So Long El Salvador

("The Thinker" -- see rest of the entry for what I was thinking about)

Now that I've got your attention....

I just realized that I haven't really painted a picture of some of the daily things that I've been experiencing here in Latin America, so I thought that I would just share a little more of the everyday. As this entry is going to be dedicated to the end of my time in El Salvador, I thought I'd start with the role of Christ.

El Salvador, literally means "The Savior." Not unlike every other Latin American country that I've visited, Jesus is everywhere. I'm told he's coming, by at least 20 bumper stickers a day (up to 1000 if I'm in a city). I'm told he's already here by another 20. He's in the doctor's office, hanging out on the cross. He's there to greet me as I get on the bus, and keeps me comforted my whole trip with the big bold lettered sign at the front of every bus. He's in every shop, house, and local place in the country. Jesus really is everywhere here.

Okay, enough about Christ. Perhaps at another time, I'll throw up a few entries dedicated to transportation, and food. But for now, here's the time between.

After leaving the beach, my travelling partner Jenny and I headed toward the El Salvador-Hondurus border (you have to cross through Hondurus to get to Nicaragua), planning on visiting a few towns in eastern El Salvador before leaving the country. So, on a Friday morning, we set out after saying our goodbye's to our wonderful host family.



(San Vicente is a little unspectacular town)

Four busses later, just after the light gave way to the dark, we arrived in a small town called St. Vicente. It's a pretty dreary little town, where not much happens, ever. We were the only tourists in the entire town. There was no real tourism infrastructure, and we ended up staying in a rickety old hotel where the water worked once in a while. Other than wandering around town, and strolling through the mediocre market, and enjoying the trees, there wasn't much to do.


(nature: 1 humans: 0)

That is, unless you sit beside drunk kids on the bus who tell you about a party happening just one town over.

It turns out that a town only about 30 minutes by bus away was having their equivalent of a country fair. It was fully decked out with a parade....



(parade! in Telecoluca)


(nice drums)

With a lot of security (this is so typical in El Salvador, I mean, this guy could've just as easily been photographed guarding the electronics store, or local fried chicken shop, no joke)...


(nice guns)


Which sported many fine costumes...



(a couple of clowns)


(some things never change)


(nice guns)

After the parade, some of the stilted members of the parade put on a little show in the town center.


(Christ is coming, they aren't clowning around)

At which point, we decided to try our luck on the rides.


(zoom in and look carefully at the supports that are holding up the feet of this ride)

Now, I've always been a fan of roller coasters and theme parks. From the Madoc fair, to Wonderland and beyond, I've tried them all. This, was different. There was one point where I was actually scared. See, when you're screaming around Top Gun, or flying down Drop Zone, yes, there's a little part of you that's crapping your pants. But it's not more than a turtle head because you know that there are ridiculous safety precautions taken and teams of the finest roller coaster scientists behind the ride. Here, in El Salvador, it's a little different. I'm not sure about the saftey precautions. I have a feeling they're something along the lines of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This was occurring to me (and to Jenny too, man I wish I had a picture of her face when we were rocking over 180 degrees front to back being supported by only a tiny little bar across our wastes) as we were flying around the ferris wheel. Then I pictured the footing of the ride, and decided that this could be my time to die. It wouldn't have been that bad, I probably would've been nominated for a Darwin Award.


(view from the rickey-ass ferris wheel)

After narrowly escaping a gruesome ferris-wheel death and two nights in St. Vicente, we headed further east to a beautiful little town way up in the mountains, Alegría.


(view from the lookout point in Alegría)

This picturesque town was really beautiful, if a little more touristy. We actually saw another white person here. We quickly changed hotels.

One of the main attractions of this town (which is a weekend destination for people from San Salvador or San Miguel, big towns a few hours on either side) is the volcanic crater lake. We strolled up there one day, buying and eating some of the most delicious oranges I've ever had along the way.



(the walk back from the crater lake)

They say the water has magical healing properties. I say it is cold.



(Right Said Fred ain't got nada on Jon Booze -- I'm too sexy for this shirt, in the crater lake)


A few nights in Alegría and then we headed further east and to the north to the town of Perquín. It had been raved about by another traveller, so we thought it was worth stopping in at. But we didn't have exactly a normal Perquín experience. We found out on the bus on the way up that we were about to arrive in Perquín's biggest festival of the year, the winter festival. Advertised to us as a tranquil little natural paradise, we found ourselves immersed amongst artisans selling their wares, food stalls, trinquet hawkers, and live music. So, we just took it all in at night, and went on a day trip during the day we were there.



(serpent donuts)



(enjoying a sundown in Perquin, before being eaten alive by flying sharks)

The day-trip we took was to a town called El Mozote. I will not turn this into a history lesson, but what we saw there needs to be talked about. This town was a stronghold for the people's revolutionary army, the FMLN, who were fighting against the US-sponsored government's oppression. Well, the government didn't like this group very much, so they decided to go into this little village and kill people indiscriminantly.

Everybody.

It was mostly women and children. All in all, they killed over 1000 people here. And this was in 1981. And then they blew the whole thing up with 500 pound bombs. Well, in 1991 after the government had been changed, they rebuilt the town in memory of those people.



(the rebuilt church and monument for the children, look at the bottom of the wall, it's the names of the kids that were massacred)

After that depressingly real tour, we needed to go swimming, so we hitched a ride to the river and got refreshed. We had a lot to think about.



(Río sapa, or something like that)

After two nights in Perquín, we were heading for the Hondurus border to cross through into Nicaragua. We were hungry, and there was a woman selling sweet bread beside the bus, so we got some. As with everything here, even eating the bread was a bit of an adventure.


(added protein)

Although things didn't go quite as planned on our journey from El Salvador to Nicaragua (and it ended up taking 3 days to get to where we thought we could get to in 1), it was really a good opportunity for learning. The most growth that you do when travelling is when things are not going smoothly. You have a chance to learn to just accept things as they are, and not as you want them to be. After wanted to smash an orange against a building in frustration (after two insanely hot days of travel, missing bus connection after bus connection, being hungry, dehydrated and tired, not being able to access any money despite having 3 methods of withdrawl, etc.), I managed to regain my cool and just accept what was happening.

And now, Nicaragua.