Sport's day at Miraflor

Romeo 6 has been having a great time in the community of Miraflor in Nicaragua for over a week now. With the foundations of the pre school already completed by the previous group, we have been busy building the wall and the terrace – a task which involved a lot of cement mixing, pick axing and digging.

We’ve also had the chance to teach some English at the school. Every day, two of us give a 30 minute lesson teaching things such as numbers, animals and basic conversation. When we are not at the school, we are usually spending time with our Nicaraguan families. So far, a lot of us have had the chance to milk a cow, feed chickens, see one day old calves and chicks and even kill a chicken for dinner!

The families have all been incredibly welcoming and we have been served some great Nicaraguan food. Although we don’t all speak Spanish, we have been able to get on and have fun with the community.

On Sunday, on our day off, we organised a little sports day with all the children. Despite our initial anxieties, we had a great turn out and all of us enjoyed the egg and spoon race, 3 legged race, bin bag game, wheelbarrow race and football, although some of us found it hard to suppress our competitive streaks! We finished with a prize giving ceremony, in which all the participants received sweets, coke or crisps.

12H - The Final Slideshow

Farewell Expedition 12H... you have all been amazing. Thank you so much for all of your hard work, commitment and dedication to your projects. All the best and good luck with your Fourth Challenge!

The Zulus are back at Zero!

The Zulus have returned to Fieldbase from their Adventure Challenge!

I'd like to say that they came bounding up the driveway, full of the days of spring...however they were more akin to zombies than spring lambs after a 3.30am start, a nap on the bus and the small issue of 8 days of solid adventure!

Here are their summaries of the past few days...photos to follow!

ZULU 1 - by Sarah Tight
"So where ARE we?" was the first question from Tarlaan when we arrived at the beginning of our 5 day trek. Little did we know that navigation was to become impossible, traversing snake-infested grass the norm and that our personal fragrances could reach such potency! Spirits rose and fell, but the spectacular views kept us going up the near-vertical hills. We walked up A LOT of such hills, swam in amazing rivers, laughed, cried, and overall, survived!

ZULU 2 - by Mayci Hicks
Zulu 2 is comprised of many different people from different Delta groups, yet despite these differences we fell in effortlessly to the social circle that would shape our lives for the next 5 days on trek.
Raleigh trek consists of 55km, 4 Zulu groups, rucksacks containing our weight in Pork & Beans and some of the hardest days we have ever experienced.We overcame a multitude of challenges and our team never broke, despite...
- encountering tricky boulders in our river crossing and then realising it was the wrong way...
- trying to find camping ground between walls of mud and corn
- seeing ANOTHER 50 degree mountain climb with a rucksack in the heat of the midday sun...

During moments like this, it is easy to see the qualities that make up a person. No-one in Zulu 2 gave up.

Yesterday, the winners of the trek and survival challenge were announced and there has never been a prouder moment than when Zulu 2 was proclaimed the victor! 10, 20, 30 years from now, if something goes wrong, these memories will help us pull through, realising "I can do anything". Zulu 2 may officially end when we leave Raleigh, but our connections never will.

ZULU 3 - by Taormina Locke
After the exhausting but immensely rewarding trek, all the Zulu teams were whisked away to 'Paradise Island', a beautiful island haunted by the ghosts of the old prison there.

Our first night was spent setting up camp next to the pier, and then being given a talk by Ross on San Lucas Island's history. Although a little spooked, we were all looking forward to getting a good night's sleep until 7.30am - a lie in!

However, we were dragged from sleep by a blood-curdling scream at 5am followed by huge shouts and roars! Our tents were pulled to the ground, and we hopped out into the dawn to see our PMs had gone wild! All dressed in ghostly attire, they rounded us up into our Zulu groups to start the 24-hour survival challenge.

The challenge entailed navigation from a point to which we had been led blindfolded, tight-rope walking, spider-web diving and bridge-building, camping, cooking dinner from scratch (including scaling fish) and finally rounded off by a celebratory jump off the pier into the sea!

This morning we woke at 3.30am to get packed and load the boats heading back to the mainland. What an incredible last few days to end a Raleigh expedition!

ZULU 4 - by Anna Coleridge
Shocked to be woken up at 5.30am just days after finishing trek, Z4 started the survival challenge slowly. After a less-than perfect first task (though Mark did build a great fire) we picked up our game. In the raft-building task we put in a strong performance and were complimented on our intelligent design. The final two challenges in the morning went relatively smoothly, though our size range from Leon to Carla meant we struggled to balance weight!

Fatigued and ready for lunch, we stopped on a path to eat before finding camp for the night. We reached our designated beach just in time to meet the 'boatman' Ross with our fish and bread for supper.

Mark built a wonderful fire, Grace scaled many a fish for supper and Annie and Alice made bread dough in bowls made out of watermelons, culminating in a lovely evening around the fire (did we mention the fire?).

Up at 4.30am because of the concrete floor, we were back at base in good time to hear that Z2 had won! Despite this, we thoroughly enjoyed the survival challenge and are ready to come home.

Thanks guys! Pics to follow!