24 May:

I'm sitting here in Cholulega, being bitten to distraction by midges.

The rain season has begun. The good news is we have many overcast days, though still incredibly hot and humid. I also enjoy cycling in a rainstorm and the trailer is proving to withstand torrential rain. So, on occasions I find myself a little chilly.

Right now I am in the Plan office for as long as Tigerlily can amuse herself. We have already spent the day since 8am visiting Projects in various communities, so she's doing well to not be bothering me! Well, so much has happened and it is beginning to feel like we've come far. From Mexico - Guatemala- Belize - Guatemala - a tiny piece of Honduras that took an hour to cycle through - El Salvador- now Honduras. Tomorrow we will be arriving in Nicaragua.

Distance wise we are just over half way. I have been clocking up the miles lately (67 miles the day before yesterday) and now I have a pretty rigid agenda to stick to in order that we arrive at pre-arranged dates to Plan offices and so that we can arrive at Panama to take a flight on Friday 7th July. We are having a super great time. Plan in every country here have been super accommodating to the point of spoiling us rotten. I so wish I had time to tell everything. When I return to the UK there is much work for me to do regarding promoting Plan and telling this story. Whilst in San Salvador, the capital of El. Salvador, I bought a dictaphone as I am finding it difficult making time to write. It's proving very useful. The youth group that we visited today also enjoyed practising making reports by interviewing me with it.

I have been so much happier since we arrived in El Salvador, for several reasons: getting back to staying with people rather than in hotels, being in touch with Plan, meeting their wonderful staff and projects and getting on with the cycling, pushing myself a bit more and seeing that we are actually getting somewhere. We are getting to lots of places and seeing so much, mostly good.

Distance covered 1350 miles
Days cycling 33
Days left till 7th July 43

PLAN as far as I can tell is a super charity. It has outshone my expectations and I have been so impressed by the way they work and the projects they have implemented with so many hundreds of communities in each country they work, that at times I have been close to tears of joy, it is that inspiring.

Will write from Nicaragua in about 4 days.