in the jungle all you hear is screams.

it is near three in the morning and until recently there was a continuous rasping breathing noise not unlike the sound darth vader makes when he breathes.it was in fact far off howler monkeys screaming their little lungs off. from hearing the evening soiree's of the coyotes in america and not forgetting the ever present cicada squeaks we have now come to a place that has a new sound or two. as well as the nightly heavy breathing there are also several very cute geckos living throughout the house that every now and then find something funny or maybe too rude and bleat out a little sqeuaky chirpping laugh or screech of annoyance. these little fellers are known as ceiling prawns by the family, due to their small size but when drinking tea or leaving tea for a few minutes they employ the use of prawn-shields that will deflect all matter flung by the geckos, in much the same way monkeys do. still they are gorgeous little guys. there is also a resident teenage iguana that pulls himself round the eaves in a most clumsy manner,i think that he may have some gecko friends and that they are too polite to tell him he really isn't a ceiling walker but more of a tree clinger. he rasps his body over the eaves between the roof and occasionally jumps to the next beam with a large thump. he makes no other noises.
as well as all the reptiles there are many beady eyes that shine in the night. if you wear a headlamp torch and walk around the garden at night there are loads of unblinking little eyes watching you.on closer inspection these turn out to be the big eyes of thousands of little and large spiders. and don't worry sis, these guys are cannibals, they keep eating their own! now after that scarey(to some) image.each evening as it turns dark (and it really does TURN dark here, not much of a twilight) the trees light up with a few blinking green l.e.d.'s. that is to say, if you look closer you see that there are tiny little bugs shining as bright as they can or putting on their lights for night driving. the don't stop for long.hopping from one blade of grass to the next and stopping every now and then at a high vantage point on a bush. i caught one when it was in a bush and they look like a little earwig with no pincers and a whitish bum that slowly builds up a spark and then- whoosh!! lights up and starts again. i don't know how many you would need to make a bulb though.
oooh! yesterday we saw a few of the smaller toucans in the tree over the shop. they were nibbling on an epiphyte up in the branches of the tree that grows through the shop. and then they flew right over us as we looked on and they jumped around on the breadfruit trees for a bit too.
today zee went swimming in the river and saw no crocs. they stay upstream apparently. and we dug a pit for the family garden. while digging the pit i had an ulterior motive, there be clay in that thar pit. fine white china clay. now i didn't go deep enough to get to the pure white stuff but i did get some lovely white clay with a marbling of gorgeous orange and after processing it is slighty greyish rather than white. should keep me out of trouble.
once the pit was dug out we filled it with old jack bean stalks and compost that has not yet broken down then covered it all up with earth again. zee has been reading a great book called fertility gardening which is about making the soil strong for growing. i just follow orders.
breadfruit by the way is only one of the few things growing here.
coconuts, ricardo(a red condiment kind of thing. the maya use it as face paint stuff too), starfruit, dragonfruit, several different kinds of banana some of which taste like apples, grenadella, loofahs growing around the outside of the house as well as a perrenial apple shaped purple cucumber. i am sure there ismore to be listed but that is the lot for the moment.

have a happy christmas and a happy new year back in the old country and enjoy the turkey, ham and all the trimmings!

Thank you, friends made at Terrasante

I understand that many of my new friends and indeed my esteemed boyfriend at times found the set-up at this intentional community in the Sonoran desert to be highly chaotic and difficult, often times it was like being the rope in a game of tug of war between the some of the residents there. It was also challenging at times to deal with the powers that be at this community, but this is not what I am going to take from my time there. I am not sure if I mentioned it already, but I fell in love with the desert, with the sunsets, the warmth, the dizzying array of animals and in particular birds there and with the friendships that I have made while there. So to everyone there who let me become a friend with them at Terrasante, please know that I am extremely grateful for every conversation. Thank you for sharing your story and your point of view with me, and thank you for making my time there so inspirational and blessed. I learned much about myself and I escaped from the holding pattern that I have allowed myself to fall into for the last few years. So I am a happy bunny, even though the tears escaped from my eyes while en route to Flagstaff.

Lots of love
Zee

dias los muertes parade

day of the dead parade in tucson was so much fun! and it is a celebration of those that are gone. an old woman fell over on the curb and while most of us normals wondered what to do one of the dead said- well you're in good company and what a lovely place to die! -- all in good fun but it was the spirit of the procession. great place! so many crazy costumes and brilliant make-up.

All quiet on the western front

hello all,
it took two and a half days to get to arizona by bus from new york, it was an interesting trip,met a few folk from all over. there was one guy from l.a. that was travelling with his wife and kid and he was like- well i never met no-one from ireland before! to which i answere- well i haven't ever met anyone from l.a.! new york city was great. expensive but nice to see. found some great places that were real new york, like nice family run diners and 24hour ones too! also ate obligitory hotdog.(got shafted by vendor) got the staten island ferry which is free and saw manhattan from the sea. went past the statue of liberty. nice feeling all through the city too.
found a great hostel called the chelsea international hostel on 23rd and 8th. the city is real easy in general to get around. it is all grid so if you wanna get somewhere just check what number it is and how far uptown or down town it is from you.the natural history museum is awesome and we saw so many things! then wandered round the city and found little details like a stone witch on a pillar. the kind of thing you'd miss if you got the metro everywhere.

we are now in a place called terrasante. it is a small collection of people and dwelling in the middle of arizona, on the edge of the sonoran desert. there are lots of little fluffy clouds.
everyone here is very nice and days are pretty easy going. usually 3 to 6 hours of doing stuff and the rest just chatting and hanging around. the place has loads of wildlife. saw a few little fast lizards, woodpeckers, ROADRUNNERS!,cool quail that look like lindy-hoppers from the 20's and on the edge of actually fully seeing them- javelina's- which are little pig like animals that are about the size of a pot bellied pig but are actually closer to tapirs. they come out at night and when you shine a torch at them they are the same colour as the sandso if they dont move you don't see them.
heard loads of coyotes out at night but if you are around they aren't and that poor singer in canada was a freak event. we are eating food from a food drop in the local mission that we went along to today. it is a firefly class baptist church, that is to say that it is known as the serenity baptist church. an interesting experience that was.

more later

new york/gotham/scifi fantasy land

arriving in the city by bus i saw---
the joker on a street corner acting manic and a ninja or raiden the japanese god of thunder on a roof top beside the pub we went to.
so the comics are true sometimes as are bad movies with kurt rusell.

going well so far. just waiting to check back in to the hostel.
then to touristically wander the spots and highlights that we like. might also get a funny pic of something for mum. check back!

wwoof!

having a good time over all. had fun making a deep hole today. that is i had a great time and zee was all eeps! mostly due to my bad directing skills. it is so cold here. finishing up in mass-a-chew-sets on saturday and then off to a desert or some such(AZ). we saw a real life garter snake the other day. but we didn't get to try it on! badum! tsch! it was so scared of us and Lachie the resident aussie was able to scare it away using old bush lore. whacking a stick. it hid behind a tree! been milking goats all week and we made two very nice and very individual fences using all of the tree! wattle fence for one and dead-hedging. look it up.

lots of love,
your Uncle Traveling Matt
that is to say.
Zee and Dee

arrived!

hi all. justy a quick post to say we are on the farm and looking at how it all gets done.seems rather relaxed. minor teething problems.
all good. yurt is good. went wandering the woods last night with a fellow wwoofer named lachy, i thought it was loki but it isn't:( he's from australia and is well mad. just camping down in the woods. tootally mad! i couldn't do that yet! also might be small be small bears around!

saw a blue jay yesterday. lovely.
helped lift a fridge about too. was fun.

more soon.

Bike is fixed will be home soon DV.

Bike fixed,new rear wheel aquired, have a cycle planned for this afternoon, afterwhich we get a train home. plan to update blog upon our return to the homestead. Thanks for reading, and visit Scotland and esp. Edinburgh if possible- its fab.

Hi all, in Edinburgh now

To all whom have never been and to whom I have not spoken to in the last few days, Edinburgh is a lovely city!
We had a major mishap with Dee's rear wheel axle this side of St. Andrews, as a result met a few super people that really tried to help us. We ended up taking train to Edinburgh from Leuchers. Spent a few days coming down the east coast, the weather was great and at times foggy, esp. over Dundee. We hope to get the bike fixed in the next few days and then we decide on our further progress. After passing through the Great Glen on the designated cycle route that was very hilly and lovely, though didnt really take us past Ness, we skirted Inverness and went through Nairn. That night we slept in someones garden and the following day arrived early in Findhorn.where we were impressed by the setup, and some of the houses were absolutely gorgeous. They have windmills that supply much of the power for the village and that impressed us too. we laft there at around 5pm and cycled to Port Gorden where we camped overlooking the sea. Dee says the town was Lovecraftian- whatever that means. We then cycled to Maud where we got the cyclepath to Dyce, close to Aberdeen, straight path, -old train line, no cars.Got there real early like 00.30 froze asses off that night cos we wernt bothered enough to put up tent in a park in Dyce. Aberdeen better 2nd time through, confusing town, quite pretty in places. Left Aberdeen and cycled to the seaside town of Stonehaven via a very arseways route- the N1 cyclepath, the day was too hot and I was a grumpy. Stayed 2 days in Stonehaven swam in outdoor heated seawater pool built in art neuveau style and ate deep fried mars bar- would be better without the batter (I think) Saw Dunnottar castle and took great pic of what we think may be a osprey or something else raptory. On our way to Forfar, we stopped at the house of a lovely man who lives in a Canadian WWII dorms for the soldiers, after 60 years this strange half barrel structure is still standing. We were chatting to them for around three hours!! They breed Jack Russel terriors. The following day we spent half of it scanning gravestones for ancestors, tedious process as the graveyard is massive,gave up 1/3 of the way through them- sorry. Perhaps another day we complete the job. So after Forfar the next big thing was cycling the Tay bridge that is +_ 11/2 miles long, on a dedicated cyclepath, we stopped the night in Tayport, then we went through St. Andrews, another nice, pretty town (wealthy) and had the upset. We have seen so many raptors; buzzards, eagles, Kestrels, even a flock of small raptors leaving a field. I also think we saw a barn owl on our night cycle. What a place for bird watchers and history enthusiasts!! Gonna go, thanks for reading!! hope to post pics. Remake, do we know you?

just saying hello

we are now soaked to the skin and drying out in a way nicer hostel inthe mittle of the great glen(lochness etc) really nice here it is.
the commitments is on the tellyso thats fine by me.
good atmosphere here.
there are loads of pics in the slideshow to your right.
rightclick to go see them bigified.

that is all
we are having fun, even in the rain

one week in and we are fine

Hi all, Zee here, we plan to post pics tomorrow, this is just to let you know what we have been up to. My fingers are numb from all the cycling so p[lease excuse spelling errors. We arrivid in scotland last friday and cycled like mad yokes till we got to Ardgossan (or something like that) where we took the ferry to Arran, This happened accidently, (I thought he wanted to go, he thought I did, both were indifferent). Arran is gorgeous, we stayed three nights, two of which we camped wild. we saw red squirrelsa and golden eagles and harriers and hares and black bunnies. the plant life there was fab too and we got some nice sunny weather, though it always seems to rain by by night. We left Arran on the Monday and cycled once again like mad yokes to Loughgilphead where we stayed in a camping place and did some badly needed l;aundry. we saw shaggy moos (highland cattle.)night time once again was very very rainy and windy. The following day we cycled to outside Connel that is built next to a tidal waterfall that apparently gets scary during spring tides, (it was normal fo us though) Anyway, camped wild outside a mussel farm on Lough Etive. The loughs here are salt water. Then we cycled to fort William, and stayed last night in The scottish youth hostel, something I am not in a hurry to do again, give me a tent any day!!. Any way hostel and the campsite we are at now are at the foot of the mighty Ben Nevis (or the foot of the mountain next to it) Spectacular!!!!! hope to do an easy mountain walk later and work some muscles other than those used for cycling. This place is lovely, this day is soft and drizzly. Love to everyone and apologies for not being in touch, internet access round here seems few and far in between. XXXXXX and from Dee too. till tomorrow when we hope to upload pics of this lovely country.

UP! UP! AND A STAY!!!!!

for a first day of travelling we didn't do too much. all packed up we walked to the train station and got a train to laytown where zee's sister collected her bike. now we are in the house for two days minding little baby David. Zee is all 'oh isn't he lovely!!!'. like i am not... mutter mutter cute and adorable mutter mutter mutter.....

the order of the day is cuteness and as such we must have requisite documents of cute!!! this is a family of cats that have recently been sitting outside the back porch of darels place!! they were feeding on their mum when zee spotted them and we snapped this. the mum was so tired looking but she's pretty cool looking, it looks like she has been on some navy seals mission or something with the stripes worked into her face as camoflage. mum-cat the commando of feeding time!
the first cycle went pretty well. only a warm up and getting used to the bikes with the panniers on.
it was only about half an hours cycle from laytown to bettystown and it went very smoothly. just have to remember to keep a lookout for potholes and things like that.