For Mom, Love Steve

I could have made it after a long day, but I wasn´t under much time constraint and was looking forward to another relaxing spot in El Salvador before crossing into Honduras. Checking the old LP guidebook it showed a nice little mountain town fairly close to the border. It was another perfect climate mountain town but it has an artistic flair as the originator of the El Salvadorean Näive Art which is a style which El Salvador is known for around the world. The painter Fernando Llort first started the style here and he taught the locals to utilized the style. So now, on top of the many paintings and painted trinkets that come from the local population here, many of the houses and shops display the art form while it is possible to look into houses and watch the inhabitants painting away. I was surprised at how small the little village is but it also gets enough tourist traffic that all the normal tourist amenities are all within the two roads that pretty much make up the town center. For me, I really connected with the covered rooftop which houses a perfect laying hammock with views of the town on one side and the mountains behind.

And the next day concluded my romp through El Salvador.

Of course you have to start out in the Central Park with the adjoining Church.

My first day there I ended up taking a couple of hour walk down to the lake. It really reminded me of the high altitude lakes in Peru where the sky is silvery sharp.

Cobblestone roads always make for a classic look. Glad I wasn´t riding a bike around.

Like the cobblestones, the Spanish tile roofs lets you know you are in Latin America.

My view over to the central park and church.

Relaxing on the roof surrounded by beautiful views.

My favorite shot. I wasn´t paying attention as I was reading and when I looked up this is what I saw.

Side road down to the lake.

It seems most professional photographers have to take photos of the old crumbling wall. For a bonus my pictures include wildlife. Flying rats.

Bagging the maize.

Why I´m fat. The general plan was to make it home and plant myself on my parents sofa with food in one hand and the remote control in the other. I would stay there until I hit 185lbs, then it would be time to move along. Unfortunately, if I am not careful with my pupusas I might have to raise the bar before I even make it home. One thing that is consistently good throughout the Central Americas so far has been the Pastalerias (pastry shops). Lots of variety although a bit light on the chocolates and the cream filled varieties.

As soon as we pulled into the colonial town of Suchitoto I knew I had made the right decision. To Salvadoreans it is a sacred place as it was not scarred by the civil way and represents how the country would have been if it had not. I think what made it so inspiring versus the many other colonial towns that I had been in CA was that it was very quaint and at the time non-touristic. It was even smaller than Juayua and it was in fact true to life a hundred years ago as the roads were still cobblestone and all the roofs the classic spanish tile. Also, unlike the others it was filled with just locals. Not really any Salvadorean tourists. I of course had hit it right coming at mid week but was pretty sure that it got pretty busy on weekends. Apparently they have a smaller food fair as well on weekends, but I prefered the relaxed mid week to be able to soak up the old time vibe. I ended up getting a normally $25 room for half price as I ran into a lady that ran the place while walking around town. Full amenities including air conditioning. On top of that it had the best views in town which covered the plaza, the mountains and even the lake below. It is definitely a photographers haven as wandering down the cobblestone streets with the earth tone painted crumbling buildings all gussied up for all sorts of artistic shops. I really enjoyed my time there. Oh yea, the weather was perfect again.

As of today I am five for five on bus fuck ups. Now, on this whole trip, I don´t think I made more than five mistakes, including my motorcycle times, but just in the last five city moves I have screwed up each time. Fortunately, as I stated before, the distances are not great so making a mistake didn´t cause me to have to spend the night sleeping on the side of the road, but it is the principle of it. I think of myself as well traveled. Even though I am in a Spanish speaking area, I speak Spanish well enough especially in regards to traveling. Well, for some reason it is not going well.

A little background. El Salvador bus systems are fairly user friendly. At the main terminals they have placards hanging down on each driveway designating destinations. The buses themselves are labeled by route number so in conjunction with a guidebook, you can just look for the bus number without having to struggle with the language barrier or not knowing the final destination of the bus that you need. And if you are Spanish literate, there is generally a drivers helper yelling destinations or willing to help you if you ask. Well, as easy as that sounds and my prior bus travels in the prior parts of the Central America, I have been really dropping the ball.

Mistake #1- On the route going from La Libertad to Juayua I decided to not wait for the afternoon only bus that went direct to the main terminal in Sonsonate (the gateway to Ruta de floras). There was just the main road that followed the coast line which I had to take so I figured why wait. I would have to take one additional bus, but it should save me a couple of hours of waiting. Well, the connection where I needed to catch the second bus was on the main road, but the bus took a turnoff and off to some damn far off village I went. Basically, the turnoff which had no semblence of inhabitation was the village where I needed to catch my connecting bus. As the little village where I ended up was like where the driver lived of something, I had to wait until after his lunch and siesta before that same bus which was the only one headed back to the main road.

Mistake #2- While still on my way to Juayua and being pissed that I had screwed up, I was contemplating on stopping in Sonsonate for the night as it was getting to be early evening. I was sort of pissed at myself at making a mistake that I figure that forcing myself to keep going would be punishment enough. That and the fact that the bus terminal was a couple of kilometers from the central part of town and I didn´t feel like dealing with the hassle of walking into town, looking for a place to stay, and then having to haul my ass all the way back in the morning. So I got on the afternoon bus which ran along the whole Ruta de Flores. Since it was the evening, it was packed to the gills. Luckily I had gotten a seat and had some girl who was forced to stand, allowed me to rest my head between her boobies the whole way. It was a steep climb and took a while to get to the top where the villages were. It was so packed that it was impossible to see out the windows (boobies) so when a large group of people got out at a little church central park, I figured that had to be it so I grabbed my bag and jumped out. I only had to look up to see the sign that showed I was in the wrong town and I had a nice four kilometer walk up and down the hills to get to Juayua.

Mistake #3- From Juayua, the same road that took me there carried along until it reached the main highway that would take me to my next destination. An easy jont. Well, it turned out that again there was only an evening direct bus so my other time saving option was to take the bus back to Sonsonate and then switch buses which had a direct bus to Santa Ana. I got the bus to Sonsonate no problem and arrived at the main terminal. I walked along the covered terminal looking up at the destination signs. I knew which bus number I needed, but I didn´t see it. I did however see the sign with Santa Ana on it so when it came up I jumped on. The sign said something about via Cerro, but I figured all buses go via something so oh well. Well, oh well meant driving to the otherside of the mountain range, through cane fields, up the side of a volcano, around a lake and back down to the road which entered Santa Ana from the opposite side of the road which came directly from Juayua. It was a long ride and I would have got there sooner if I just stayed and waited for the direct bus.

Mistake #4- All I had to do was go directly east from Santa Ana to the town of Las Aguilares which was the connection for my next destination of Suchitoto which was just the extenstion of the same road. I just had to go east. Straight east. Not varying for a moment, East. I went to the bus station which was sandwiched in the center of the market and was basically a cluster fuck. I didn´t see a sign for LA so I asked a couple of drivers. Fortunately the guys I asked drove the bus that apparently did the route but they had just finished and the same bus that did the route had just left. They pointed out the number of their bus and told me it was the same one. Sweet. I ran out and caught up to the bus as it tried to negotiate the market traffic. Just in case, I asked the driver if it went to LA. He waved me on. A half an hour later we had left the city. Since we zig zagged all over the place trying to get out of the city I lost my direction of which way was east so I had to try and identify signs as we went along. I started getting a bad feeling when I started seeing signs of where I was the prior day but that was sort of east, so perhaps it was alright. Then I started seeing signs for San Salvador. That was not good as San Salvador was to the south east and I wanted to head directly east. I was bummed when I realized that we were on our way to the capital or at best to a town slightly north of the capital. And that is where we ended up stopping after my south east route followed by a short stint north. I ended up in a town called Apopa which was directly south of the town that I was shooting for and which was still just a stopover to my final destination. We had ended up going twice the distance to my original destination, and I still hadn´t even made it there yet. We were at the parking lot for the public buses in Apopo so I had to walk over to the main freeway and flag down a bus that would at least get me to Las Aguilares. I pleaded with the drivers helper to tell me when to get off because I needed to be let off at the access road to Suchitoto which was basically just the extension of the road from my starting point had I been able to get on the right bus. I am assuming there was a bus that went directly east, but I can´t guarantee it. From there I waited until a bus came by and finally made it to my final destination.

Mistake #5- Occured when leaving Suchitoto. I had spent so much time trying to figure out where I was on the map trying to get there that I thought I had the map memorized. Suchitoto is a small town so it didn´t have an actual bus station. Rather, all the buses just ran by the market and people got on and off there. The road I had taken to get to Las Aguilares was the main highway that ran directly north and south of the capital to the northern border. I had seen a constant flow of San Salvador buses running through town and since I was just needing to get back to the highway, I figured that I could pretty much jump on any bus to San Salvador or a direct bus to Las Aguilares that went by. Well. a San Salvador came by so I hopped on and we were off. Usually the way it works is that you get on the bus and as the attendent has time he works his way from the front to the back taking payments. I was in the back and we were gone for a while. The road was really nice compared to what I remembered coming on but as I thought Suchitoto was pretty much the end of the road how could I be going in the wrong direction. When the attendent came to me I asked him for the price to Las Aguilares as it was only half way to the capital. He said the bus went directly to the terminal in the capital. Why was the guy screwing with me. We had already stopped three times to let people off so why would he tell me that they wouldn´t stop in the major transit town on the way. I asked again. He said no direct to the terminal. I kind of stared at him in disbelief long enough for him to continue on to the last people behind me. I figured that maybe showing him the map might help him out as apparently this guy had no clue what he was talking about. So of course as soon as I opened the book to the El Salvador map I realized that there was in fact a road that led out the back side of Suchitoto and went directly to the capital. Direct to the terminal. Shit. I apologized and asked to be let off. On the side of the road I was pretty depressed at being already behind in the day and still having three more bus transfers to do with a growing risk of ending up somewhere in Guatemala. Fortunately the rest of the trip went fairly uneventful and I finally made it to my last stop.

I am happy to say today my three bus and one country change went off without a hitch. The streak is broken.

On the plus side I got to see this cool lava field. Not sure where it was but we stopped next to it so the drivers helper could take the wheel for a bit while the driver made out with his girlfriend.

Oooh, colorful and shiny. Must buy something.

Stuff stuff everywhere and all for sale.

Even without the tourist stuff, the town itself was situated pretty well. Not only was the weather perfect, but we were surrounded by our long lost pals, volcanoes. I watched a soccer game with volcanoes as the back drop. That was new.

If I show a photo of a volcano you gotta have one of a church.

If I buy a house, these are what the bathroom colors are going to be like. Pretty.

Sweet sweet churros.

The entry to the food courts.

This was my choice of lunch. Smoked ribs, sausages, and picnic goodies. It just makes me feel sorry for the Jews. Pork is the food of the gods.

Now, I wasn´t a total lazy ass. The owner of the hotel where I stayed almost guilted me into hiking down to the local waterfalls. It was the usual me walking and everybody else riding by in tuk tuks. It wasn´t a super tough hike, but it was dusty and somewhat up and down. The waterfalls were better than average but I made the mistake thinking that it was too cool to go for a swim. After walking an hour in the sun and dust, a nice dip in the pristine man made pools would have been nice.

Surprisingly they had some pretty viscious drop offs along a couple of narrow stretches.

The cascades.

I wasn´t expecting the water to be so pristine. Looks freaking inviting.

In the highlands of the North-west is the area called Ruta de flores (Flower route). It is basically a 36 km stretch of highlands where during October and February the hillsides bloom with flowers. There are small quaint villages along the route but I decided on stopping at the most touristic one, Juayua. Now, I am not a big touristic destination person especially when it deals with flowers, but towns like these are kind of nice because although being tourist oriented, they are very picturesque, artsy, and have a somewhat happy vibe. The other claim to fame the town had was the weekend food festivals. Okay, I´ll admit it, I came because I wanted food. Someone had a brilliant idea to set up an international food fair where you could not only get the typical local food, but food from all over the world. This was not only a plus for the people from other places in the world who were dying for something from back home, but it was also was a draw for the majority of visitors who were locals who came to taste the international cuisine. They served everything from special juices, ice creams, sweets, to typical street foods, and in the eating booths tons of main course fare. The streets were lined up with covered booths selling all your normal shiny, brightly colored tourist crap, pirated dvds, and all your normal household needs. It was all done up rather nicely and it made for a nice weekend of strolling around in perfect weather conditions, sampling a bunch of food during the day, and at night walking around and eating at the local food stalls spotted throughout the town. There were also live bands and “praise God” yellers waking up the cool night. I spent a few extra dollars for a set up pad and had my first hot shower since Panama. All done, it was a nice weekend and I give a thumbs up for the occassional tourist trap.

I had a urge to see the ocean so it was a couple of buses to take me to the world renowned (in the surfer world I guess as I had never heard of it) surf beach town of La Libertad. The town itself was your basic scruffy port town without an actual port. It was however the ocean and that was what I was in the mood for. It was out of surf season as although there was a nice consistent break right out front, they were not what I would consider anything more than average. I guess when the storms and tides pick up it must get fairly brisk. It would have been a perfect time to take a lesson and get back in the water, but I just don´t feel like starting up a new hobby. It is kind of like golf or poker, for someone like me, it would pretty much be the end for anything else but, and with the whole Pacific coastline stretching all the way back up to California, if I started, I would never get home . Most likely I would have ended up with me buying a new motorcycle, mounting a duel surf board rack, and end up being that crazy guy riding up the freeway with a couple of surf boards flapping in the wind. Plus, with Hawaii and Australia just across the ocean, it would not be good.

So with surfing off the list, it pretty much ended up being this weird sleep catch up situation as I ended up getting a room in this really run down but homey little place with a little patio and my own hammock. I slept 14 hours the first night and another 12 the next. I think it was the constant tv that had been throwing off my sleep cycle and my body required some non-tv induced sleep. It might also be that at night time you could hear the ocean waves crashing down on the beach which is much better than dogs barking, horns blaring, and neighbors snoring.

I had a sneaky suspicion that it was pretty dead due to the fact that it was the week day and on weekends they get heavy San Salvador weekenders so I ended up hopping on the bus early saturday morning heading towards the airconditioned highlands of the North West.

Boats were stored on the pier. They had a sort of manual lift to lower them down into the water. First time I had seen that.

This was actually a fairly thought out pier. On the mainland they had a lot of little seafood/ceviche restaurants serving fresh off the boat seafood. The first quarter of the pier was covered with tarpaulins and housed the fish market. The rest of the pier housed the fishing boats and the end had the crane that lowered and lifted the boats to the pier.

With the sea must come a sunset photo.

The rugged other side shore line.

The guidebook said it was worthy of a short stop, so who am I to question that. One of the things that I am liking about the Central America travels is that as the countries are rather small, distances between sites are relatively short. I am trying to limit my physical bus time to less that two hours so I am slowly traversing along but making up time by doing more one and outs. San Miguels claim to fame is their Eiffel toweresquel building in the central park. You could apparently climb the tower as i saw some locals up on top, but when I asked the police guard if it was possible he did a quick look around and said yes but it cost a dollar. Now, if it wasn´t for that suspicious look around I wouldn´t have thought twice about it, but as it smelled a bit like he was trying to scam me and I hate that shit I passed. Checking into the only hotel that I was able to find was also odd. When I went into the hotel via the downstairs little restaurant I asked the girl if they had rooms. She said yes and that they were $15. I was kind of taken aback as I was only paying less than $10 at other towns. I thought the town seemed cool enough for maybe a couple of days stay so I asked if she would drop the price if I stayed more nights. She countered with the fact that the room was $15 up to three nights. Now I took that as being $15 per night for the first three nights and then possibly the price dropped on the fourth night. No, it was $15 and you can stay for up to three nights. ????? So, I asked again, I could stay three nights for a total of $15 or one night and pay the same $15. Yup. By this time a local guy who was eating there with his friend jumped in as he was listening in and getting confused as well. He asked her in Spanish and he translated back to me that it was $15 and I could stay up to three nights. Never had I had that offer before so I said okay, at worse I stay two nights which would even out the cost. I checked out the room and it was basic but nice and included a bathroom and cable tv. Couldn´t beat that so I signed in and paid the $15. I had enough free time to walk around the town and check out all the basics. Found a couple of decent food places and was pretty much bored with the town by nightfall. By then I had already made up my mind that whatever the cost, I was still going to leave the next day. Upon check out I learned that the owner were gone for the day and the girl that was helping run the hotel portion really was not sure what was going on. It was in fact $15 per night but if you would stay for three nights they would drop it down to $10. It was a bit odd, but in the end my sense of reality was still correct.

Leaving the border post I met up with a Nicaraguan family from Somoto who were waiting for a bus to Guatemala. Apparently the father was on his way back to Texas in order to find work. He had been there years ago but had since returned to his family. It was now time to go back and make some money. One thing I had forgotten about while in Somoto was their famous cheese curl thingies. I forgot what they are called, but the town is known for it. Well, as we started talking they gave me a batch and I got to try them. They taste like those cheesey square crackers, not triscuits, but those orangish/yellowish squares that are super cheesy. Anyways, they taste like that. They also have some where honey is baked into the center which gives them a sweet cheesy flavor. Nice. It was a while but a mini bus finally came which would take me to a larger town where I could catch a regular bus to San Miguel. I was fortunate again when we pulled into town just when a San Miguel bus was ready to leave. I grabbed my stuff and hopped on to one of the newer style Brazilian buses. It had been a while since I had been on a luxury bus with recliner seats, tvs showing movies, and airconditioning. Unfortunately, we were on one side of a mountain range and had to cross over the twisty, curvy, roads down to the oher side. In those style buses, the windows out the front are closed off so you can´t distract the driver and the window shades are kept closed to keep the sun out, so you are basically just in a box through those windy roads. It was the first time in a long time that I felt car sick. Luckily it was only a hour and a half although it was still a full half an hour after I got off the bus that I didn´t feel like puking. Good times.

San Miguel was another one of those transit towns where tourist sites were lacking but due to their proximity require an overnight stay. I ended up finding another cool hotel so shacked up for a couple of nights primarily to get acclimated again, but also to catch up on some tv watching. I was staying at the Hotel Monte Carlo, so it of course was all luxuried out.

The town was the capital of the region so was big and sprawling. I walked around a bit and found the Church/Plaza as well as the market. Probably the most interesting was spotting a big ass volcano overlooking the town. Fortunately, I am not in need of a “I climbed a volcano” badge so a picture was sufficient.

The other favorable mention was this excellent buffeteria which was this huge mama´s place was pans and pans of great food on offer. At night that part of the restaurant shut down and they opened up the garage part of the restaurant where they cooked the national food, Pupusas. Pupusas are basically corn meal patties stuffed with refried beans, cheese, and sometimes chicharrones (fried pork bits). On top is a sort of cole slaw and some pickeled onions. If you want to get an idea of the flavor, just go to Taco bell and get a standard bean burrito. Damn good stuff either way although I am actually swayed a bit towards the Taco Bell variety. After usually 3-4pm, pupusas are pretty much the only thing available unless you can find some chain style restaurant. The bad thing is night time sleeping sounds like the trumpet section of a marching band, and you get some pretty sticky poos. I was kind of used to it though as my traveling diet of cold refried bean burritos resulted in the same effect.

There is an agreement between Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua called the CA-4. Basically, they are making a somewhat similar agreement as in Europe. When you enter in any of these countries you pay a tourist fee and from that point you are free to pass to the other countries without having to pay again. In theory of course. Nicaragua decided that they would bypass this agreement by including a $7US fee to enter and a $3 fee to exit. Bastards. I hate that kind of shit. Luckily though, leaving Honduras and entering El Salvador I was able to see how it was supposed to work. They had just one office for both countries tourist immigration. You get entered into their system to provide tracking information, but outside of that you are free. They don´t even stamp your passport. You basically have 90 days free roaming. Nice. Thumbs up. I still have to try it in Guatemala so we´ll have to see how functional it is there.