Is it a yurt? Is it a pizza oven? No, it's a temazcal. Obviously.

Well, good evening friend and thank you for reading.  I hope you are enjoying reading our my adventures.  I have just coated myself in 'Deet Femme' and am ready to fend off the mosquitoes of the world, who have, in the past, been rather partial to my flesh.   

My patrol was on Colours duty this morning, and we ran a moving session to open the day, where we reflected on the Stop the Violence campaign, and renewed our commitment to the Guide Law, thinking about the Guide Laws in the UK and those of the Guias de Mexico.  Gill translated them into English for us, which was useful as I didn't know she spoke Spanish. 

The colour party consisted of Zoë, Eileen and Maureen.  It was a special moment, and they were clad beautifully in their trip t-shirts.  Maureen had never been in a colour party, in thirty years of Guiding.  Margaret then said a few words about the importance of keeping the Guide Laws.  To close, I taught the group the song which anyone who went to the Girls' World Forum will remember singing at the closing ceremony, with tears in our eyes - 'I am one voice and I am singing' which gradually, over a couple of hours, builds up to 'We are 10 million voices singing'.  It was beautiful. 

Post-Colours, we piled into the coach, bound for Tepoztlan, a nearby craft town.  I sat on a balcony watching the world go by, as I like to do, sipping Coke - a little treat when I'm abroad.  We wandered around the craft market, where I purchased some delightful earrings, which will last a lot longer than the ones I usually buy from Accessorize.  Unless I lose them, which I will endeavour not to.  They were tiny stars, very pretty.  Others enjoyed a tour of the cathedral, the market, and delicious ice-cream in all sorts of crazy flavours.

Then we jumped back into the coach and drove to a curious place.  I would describe the journey, but I was sound asleep.  I love journeys,  but I often miss them because I am asleep.  Do you know that poem called Slow Dance? There is a line of it which says 'When you rush so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of  getting there'.  There should be another line really, which says 'unless you are asleep'.  I have missed thousands of miles of journeys due to being asleep.  It's one of my key skills.  I thought about writing a book once, called 'Wake Me Up with I Get to Timbuktu', based on my overland journey to Timbuktu in 2002.  I wouldn't recommend a trip there now mind.  Bad things sometimes happen when I leave a country.  I left the Ivory Coast one Wednesday in 2002, and civil war broke out on the Thursday.

Anyway, we lunched and I sat with Hilary and the vegetarian gang.  I enjoyed a slab of chicken whilst they grazed on leaves.

There was a structure which looked rather like the yurt at Cudham; a cross between that and a pizza-oven.  In fact, it was a temazcal, a type of Mexican sauna.  Some of the group enjoyed some time inside where they found hot volcanic rocks and a man called José who gave them lemon tea to drink at the beginning and in the middle of their yurt-stay, which was about thirty minutes.  The door was locked.  There was no escape.   I am going to canvas three people about how they felt after their yurt / pizza oven experience.  Helen C says 'it was relaxing, very sweaty and gave me time to meditate; I saw butterflies and stars'.  Sally says 'I was determined to embrace the experience, though I was unsure at the start.  I enjoyed being hosed down at the end'.  Pip found it a tad claustrophic, especially when the door was bolted.  Note to self - do not lock the Region Chief in a cupboard.  Some found the experience a bit unsettling, coupled with a fit of giggles, the experience was curtailed. 

I read my book whilst others embraced the temazcal.  I am very close to finishing my book.  Then I am going to read another book.  I'm going to read 'Things Fall Apart', in memory of the famous African writer, Chinua Achebe, who died recently.

The heat here is balmy.  Cicadas chirrup in the evenings.  Various bugs fly around.  If we see a scorpion, we are instructed to tell it to dial 4 from the emergency phone. 

So I'm signing out now.  Can't quite believe that it's our last day here tomorrow.  Night night.