Unfortunately we left El Salvador yesterday, our favorite country of the trip. We're spending our last four days in Antigua, Guatemala, once the old capitol. Because of its history the city is filled with ruins of many old churches and colonial buildings, and, it's surrounded by three volcanos. It's also the most touristy place we've been; the advantage of this is that we think it will provide an easier transition back into gringo life. We also have more money left than we anticipated, so we're spending a little extra on our hotel for some serious style.
We ended our time in El Salvador with a bang. In Juayua we did go on the tour to the waterfalls I mentioned; these were amazing!!!! At the time of the hike it was pouring down rain and somewhat chilly, so our drowned-rat appearances provided some entertainment for the locals as our 13-year old guide led us down the street. Salvadoreños do not like the rain. The waterfalls ended up being a series of five which all formed into crystal-clear pools perfect for swimming. We have some awesome footage of Chris jumping 15 feet from one of the falls into one of the pools. I'm a little chicken about those sorts of things. I know, I know, I need to grow a pair.
The last town we visited was Tacuba, another quaint mountain town located next to Parque El Imposible (which, by the way, did use to be imposible to navigate through due to its steep nature). The night before our visit to the park we went to the bar owned by the town tour guide, Manolo. He was quite a trip, a very hyper character who spent the evening rambling and dancing to Tears for Fears and other 80's music.
We met some very nice young Brits and afterward remarked that they were some of the few travellers we've met on this trip that we liked well enough. Odd, huh? In preparation for the trip I aniticipated that many of the other travellers would be fairly cool. Instead we've encountered many with a sort of liberal "missionary" attitude. Meaning that these individuals want to press their liberal idealism onto these Central American cultures. Top 3 liberal missionary comments from other travellers on this trip:
#1. "Why can't these people prepare their food differently?"
#2. "We should just force them to recycle..."
#3. "They should just solve their problems with gun violence with pacifism..."
Wow. Of course the planet is better off if we all recycle. Of course I wish
there was a simple, nonviolent solution to gun violence. I agree in principle with these ideals. However, I cannot believe that some people are arrogant enough to waltz into a country for the first time and think that they have the cultural supperiority to make these claims. If this trip has taught me anything, it is how LITTLE I truly know.
That was my rant for the day. Back to Tacuba. We went on a six-hour hike through El Imposible. It was incredible! One of the most magnificent things about the vegetation of El Salvador is that it changes drastically in a matter of meters. We started off hiking through coffee plantations and all of a sudden were surrounded by pine trees and then by cacti and then later by tropical palm trees. At one point our guide Maximo (employed by Manolo and thankfully much more mellow) spotted a small, grey snake called a timbo and said "cuidado! muy peligroso!" (Caution! Very dangerous!) He proceded to tell us that some hospitals didn't carry an antidote to its venom and there had been several fatalities from the snake. Damn, we had been so very close to it. Chris and I spent the next hour or so a little paranoid. Just a little.
The hike was amazing. We stopped at a high, 365-degree viewpoint, where we could see the Pacific ocean, the criss-cross patterns of the coffee crops, insane valleys and jagged peaks, and even some mountains in Guatemala.
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If you didn't know, we are planning to arrive back in Portland on the night of the 21st. Cheers!
Friday, August 17, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
small fish in a big pot of warm milk
Where to start, where to start...
Before leaving San Salvador we visited Joya de Ceren, the Maya version of Italy´s Pompeii. It´s an entire village preserved in volcanic ash. Even the corn and beans on the kitchen tables had stayed preserved.
I finished Harry Potter in three days, although usually when the new books are released I can do it in two. Yes, I have an addiction.
We got to experience a night on the town with Karla and her friend. This included going to a very artsy bar and listening to an 80´s cover band. If you don´t know, Bon Jovi and Guns´n´Roses are very hip here.
Then we returned to Suchitoto. When we were there previously we ate dinner at a beautiful restaurant overlooking a lake and Chris ended up getting asked to play a gig! I let him write about it first in his blog so I didn´t steal his thunder. So, we returned to Suchitoto for Chris to perform! In El Salvador! Just the opportunity alone was enough, but the audience loved it, I got to join him for a song (which was our first time performing together), and we even made a little money from it! And got free drinks and yummy food. This would even be a good deal in the states, for those who aren´t savy to normal gig standards.
From Suchitoto we headed over to Santa Ana, the second most populous city in the country, located in western El Salvador. There´s not a ton to do in the actual city (although we did have some interesting experiences), but the setting is magnificent. It´s surrounded by three volcanos and the countryside is a deep, lush green. Our hotel in Santa Ana was located in a neighborhood near the bus station, amdist many, many bars. It wasn´t until we had been in our hotel for a couple hours that we noticed a sign in the hotel that advertised their hourly rates. That gives you a little insight into that specific neighborhood. And a little insight into what kinds of noises we heard from the surrouding rooms. (Actually, I slept through the noises and Chris was the one that heard them each night. I can sleep through fire alarms.) Prostitutes aside, it was very interesting to observe the differences between this neighborhood and the nicer, more wealthy neighborhood near the central plaza. Especially in regards to the treatment we received. In the more affluent neighborhood we were the target of many jokes, sneers, and cold glances. In the poor neighborhood we were greeted with smiles and "holas." I´ll let you readers make your own judgements.
We attempted to catch a bus to one of the nearby volcanos to go for a hike. Alas, we were, as usual, at the mercy of our guidebooks for information, and the bus information left a little to be desired. We missed our chance and were pretty bummed.
But then! Hooray, we left Santa Ana for a nearby lake called Coatepeque, one of the most beautiful lakes I´ve ever seen. It was by far the most crystal-clear water I had seen anywhere in Central America. Yep, people down here are not known for their environmental education. But more on that later. Back to the lake. It´s a crater lake, once an active volcano. Most of the lakeside property is privately owned, we saw some SERIOUS mansions there. Which brings me to another observation: there is a very established upper class here in El Salvador, much richer than those we saw in Guatemala and Honduras. Anyways, this lake was seriously beautiful and we spent our time swimming, relaxing, playing cards, walking. And, we got to hike up the volcano that we missed earlier.
Volcano Izalco is El Salvador´s youngest volcano. For a period of about 180 years Izalco errupted many times per year; it was so active that the erruptions were visible from the Pacific ocean(about 50 km away) and it was known as ¨the lighthouse of the Pacific.¨ The activity slowed down dramatically in the 70´s though it is still active today. Our guided hike (guides and police accompaniment required) began from a nearby innactive volcano which we hiked down in order to reach the base of Izalco. The trek up Izalco proved to be very steep and challenging with sharp volcanic rocks and a gain of 2000 meters. It doesn´t sound like much, but there were no switchbacks, folks, instead we pretty much went straight up. And it was well worth it: the views from the top were incredible. We could see the other nearby lush mountains, volcanic peaks, and even the lake, all this while watching steam rise from the volcanic rocks and smelling that special sulfuric-volcano-smell. Super double bonus fun. Going down the volcano was even more mind-blowing: we surfed. Kind of. Without boards and water. After a few falls, we learned the technique: you lean back and dig your heals into the ash and glde down, a lot like snowboarding. And, yes, I took just as many nasty falls gliding down the volcano as I did when I tried snowboarding for the first time. Luckily my friend Liesl was kind enough to gift me some Curious George band-aids before I left for this trip. Curious George makes scrapes feel better.
Since I´m mentioning a beautiful part of Central America´s natural beauty, I must return to my promised topic. Skimming through my past blogs I realize I haven´t touched on the issue of the environment here. These three countries we´ve visited have all had amazing nature. Jaw-dropping, hit-you-in-the-face beauty. As stated earlier, there is not a knowledge of environmental preservation here. And that is an understatement. Guess where garbage goes? On the street. In the lakes. In the rivers. And I mean directly. It´s not just landfills and dumps. Everyone here throws their trash in the street. Riding the buses is the most extreme way to visually witness these actions. On average we take a bus every other day, and during let´s say a 2-hour ride, we normally observe 90 percent of the passengers throwing some sort of garbage directly out the window. These aren´t just poor people. Many bus passengers are wealthy, and they throw their pop bottles and chip bags out the window, too.
I really am a small fish in the pond. This I´ve always known, but travelling has really taught me the extent of this truth. I know it´s to lose idealism with age, but I think that travelling is another thing that contributes to losing idealism as well. I´m a small fish. I can´t do much, I can´t make an impact on the world. In Seattle I try to buy locally grown and produced food, use only reusable canvas grocery bags, minimize my gas, electricity, and water usage, and recycle, recycle, recycle...it now seems irrelevant when I see bus loads of 70 people throwing rubbish out the window.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Before I rant any longer and you all stop reading this entry, I now wish to tell you about today in Juayua, about two hours west of Santa Ana. It´s another town surrounded by beautiful mountains, but these mountains look funny because they appear to have stripes from all of the rows of abundantly-growing coffee crops. Big time coffee country. Anyways, on the weekends Juayua has a food fair, similar to a Eugene or Portland Saturday market, I guess. Rows of food stands fill two blocks and craft vendors sell their goods as well. Today Chris and I decided, even though our hotel was within walking distance from the fair, to stay there all afternoon and just keep eating. We ate barbequed ribs, shrimp kabobs, chorizo, and chocolate covered strawberries and bananas. On the corner there was a woman behind a table of liquor stirring a big pot of what looked like boiling milk. She told us it was ¨puncha¨ and we decided to give it a try, so she poured us cups, added a bunch of cinnamon, and asked us what kind of liquor we wanted in our drinks. We actually got to choose. Rum, of course, is the best decision in Central America because it´s really, really good here. Our eyes widened with the first sips...it tasted like warm horchata with a little rum mixed in. Oh deliciousness of all deliciousness!
Tomorrow we will hike to a series of five waterfalls with three swimming pools. And maybe that woman will be out in the square selling more puncha...
Before leaving San Salvador we visited Joya de Ceren, the Maya version of Italy´s Pompeii. It´s an entire village preserved in volcanic ash. Even the corn and beans on the kitchen tables had stayed preserved.
I finished Harry Potter in three days, although usually when the new books are released I can do it in two. Yes, I have an addiction.
We got to experience a night on the town with Karla and her friend. This included going to a very artsy bar and listening to an 80´s cover band. If you don´t know, Bon Jovi and Guns´n´Roses are very hip here.
Then we returned to Suchitoto. When we were there previously we ate dinner at a beautiful restaurant overlooking a lake and Chris ended up getting asked to play a gig! I let him write about it first in his blog so I didn´t steal his thunder. So, we returned to Suchitoto for Chris to perform! In El Salvador! Just the opportunity alone was enough, but the audience loved it, I got to join him for a song (which was our first time performing together), and we even made a little money from it! And got free drinks and yummy food. This would even be a good deal in the states, for those who aren´t savy to normal gig standards.
From Suchitoto we headed over to Santa Ana, the second most populous city in the country, located in western El Salvador. There´s not a ton to do in the actual city (although we did have some interesting experiences), but the setting is magnificent. It´s surrounded by three volcanos and the countryside is a deep, lush green. Our hotel in Santa Ana was located in a neighborhood near the bus station, amdist many, many bars. It wasn´t until we had been in our hotel for a couple hours that we noticed a sign in the hotel that advertised their hourly rates. That gives you a little insight into that specific neighborhood. And a little insight into what kinds of noises we heard from the surrouding rooms. (Actually, I slept through the noises and Chris was the one that heard them each night. I can sleep through fire alarms.) Prostitutes aside, it was very interesting to observe the differences between this neighborhood and the nicer, more wealthy neighborhood near the central plaza. Especially in regards to the treatment we received. In the more affluent neighborhood we were the target of many jokes, sneers, and cold glances. In the poor neighborhood we were greeted with smiles and "holas." I´ll let you readers make your own judgements.
We attempted to catch a bus to one of the nearby volcanos to go for a hike. Alas, we were, as usual, at the mercy of our guidebooks for information, and the bus information left a little to be desired. We missed our chance and were pretty bummed.
But then! Hooray, we left Santa Ana for a nearby lake called Coatepeque, one of the most beautiful lakes I´ve ever seen. It was by far the most crystal-clear water I had seen anywhere in Central America. Yep, people down here are not known for their environmental education. But more on that later. Back to the lake. It´s a crater lake, once an active volcano. Most of the lakeside property is privately owned, we saw some SERIOUS mansions there. Which brings me to another observation: there is a very established upper class here in El Salvador, much richer than those we saw in Guatemala and Honduras. Anyways, this lake was seriously beautiful and we spent our time swimming, relaxing, playing cards, walking. And, we got to hike up the volcano that we missed earlier.
Volcano Izalco is El Salvador´s youngest volcano. For a period of about 180 years Izalco errupted many times per year; it was so active that the erruptions were visible from the Pacific ocean(about 50 km away) and it was known as ¨the lighthouse of the Pacific.¨ The activity slowed down dramatically in the 70´s though it is still active today. Our guided hike (guides and police accompaniment required) began from a nearby innactive volcano which we hiked down in order to reach the base of Izalco. The trek up Izalco proved to be very steep and challenging with sharp volcanic rocks and a gain of 2000 meters. It doesn´t sound like much, but there were no switchbacks, folks, instead we pretty much went straight up. And it was well worth it: the views from the top were incredible. We could see the other nearby lush mountains, volcanic peaks, and even the lake, all this while watching steam rise from the volcanic rocks and smelling that special sulfuric-volcano-smell. Super double bonus fun. Going down the volcano was even more mind-blowing: we surfed. Kind of. Without boards and water. After a few falls, we learned the technique: you lean back and dig your heals into the ash and glde down, a lot like snowboarding. And, yes, I took just as many nasty falls gliding down the volcano as I did when I tried snowboarding for the first time. Luckily my friend Liesl was kind enough to gift me some Curious George band-aids before I left for this trip. Curious George makes scrapes feel better.
Since I´m mentioning a beautiful part of Central America´s natural beauty, I must return to my promised topic. Skimming through my past blogs I realize I haven´t touched on the issue of the environment here. These three countries we´ve visited have all had amazing nature. Jaw-dropping, hit-you-in-the-face beauty. As stated earlier, there is not a knowledge of environmental preservation here. And that is an understatement. Guess where garbage goes? On the street. In the lakes. In the rivers. And I mean directly. It´s not just landfills and dumps. Everyone here throws their trash in the street. Riding the buses is the most extreme way to visually witness these actions. On average we take a bus every other day, and during let´s say a 2-hour ride, we normally observe 90 percent of the passengers throwing some sort of garbage directly out the window. These aren´t just poor people. Many bus passengers are wealthy, and they throw their pop bottles and chip bags out the window, too.
I really am a small fish in the pond. This I´ve always known, but travelling has really taught me the extent of this truth. I know it´s to lose idealism with age, but I think that travelling is another thing that contributes to losing idealism as well. I´m a small fish. I can´t do much, I can´t make an impact on the world. In Seattle I try to buy locally grown and produced food, use only reusable canvas grocery bags, minimize my gas, electricity, and water usage, and recycle, recycle, recycle...it now seems irrelevant when I see bus loads of 70 people throwing rubbish out the window.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Before I rant any longer and you all stop reading this entry, I now wish to tell you about today in Juayua, about two hours west of Santa Ana. It´s another town surrounded by beautiful mountains, but these mountains look funny because they appear to have stripes from all of the rows of abundantly-growing coffee crops. Big time coffee country. Anyways, on the weekends Juayua has a food fair, similar to a Eugene or Portland Saturday market, I guess. Rows of food stands fill two blocks and craft vendors sell their goods as well. Today Chris and I decided, even though our hotel was within walking distance from the fair, to stay there all afternoon and just keep eating. We ate barbequed ribs, shrimp kabobs, chorizo, and chocolate covered strawberries and bananas. On the corner there was a woman behind a table of liquor stirring a big pot of what looked like boiling milk. She told us it was ¨puncha¨ and we decided to give it a try, so she poured us cups, added a bunch of cinnamon, and asked us what kind of liquor we wanted in our drinks. We actually got to choose. Rum, of course, is the best decision in Central America because it´s really, really good here. Our eyes widened with the first sips...it tasted like warm horchata with a little rum mixed in. Oh deliciousness of all deliciousness!
Tomorrow we will hike to a series of five waterfalls with three swimming pools. And maybe that woman will be out in the square selling more puncha...
Monday, July 30, 2007
summer in the city
We´re in San Salvador, the big capitol city, about 2.5 million inhabitants. Chris and I had heard from other travellers and read in books that this city was dirty, over-polluted and ugly. When we arrived we found that those sources couldn´t have been more wrong. It´s actually quite a pleasant city, even for U.S. standards; it´s full of trees and lots of foliage and is situated right in the midst of picturesque mountains and volcanos. In regards to the polution, sure, it´s there. But no more than in any other U.S. city of comparable size.
Culture of San Salvador: very modern and metropolitan in areas near the city center, again, not too different to what I´m used to in Seattle. There are a lot of fashionistas and many educated people who appreciate art and literature. Malls are very popular here. Big time. It´s where middle class and upper class people go. And they´re very similar to those in the U.S.
San Salvador is also split into classes like any other large city: as one gets farther away from the city center, one encounters more lower-class neighborhoods.
We are staying with Karla, the intelligent, amiable, beautiful friend of my family. Her apartment is an anomaly simply because the only people that live there are her and her sister. Yes, it´s in Central America! Normally one encounters families of 14 living together. It´s very comfortable and she treats us like family. We have been yakking and yakking for the past three days and Chris and I have been going to bed with bulging brains because of so much Spanish. We´ve ended up talking to her more often than we talked to our host family during Spanish school. I think that if we had another month with Karla we´d be completely fluent. All in all, we´ve been going to bed very exhausted and sleeping very well. And to think that all this time Chris only needed to speak Spanish all day in order to sleep soundly...
Unfortunately I re-injured my ankle a few days ago (I sprained it last February). So we´ve been limiting our activity in order for the sucker to heal sufficiently. Hopefully next week we´ll be able to do some hiking. Anyways, because of laying off the ol´ ankle as much as possible, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie(for those who didn´t know, I´m a guilty fanatic), subtitled. I´ve never been able to understand why anyone would want to see any movie dubbed, aside from comic relief. I definitely will always prefer to watch films with the original language and subtitles in order to understand the intent of the acting and to hear the original voices of the actors. We also visited the Museum of Modern Art yesterday and found that the art of El Salvador is very cool, very well done. There was an exhibit featuring a Mexican artist (can´t remember the name) whose images were all of monkeys. Each image was paired with excerpts of Kafka´s. All in all the pieces were very, very interesting.
In the next few days I´m going to read my new copy of Harry Potter (yay!) and we´re going to try to find some local music and maybe visit another museum.
Con mucho amor...
Culture of San Salvador: very modern and metropolitan in areas near the city center, again, not too different to what I´m used to in Seattle. There are a lot of fashionistas and many educated people who appreciate art and literature. Malls are very popular here. Big time. It´s where middle class and upper class people go. And they´re very similar to those in the U.S.
San Salvador is also split into classes like any other large city: as one gets farther away from the city center, one encounters more lower-class neighborhoods.
We are staying with Karla, the intelligent, amiable, beautiful friend of my family. Her apartment is an anomaly simply because the only people that live there are her and her sister. Yes, it´s in Central America! Normally one encounters families of 14 living together. It´s very comfortable and she treats us like family. We have been yakking and yakking for the past three days and Chris and I have been going to bed with bulging brains because of so much Spanish. We´ve ended up talking to her more often than we talked to our host family during Spanish school. I think that if we had another month with Karla we´d be completely fluent. All in all, we´ve been going to bed very exhausted and sleeping very well. And to think that all this time Chris only needed to speak Spanish all day in order to sleep soundly...
Unfortunately I re-injured my ankle a few days ago (I sprained it last February). So we´ve been limiting our activity in order for the sucker to heal sufficiently. Hopefully next week we´ll be able to do some hiking. Anyways, because of laying off the ol´ ankle as much as possible, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie(for those who didn´t know, I´m a guilty fanatic), subtitled. I´ve never been able to understand why anyone would want to see any movie dubbed, aside from comic relief. I definitely will always prefer to watch films with the original language and subtitles in order to understand the intent of the acting and to hear the original voices of the actors. We also visited the Museum of Modern Art yesterday and found that the art of El Salvador is very cool, very well done. There was an exhibit featuring a Mexican artist (can´t remember the name) whose images were all of monkeys. Each image was paired with excerpts of Kafka´s. All in all the pieces were very, very interesting.
In the next few days I´m going to read my new copy of Harry Potter (yay!) and we´re going to try to find some local music and maybe visit another museum.
Con mucho amor...
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Ode to El Salvador
So far, El Salvador rocks:
1. the food offers more variety
2. the people are incredibly friendly. they still stare at us, like in Guatemala and Honduras, but when we say hello they respond and greet us. also, a few people have gone out of their way t o help us.
3. there are few gringos here
4. the beautiful landscapes are never ending. Guatemala and Honduras had amazing landscapes, too, but the ones here have so far been unrelenting.
Our first stop was in La Palma, located in the north. In the 1970´s a famous painter named Fernando Llort moved there and taught practically the entire 3,000-person population his painting techinques. Since then, 75% of the inhabitants are employed as artists or crafters. (what is the name of the profession for making crafts?) The style of painting is reminds me a little of Matisse or pre-cubist Picasso, with very crude figures and bright, vivid colors. Not only are there galleries and craft shops everywhere, but most of the buildings are decorated with beautiful murals.
Now we are stationed in Suchitoto, about an hour north of the capitol. This town has about 25,000 habitantes (oops, a perfect example of how I am always mixing up english with spanish), I mean inhabitants, and it is known for being the starting point of their gruesome civil war (the dates of the war are debatable but the bulk of the final phase took place approximately from 1980-1995; the country has experienced civil and revolutionary wars on and off for practically forever). It´s also well known for having an established arts scene. The town itself is very beautiful, and all of the restaurants and local establishments also serve as art galleries. Much of the art we´ve seen is war themed. Last night we had dinner at a restaurant with interesting war sculptures (many of the materials were actually saved from the war) in their garden area. We then went out for a beer at a very Bohemian bar decorated with posters of musicians and revolutionary political figures. Very different from anything we´ve experienced thus far. That´s my word of the day for this town: Bohemian.
Our hotel is very nice and has a rooftop terrace with an exquisite view of the whole town and its surrounding mountains and nearby lake. It was just our luck to catch probably the most incredible lightning storm I´ve ever seen from the terrace. When we went to bed and the storm moved in very close and the booming thunder kept waking me up. Needless to say Chris didn´t get much sleep because I kept waking him up with my startled screams. Poor guy has not really been able to sleep well this whole trip. We´re already planning on how to turn the bedroom of our apartment-to-be into a dark cave to ensure distraction-free sleep.
Ode to the food: As I´ve already stated, the food here offers a lot of variety and is very, very good. For example...
Ode to my breakfast:
REAL coffee, omelet with avocado and cheese, plantains, bread. Although Central America is know for its coffee, the locals don´t drink anything aside from instant coffee. I must tell you that this coffee made me feel serendipitous. Chris had horchata with his breakfast, yum yum yum.
Another note:
1. Salvadoreños use U.S. currency. this feels very odd, and therefore both Chris and I have feel more stingy about spending money. i guess there´s a psychological element to travelling and spending currency that looks like play money.
Today we plan on hiking to a nearby waterfall that is said to have amazing rock formations. The day after next we are heading to San Salvador to meet up with Karla, a family friend who lived with my aunt and uncle in Alaska the year before last. We look forward to being able to experience the area with a local family. And hopefully get some inside advice about other areas in the country.
Time to go see more art and find more yummy things to eat.
1. the food offers more variety
2. the people are incredibly friendly. they still stare at us, like in Guatemala and Honduras, but when we say hello they respond and greet us. also, a few people have gone out of their way t o help us.
3. there are few gringos here
4. the beautiful landscapes are never ending. Guatemala and Honduras had amazing landscapes, too, but the ones here have so far been unrelenting.
Our first stop was in La Palma, located in the north. In the 1970´s a famous painter named Fernando Llort moved there and taught practically the entire 3,000-person population his painting techinques. Since then, 75% of the inhabitants are employed as artists or crafters. (what is the name of the profession for making crafts?) The style of painting is reminds me a little of Matisse or pre-cubist Picasso, with very crude figures and bright, vivid colors. Not only are there galleries and craft shops everywhere, but most of the buildings are decorated with beautiful murals.
Now we are stationed in Suchitoto, about an hour north of the capitol. This town has about 25,000 habitantes (oops, a perfect example of how I am always mixing up english with spanish), I mean inhabitants, and it is known for being the starting point of their gruesome civil war (the dates of the war are debatable but the bulk of the final phase took place approximately from 1980-1995; the country has experienced civil and revolutionary wars on and off for practically forever). It´s also well known for having an established arts scene. The town itself is very beautiful, and all of the restaurants and local establishments also serve as art galleries. Much of the art we´ve seen is war themed. Last night we had dinner at a restaurant with interesting war sculptures (many of the materials were actually saved from the war) in their garden area. We then went out for a beer at a very Bohemian bar decorated with posters of musicians and revolutionary political figures. Very different from anything we´ve experienced thus far. That´s my word of the day for this town: Bohemian.
Our hotel is very nice and has a rooftop terrace with an exquisite view of the whole town and its surrounding mountains and nearby lake. It was just our luck to catch probably the most incredible lightning storm I´ve ever seen from the terrace. When we went to bed and the storm moved in very close and the booming thunder kept waking me up. Needless to say Chris didn´t get much sleep because I kept waking him up with my startled screams. Poor guy has not really been able to sleep well this whole trip. We´re already planning on how to turn the bedroom of our apartment-to-be into a dark cave to ensure distraction-free sleep.
Ode to the food: As I´ve already stated, the food here offers a lot of variety and is very, very good. For example...
Ode to my breakfast:
REAL coffee, omelet with avocado and cheese, plantains, bread. Although Central America is know for its coffee, the locals don´t drink anything aside from instant coffee. I must tell you that this coffee made me feel serendipitous. Chris had horchata with his breakfast, yum yum yum.
Another note:
1. Salvadoreños use U.S. currency. this feels very odd, and therefore both Chris and I have feel more stingy about spending money. i guess there´s a psychological element to travelling and spending currency that looks like play money.
Today we plan on hiking to a nearby waterfall that is said to have amazing rock formations. The day after next we are heading to San Salvador to meet up with Karla, a family friend who lived with my aunt and uncle in Alaska the year before last. We look forward to being able to experience the area with a local family. And hopefully get some inside advice about other areas in the country.
Time to go see more art and find more yummy things to eat.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
It´s a fried, fried world
We are back in Santa Rosa after a little jaunt to the town of Gracias, Honduras. We were planning to stay a while but all of the hotels in the town were full because the town was having its annual festival to celebrate Honduran culture and independence. We did manage to see a bit of a parade and browse through the street fair. It was actually quite similar to what we would call a carnival, minus the rides, in the states.
A highlight was going to Celaque National Park, a beautiful cloud forest that contains the highest peak in Honduras. We did a day hike and had the whole park to ourselves; we hiked to a lookout spot and saw some primo waterfalls. And also the weirdest-looking creature we´ve ever laid eyes on. It was a cross between a bug and a mouse and a bird. It had white, fuzzy, feathery-looking wings (the fur looked like a mouse´s), and a blue body, about the size of a mouse. The white, furry "wings" tapered at the bottom, much like those of some butterflies, and formed a white, fuzzy string that hung down a couple inches. Totally bizarro. We were in awe yet somewhat afraid of it because it was so unlike anything we´d ever seen. It´s called an "alma del perro" ("soul of the dog"). The hike was quite strenuous, and being sweaty and exhausted, it took everything we had to refrain from breaking the Honduran law and swimming in the adjacent river that supplies much the country´s and some of El Salvador´s drinking water.
After the hike Chris proceeded to grow quite ill and the next day I joined him with a bad cold. So now we are back in Santa Rosa. So we´re resting for a few days. Last night we saw "Shrek 3" at the 2nd-run theatre (the price still didn´t beat the $1.50 showings in Eugene) in Spanish, of course. We both did very well with our comprehension, I´m proud to say. Theatres in Honduras are pretty much the same as ones in the States except for the fact that people don´t turn their cell phones off and engage in loud conversation throughout the movie. Which doesn´t surprise me, because people are just generally louder here. They blare their music from both their homes and their cars, they have no muffler laws so cars create quite a racket, and standard practice for all vehicles is to honk their horns at every other car they pass, and sometimes nearly every pedestrian they pass as well. Another popular, noisy custom is for vans to drive up and down the streets, blaring political propoganda or retail advertisements. Here in Honduras the adverisements vary greatly, in Guatemala they all tended to be for cooking oil.
Last night was our first experience with cucarachas in our hotel room. Which I must say is strange for two reasons:
1) This was only the third time in all of trip when we´d seen cockroaches and we expected to see lots more in this area.
2) This was a very clean hotel, much cleaner than some in which we´ve stayed. In fact, we´ve ranked it as one of our faves.
But now we´ve changed into a newer room and are much happier about the prospect of going to bed without the lovely sound of scurrying cockroaches.
Nevertheless, things are good and we´re getting excited about getting into El Salvador. Chris is eagerly awaiting some new cuisine than involves something other than tortillas and fried chicken and french fries. I was of course expecting a multitude of tortillas (actually where here in Honduras, flour tortillas are just as common as the abundant corn tortillas of Guatemala), but I never thought that fried chicken and french fries would be a part of the daily fare. Chris and I are a little tired of fried food and have resorted to occassionally buying crackers, processed cheese and meat for lunch when we´re just too burnt out on the deep fried variety. Chris read in his guidebook that there´s a restaurant in San Salvador that specializes in large, green salads. I thought he was going to cry when he read it to me...
A highlight was going to Celaque National Park, a beautiful cloud forest that contains the highest peak in Honduras. We did a day hike and had the whole park to ourselves; we hiked to a lookout spot and saw some primo waterfalls. And also the weirdest-looking creature we´ve ever laid eyes on. It was a cross between a bug and a mouse and a bird. It had white, fuzzy, feathery-looking wings (the fur looked like a mouse´s), and a blue body, about the size of a mouse. The white, furry "wings" tapered at the bottom, much like those of some butterflies, and formed a white, fuzzy string that hung down a couple inches. Totally bizarro. We were in awe yet somewhat afraid of it because it was so unlike anything we´d ever seen. It´s called an "alma del perro" ("soul of the dog"). The hike was quite strenuous, and being sweaty and exhausted, it took everything we had to refrain from breaking the Honduran law and swimming in the adjacent river that supplies much the country´s and some of El Salvador´s drinking water.
After the hike Chris proceeded to grow quite ill and the next day I joined him with a bad cold. So now we are back in Santa Rosa. So we´re resting for a few days. Last night we saw "Shrek 3" at the 2nd-run theatre (the price still didn´t beat the $1.50 showings in Eugene) in Spanish, of course. We both did very well with our comprehension, I´m proud to say. Theatres in Honduras are pretty much the same as ones in the States except for the fact that people don´t turn their cell phones off and engage in loud conversation throughout the movie. Which doesn´t surprise me, because people are just generally louder here. They blare their music from both their homes and their cars, they have no muffler laws so cars create quite a racket, and standard practice for all vehicles is to honk their horns at every other car they pass, and sometimes nearly every pedestrian they pass as well. Another popular, noisy custom is for vans to drive up and down the streets, blaring political propoganda or retail advertisements. Here in Honduras the adverisements vary greatly, in Guatemala they all tended to be for cooking oil.
Last night was our first experience with cucarachas in our hotel room. Which I must say is strange for two reasons:
1) This was only the third time in all of trip when we´d seen cockroaches and we expected to see lots more in this area.
2) This was a very clean hotel, much cleaner than some in which we´ve stayed. In fact, we´ve ranked it as one of our faves.
But now we´ve changed into a newer room and are much happier about the prospect of going to bed without the lovely sound of scurrying cockroaches.
Nevertheless, things are good and we´re getting excited about getting into El Salvador. Chris is eagerly awaiting some new cuisine than involves something other than tortillas and fried chicken and french fries. I was of course expecting a multitude of tortillas (actually where here in Honduras, flour tortillas are just as common as the abundant corn tortillas of Guatemala), but I never thought that fried chicken and french fries would be a part of the daily fare. Chris and I are a little tired of fried food and have resorted to occassionally buying crackers, processed cheese and meat for lunch when we´re just too burnt out on the deep fried variety. Chris read in his guidebook that there´s a restaurant in San Salvador that specializes in large, green salads. I thought he was going to cry when he read it to me...
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Never Again
Never again will I stand on an already-full bus for 3 hours. But more on that later.
Chris got the scuba bug. We stayed five more days so he could do the advanced certfication, very cool. For our last five days our hotel received six more students and the previous departed. About half of the new ones were either crazy or very rude, so that didn´t create a very relaxing vibe. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the remainder of our time there, got to know some of the locals, and got to witness an amazing lightning storm. A bolt of lightning ended up striking one of the power lines on the caye that night, about 300 feet from our hotel! And, I read three books.
Yesterday, after taking an early morning ferry back to the mainland, we caught a taxi to try to find the DHL to mail a bunch of our stuff home. Note to reader: never bring rainpants, 4 pairs of socks, and a fleece jacket to Central America; it´s always so hot that even if it´s raining you will stay perfectly warm. We circled around for what seemed like hours and the driver gave up. So then we caught a bus to San Pedro, a large city in which we had to find an ATM because by this time we had only 60 lempiras - 3 dollars - to our names. The only ATM on all of the islands was never functioning. After this we found the bus terminal to our next destination. We were whisked onto a schoolbus to find that it was already full. In the states this would mean we would have had to wait for the next one. Not in Central America, my friends. In Central America you stand. Even though it was a three-hour ride. And Chris felt terrible. The minutes dragged on so slowly I found myself conjugating Spanish verbs in my head in all of the tenses. Eventually we got seats for the last 45 minutes.
It all paid off, though, because we arrived in Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras, got a hotel, and got dinner. It was 5:30 pm and we had only spilt a muffin and a bag of crackers that entire day because of our money situation. We then proceeded to fall asleep at 7pm and slept until 8am. I think before this kind of travel experience I perhaps underestimated myself.
Santa Rosa is beautiful. It´s a colonial town with cobblestone streets set in the mountains. Today we relaxed and walked around a little. We found this really cool indoor cafeteria where you can find any authentic local food you desire. For breakfast we had 40 cent tamales and for lunch we each had huge plates of fried chicken, rice, cabbage salad, and tortillas. Each plate cost 1.50. Yep, this is the life. It´s also really nice to be speaking Spanish again. And, since the town in the mountains, it actually gets cool at night. We didn´t even have to turn the fan on last night.
This town has a cigar factory. Supposedly Honduran cigars compete with Cubans.
Chris confirms it, he´s already tried a couple so far on this trip. Tomorrow we plan on taking a tour of the factory.
¡Adios!
Chris got the scuba bug. We stayed five more days so he could do the advanced certfication, very cool. For our last five days our hotel received six more students and the previous departed. About half of the new ones were either crazy or very rude, so that didn´t create a very relaxing vibe. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the remainder of our time there, got to know some of the locals, and got to witness an amazing lightning storm. A bolt of lightning ended up striking one of the power lines on the caye that night, about 300 feet from our hotel! And, I read three books.
Yesterday, after taking an early morning ferry back to the mainland, we caught a taxi to try to find the DHL to mail a bunch of our stuff home. Note to reader: never bring rainpants, 4 pairs of socks, and a fleece jacket to Central America; it´s always so hot that even if it´s raining you will stay perfectly warm. We circled around for what seemed like hours and the driver gave up. So then we caught a bus to San Pedro, a large city in which we had to find an ATM because by this time we had only 60 lempiras - 3 dollars - to our names. The only ATM on all of the islands was never functioning. After this we found the bus terminal to our next destination. We were whisked onto a schoolbus to find that it was already full. In the states this would mean we would have had to wait for the next one. Not in Central America, my friends. In Central America you stand. Even though it was a three-hour ride. And Chris felt terrible. The minutes dragged on so slowly I found myself conjugating Spanish verbs in my head in all of the tenses. Eventually we got seats for the last 45 minutes.
It all paid off, though, because we arrived in Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras, got a hotel, and got dinner. It was 5:30 pm and we had only spilt a muffin and a bag of crackers that entire day because of our money situation. We then proceeded to fall asleep at 7pm and slept until 8am. I think before this kind of travel experience I perhaps underestimated myself.
Santa Rosa is beautiful. It´s a colonial town with cobblestone streets set in the mountains. Today we relaxed and walked around a little. We found this really cool indoor cafeteria where you can find any authentic local food you desire. For breakfast we had 40 cent tamales and for lunch we each had huge plates of fried chicken, rice, cabbage salad, and tortillas. Each plate cost 1.50. Yep, this is the life. It´s also really nice to be speaking Spanish again. And, since the town in the mountains, it actually gets cool at night. We didn´t even have to turn the fan on last night.
This town has a cigar factory. Supposedly Honduran cigars compete with Cubans.
Chris confirms it, he´s already tried a couple so far on this trip. Tomorrow we plan on taking a tour of the factory.
¡Adios!
Monday, July 9, 2007
Scaredy-Cat in Paradise
We've been in the Bay Islands of Honduras for almost a week now. It's incredibly beautiful with clear, blue and green water. It's culturally fascinating, too, because it's was discovered by British pirates, so all of the natives are white, English speakers. Well, it's sort of English. It sounds like a mixture of Australian English, Hawaiian pigeon, and creole. Very fascinating. I actually have an easier time understanding Spanish. Not knowing this when we first arrived, Chris and I started speaking Spanish. Boy was that a mistake. The islands have only been part of Honduras for about 40 years, so it's only been since then that the "mainlanders" have come over to live and work (native islanders call them the "spanish"). The natives aren't fans of them because they brought the first automobiles and motorbikes. And trust me, the islands are not big enough for them. It's a major pain to navigate down the narrow streets amongst the cars and motorbikes. It's a very fascinating place.
We found the one scuba-diving school that is based out of a nearby caye, called Jewel Caye, a remote fishing town with a population of about 200 (which is much nicer than the touristy Bay Islands, named Utila and Roatan). They don't have cars or even motorbikes there. Hooray for no noise polution! Chris and I both started the open water scuba certification course. Disclaimer to those not related to me: I can swim, but I'm not terribly comfortable in the water, at least not like Chris the fish. When we started the course I had never even been snorkeling. So I was pretty terrified. We did our reading, watched some DVDs, and then it was time to get in the water with our gear. We started out in a very shallow area so as we could ease into it. I was pretty scared, and after we'd been under for a minute we had to practice some skills such as taking off the masks underwater and so forth. I panicked. Completely. And then our completely overzealous instructor assured me that I was ready to go down 9 feet and then proceeded to basically pressure me into it. I was as white as a sheet and froze. Still feeling panicky and a little humiliated, I had to opt out. That night I decided to quit the program and respect my limitations and just try to get comfortable with snorkel. It's possible that I might have continued with a different instructor who was willing to go at a slower pace, but I didn't want to rush it. So I have been having a blast snorkeling, socializing with the other students, and relaxing! My vacation away from my vacation. So far I've seen amazing things: a myriad of fish, including a barracuda, a jellyfish, and beautiful coral.
As for Christopher, he completed his certification yesterday! He's taken to it so naturally that we're going to stay four more days so he can also take the advanced certification course. His spotings include a loggerhead turtle and a spotted sting ray!
Many of you know that I'm a little wound-up and therefore have trouble letting myself fully relax. Well, the island life has finally ensured a relaxed Auna. Hooray! The only gripe about the caye is that all they eat is fried food. Our choices are fried fish, fried chicked, fried hamburgers, and nachos made with fried plantains. And what does it all come with? French fries, of course! Sometimes a salad drenched with Thousand Island dressing is we're lucky. But as with everything else I've previously bitched about on this blog, I really shouldn't be bitching because we're in PARADISE!
Love to all!
We found the one scuba-diving school that is based out of a nearby caye, called Jewel Caye, a remote fishing town with a population of about 200 (which is much nicer than the touristy Bay Islands, named Utila and Roatan). They don't have cars or even motorbikes there. Hooray for no noise polution! Chris and I both started the open water scuba certification course. Disclaimer to those not related to me: I can swim, but I'm not terribly comfortable in the water, at least not like Chris the fish. When we started the course I had never even been snorkeling. So I was pretty terrified. We did our reading, watched some DVDs, and then it was time to get in the water with our gear. We started out in a very shallow area so as we could ease into it. I was pretty scared, and after we'd been under for a minute we had to practice some skills such as taking off the masks underwater and so forth. I panicked. Completely. And then our completely overzealous instructor assured me that I was ready to go down 9 feet and then proceeded to basically pressure me into it. I was as white as a sheet and froze. Still feeling panicky and a little humiliated, I had to opt out. That night I decided to quit the program and respect my limitations and just try to get comfortable with snorkel. It's possible that I might have continued with a different instructor who was willing to go at a slower pace, but I didn't want to rush it. So I have been having a blast snorkeling, socializing with the other students, and relaxing! My vacation away from my vacation. So far I've seen amazing things: a myriad of fish, including a barracuda, a jellyfish, and beautiful coral.
As for Christopher, he completed his certification yesterday! He's taken to it so naturally that we're going to stay four more days so he can also take the advanced certification course. His spotings include a loggerhead turtle and a spotted sting ray!
Many of you know that I'm a little wound-up and therefore have trouble letting myself fully relax. Well, the island life has finally ensured a relaxed Auna. Hooray! The only gripe about the caye is that all they eat is fried food. Our choices are fried fish, fried chicked, fried hamburgers, and nachos made with fried plantains. And what does it all come with? French fries, of course! Sometimes a salad drenched with Thousand Island dressing is we're lucky. But as with everything else I've previously bitched about on this blog, I really shouldn't be bitching because we're in PARADISE!
Love to all!
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