 18 and sent by her farming family to work six hours away. I gave her a box of Roses and I have never seen anyone delight in chocolate so much (except maybe Non) and she all she thanks me everyday for them..very touching. My room is nice but has possibly the squeakiest bed in the planet, everytime I move I wake myself up....I suspect this is to ensure good behaviour of the students staying at the house which, as I am reminded by the virgin mary towering above me complete with Rosary beads, is a very Catholic house/country. Combined with noisy bed and dumb arse cockreal that crows every time a cloud obsures the sun thinking it is sunrise again, sleeping is difficult but I'm doing my best! I am enjoying my extremely intensive Spanish lessons very much, Sandra my teacher has the patience of a Saint....It is much harder than I had anticipated. Getting to and from school is a life and death affair having to play a constant game of chicken against unbelievable traffic which stops for no one. The cars do not even indicate and on my first day here I witnessed a particularly nasty accident and the man emerged from the car with a bad head injury. At that point I wished I had more max fax experience (and Spanish) as I had to leave the gathering crowd to it until the ambulance arrived. It can also be a little intimidating walking around, especially today when a group of soldiers complete with guns encircled me and started hissing (their none to pleasent way of showing approval). Luckily they were just playing but it raised my heart beat all the same (not for a good reason!) On my first day here I had been out with my host family and super hyped gradchildren to the markets and was walking home with Laura, who is also staying at the house some of the time, when we stumbled upon a blocked off road. Next thing we knew a film crew of about 10 complete with cameras on cranes waved us into the empty street. We then had to walk towards the bank as though we were really excited. It took ages to shoot and it turns out that I've extraed in my first TV commercial for the local bank!!! I've just had a Salsa lessons are mucho fun and unlike England we have an equal male to famale ratio...a good excuse to mix! I am now off for a night tour of the old town (notoriously rough at night) so I'll let you know if I survive the experience!