Well i am hugely grouchy now as i typed for 37 mins, according to timer, then lost the entire email so my heart really isn´t into starting over..............actually my heart wasn´t really into typing which is why i didn´t email for the last 6 days or so. I will continue where e-mail got lost and maybe do the erased part after if i feel like it.
After the missing 3 days that got deleted, we crossed into El Salvadore. That day sucked......ah i'll retype everything, but in a less descriptive way.
Still in Nicaragua, I met up with Dave Hauri , a freind from steinbach....We finally picked a beach town, and Trevor......we went to Jaqiulillo, a remote fishing-surfing village. After the first bus ride we saw a bus that was entirely packed.........I went to buy smokes and water only to come back and find our bus was even more packed , so we boarded the back 8 minutes before leaving to avoid it getting any more full. Seriously every seat was over filled and the entire aisle was lined with people and the back too, it was just retarded how ful lit was. Everyone all sweaty and touching each other .......yeah it sucked, the worse part, we got going and they started driving around town actually picking up a few more people no one was impressed from groans and sighs of every one already squeezed inside. Stuffy and hardly any air and 20 minutes later we hadn´t even left town yet............what a long ride as we had to stand for about 1 1-2 hrs and finally got a seat for last 10-15 mins........it was worth going to this place though. It was a little fishing village and I noted some of the houses were actually made with tree poles and a thatched roof , just how they would have made them 100 yrs ago, with out any manmade products at all. We went to this surfing lodge I had read about but couldn´t get a room as the Discovery channel was there making a documentory. Seriously! So we went a 1-2 miles away to only other place with rooms, Rancho Expresza. It was a huge thatched roof building with a loft that had 6 beds and a few bats as well, but was a friendly place and very communal with everyone eating together and hanging out. Tht fridge was full of juice, coke, and beer and was on the honour system, so you could help yourself and just mark on a board what you drank which was a kind friendly homey feeling. Vegetarian spaghetti was the first night, tasty but I wanted fish and many vegetarians there, so owner told me of this woman, that if i went in the morning and gave her notice, she would buy fish from the fisherman returning from their night fishing, and cook it for us. Well we had fried fish, rice, tortillas, veggies and beers and was 3.50 each, plus the fish was huge and delicious. Man was it good,
The next day we went on a mission to watch baseball......well we hopped bus and b/c of a huge language barrier, I was standing in the aisle pretending to swing a bat and slowly saying baseball baseball over and over. Finally a local caught on and spoke in spanish to the driver who dropped us off at the diamond. Sadly as the bus drove away we noticed the diamond was empty and no game that afternoon, so we walked and foudn a local rest. i ordered another fish and it was very tasty although a few tables over 2 locals left and a chicken hopped up on the table to finish the leftovers right off the plate while the waiter watched from behind the counter.
Dave said after i finished eating that the bathroom was nasty and he was going to eat there but looked in kitchen and it looked dirty.........oh well too late I´d already eaten and it was good to me..................We had a long dusty hot walk back to our ranch. Dave did some swimming and we both got waaaaaaaay too much sun that day and were pink like lobsters that night. Hard to believe how those people lived. No microwaves, telephones(some had cells) some didn´t even have toilets and just went in the bushes to go bathroom our ranch owner told us.....crazy eh......yet life hadn´t changed much in this lazy little village and tourism hadn´t hit yet. It was nice, it wasn´t spoiled........not yet that is!
The next day we got up to take that crappy overcrowded bus and then crossed 2 countries....which i knew would suck.......and it did We probable took about 4 or 5 different buses, did a lot of walking, did 2 border crossings and were told a lot of contradicting things......but we made it to el salvadore finally. Sad to have left nicaragau...........miss the chicken buses already. They were old school buses from US and Canada that no doubt had been deemed unsafe there so they shipped them down here and they continue to still run. On 1 ride a woman with a pail entered and I heard a 'cheep cheep cheep' coming from her pail, guess she had some little chicks in there and thus called chicken buses, but i liked them and they were right up my alley. Some, all painted up colourful on the sides and all, spanish music blaring. It is quite a diference here in el salv...... the economy and standards are waaaaaaay better and I kinda preferred Nicaragau at how different it was. Here the standards reminded me more of like home...people are cleaner with no holes in their clothes and fancy cars........i dunno, I just don´t like it as much
There sure are lots of guns here though...crazy......in Nicaragau I was surprised that at every bank or atm machine was an armed guard 24 hrs-day. Here in El Salvadore there are just simply armed guards everywhere.........makes me think, is there really a need for all the guards.........wow, maybe I should be more worried as obviously the store owners are...........even at pharmacy, furniture store, nicer hotel(even our crap assed hotel had a guard with a shotgun at the front)...pretty much any business that would have 300.00-400.00 in the till has an armed guard out front..............really wierd feeling seeing this.......I don´t feel scared or unsafe, just more freaked out by all the guns i guess..........oh well as long as i don´t rob one of those stores no worries for me i guess!
Our first day in el salv we got to town and just relaxed in the hotel, I was unsure if we could walk down street drinking a beer, so i smiled at Dave and said.....only 1 way to find out, so at the store i bought 2 beer , cracked one and walked back to hotel........never got arrested so i guess it´s legal. Not to sound arrogant but being a tourist, i think aside from me killing someone we could get away with many things that locals would be in trouble for.
Well the next day we decided to head to the mountains.......totally beautiful countryside and cooler as it is hot as a bugger out here...........seriously! Long slow bus ride, then we had to hang on to back of this truck fitted with steel rack that served as a taxi for last little stretch up the mountain. Checked out a revolution museum, then walked up to top of mountain and was awed by the view That town was totally closed up by 8:00 pm and by 8:40 the owner of place we were at went to bed telling us to shut lights off when we went to bed.....crazy before 9:00pm? Bathroom was interesting there , it was a real toilet, just had no roof , so you could get sunburned while doing your business and to flush toilet had to pour a bucket of water in it.......that is also how you showered, by pouring a bucket of water. Next day i went on hike down the mountainside and spoke poor spanish to an ice cream salesman.......we understood each other, well sort of and laughed a lot.........i was on walk to town where 746 people were massacred for helping the revolutionists...woman raped, babies stabbed with bayonets and children locked in church and machine gunned to death, bodies left to rot.......sad sad! Never quite made it but lots of history in those mountain villages. We headed back down mountain and on to our next adventure...............we got to a port town and ate supper, and surprise surprise. by 8:30 ish the town was dead and we were unfamiliar with it so we went back to our hotel and stayed in the room.
Earlier that day i had some puposas...kinda tortillas grilled with beans and cheese inside. Delicous, and topped with pickled cabbage that sits in a jar in the sun and obviously as the jar empties they just put more cabbage, but do they every change the vinegar or brine? At about 9:00 ish my stomach was churning and by morning i had the runs about 6 times and threw up 2 times..........like major throwing up that it was leaving my body under severe pressure.....never had that before ever! Must have been that pickled cabbage sitting in the sun I think!
Th next day we left for a group of islands to check out Isla Meunguerra........the boatride was very late to leave and full of locals , children staring at us......but was pretty scenery and about 1 1/2 hrs later we got to the island. Hotter than a bugger. We walked around a bit then found out the hotel didn´t serve food and no restraunts on the island........hmmm this is a problem we were unaware of when we left for this island adventure. Luckily enough this old man overheard us asking for restaurant and motioned for us to follow him........he brought us up to his house where hias wife cooked us supper, nice gesture but I hate eggs with runny yolks and it was rice with a thick goats cream poured over top, strong shredded white cheese probably from goat I think ,tortillas then she put a handful of sardines in my plate..I quickly got her to take sardines off my plate and nicely asked her to cook my egg more. She smiled took my egg and cooked it for about 30-45 secs more, seriously the yolk still totally runny and grossed me right out. My stomach having not recovered from night before, but i managed to eat it...........it was awful tasting and I thought I was goign to puke, but she smiled over with her darkened teeth saying mmmmmm rico meaning delicious. I smiled and nodded afterwards when we asked how much, she said nothing......how nice was that from a poor local family, but we gave 4.00. Beautiful views but kinda boring town Today we got up at 4:30 am for the 5 am boat that didn´t leave till about 5:40, then we bused another 5 hours.
but we are in a nice town that has a music festival and we are at a place with view of mountains and lake from our dining area . 7.00 per night ain´t bad at all plus I laughed at the owner when we arrived, he was having a beer........it is hot here too, by the time I checked in room and had 1 beer with him he had finshed his third in about 20 mins . Well the beer must be working for him as he is 61 wife 48 and he´s got 4 kids from about 20 to the youngest colouring while we drank beer, probably about 6ísh. Yeah this town has posters of this musical festival all over so finally i´ll be up past 8:30 pm and able to visit ,drink with others..............i am quite excited about it plus tomorrow I think i'm gonna do some walking around the mountain and lake.......some nut case is totally clanging on a bell for about 45 secs straight, loudly just outside quite annoying. Oh well should be a big party
well been 1hr and 45 mins of typing and i am probably forgetting loads but sick of typing, ........oh, hardly any tourists in this country, when we were in the market locals were totally staring like we were aliens.......guess everyone is to scared to visit, but really i do feel safe. Wonderful freindly people, hard to find people speaking English though.......of all my trips this one is probably been the hardest for language barriers. Good thing my broken spanish is getting me by.....maybe i´ll get drunk and practice it some more tonight...............prob meet the drunken guy that was just ringing that bell! Either way the place outside is quite full and sun slowly setting, think i´ll catch a nap then music from 7:30 -11:00 i think!
No comments:
Post a Comment