The Money
Trip Start
Jul 11, 2008
1
8
12
Trip End
Sep 30, 2008
Loading Map
San Salvador,
El Salvador
Thursday, September 18, 2008
So I think we left it in Antiguia, Guatemala but i'll leave that for now as Han as done it and im sure will whack it on the blog when she gets a chance. We satyed an extra night in Guatemala, as we found an Irish bar, a pub quiz night and a lively local to drink the night away with.
We got the El Salvador some 8 to 10 days ago, I forget. We stopped the night in the little/big town of Santa Ana. The centre was fairly small. The square was surrounded by a newly painted white catherdral and a newly painted theatre. It looked nice, lovely. We also met the first of many real friendly people in El Salvador, Javier. We stayed in his hotel, which was really just his converted home. He spoke Spanish but looked very European so we thought he may have French but it turns out everyone here has a European look about them. He made us feel welcome, use his kitchen to cook and pointed us in the right direction to get the bus in the morning to move on.
We then headed to a little town of Tacuba, which was the nearest town to National Park El Imposible. The place we stayed was another huge converted house but here we ate mamas cooking, played on papas guitar and watched the England game on their sons tele. We relaxed in some hot springs that night (yeas again), to energise yoursleves for the hike in the park the next day. We opted for the downhill hikew, which took us through coffee plantations, grass 7 foot tall and lead to a 60m waterfall. The plan was to swim in it but, one, it was too cold aand two, the last time me and Han went into a waterfall, the waterfall won.
Parque Nacional El imposible
The next day we packed up and left for a beaxch house with Monolo, the son at the house. Hes described in the guide book as nuts and a bit kooky and he was exactly that. He and his friends had rented a beach house for the weekend and we were kindly invited to come along.
Claire: Scott's attention span just ran out. So hello! The beach house Manolo took us to was based, like most other houses and restaurants out here, on a huge verandah area covered with a thatch roofand filled with comfy chairs, hammocks and general places to chill out. Everything is outside - in some hostels even the Tv is outside (just covered with some thatched roofing to protect it from all the storms). Then there was a little pool with water warmer than a bath and then down at the bottom of the garden a gate took us out to the beach. The beach was in the middle of nowhere and in the entire weekend we saw no other tourists, only a few local families enjoying the waves and rock pools. The whole weekend felt like a holiday within a holiday, because Manolo took care of everything and we just had to go along with it and r.e.l.a.x. On Friday night we were joined by a couple he knows from San Salvador, both young hotshot economists with plenty to talk about and plenty of questions for us about the UK, the US, what we think of central america and so on. So it made for pretty interesting conversations in the pool with beers in hand, and the best thing was it never ever got heated; everyone was to darned relaxed.
On Saturday three Guatemalan guys joined the party - again, all hotshots in various fields including law, economics, etc - so again.
Hiking through the maize fields
One of the guys had a TV in his car for Chrissake. This is when we realised we were hanging out with the jetsetting elite of Guatemala and El Salvador. All young, single (well, not married anyway), up-and-coming, rightwing (obviously) yuppies from these places where you hear about such people existing but never feel like you come across any. I saw 'all young', there was one 43 yr old there who was clinging onto his lost youth like I cling onto the hope of ever fitting into a size 8 dress. On Saturday night we had a big party which descended, as most parties do, into general raucousness and lots of salsa dancing.Sunday came and although it was my birthday none of us were feeling that fresh (mosquito nets dont keep ants out if you're sleeping on the grass, we discovered) we still had a really good day. We all went out for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea, and we tried oyster (good if its with lime juice or worcester sauce), I tried whitebait (not good no matter how you try to mask the taste) and for the first time in my life I actually had lobster. Three huge lobster tails for $15, cant really complain! We spent the afternoon on the beach. Having been joined by a guy from the US who was an extreme libertarian, all the political debates got pretty interesting and some of them managed to talk about the Iraq war for a pretty ridiulous amount of time.
On Monday we came back to Juayua, a small town on the Ruta de las Flores further inland. Monday was independence day for Central America, so we were there to see lots of parades going through town and to join in with all the families who had the day off and spent it in the central park.
Sunset at Los Cabanos
The parades were all small, school-run affairs so you had girls of all ages dancing and boys of all ages playing the trumpets. The oldest boys took on the big bass drum and looked very important with it. It was pretty cool to see. We couldnt resist the pull of the beach and headed back to the coast the next day. El Zonte is a surfers paradise just a few kilometres along from where we spent the weekend. We found a hostel with a pool and we all spent the day sunbathing (Hana was particularly keen to top up the tan before waving goodbye to the sunshine for a few months when she heads back to the UK tomorrow). Scott went his usual shade of deep red but then aggrivatingly turned lovely brown a few hours later - how unfair!! We all did very well, however. We randomly ended up watching this film called Zohan; i mention it only because it was the most bizarre film any of us had seen for along time and it took us a good twenty minutes to even realise it was Adam Sandler and I want to ask you guys is this actually in the cinema at home???? and how is it going down?
I don't know if you read this, but if you do I just want to wish my cousin Katherine ALL THE BEST with starting uni, which must be happening soon if it hasnt already. Have an awesome time and enjoy the first year while you can because the third year's a complete bitch.
And also welcome to baby Eve, we can't wait to meet you!
xxxxx
Comments
What about the money???
Good as always to get your update, and to hear that you're all still enjoying it just as much. Glad you're at least trying to write for us Scott!! It must be lovely to have all that sun, sea and sand at your disposal. It has actually been a really lovely hot day here today (shame I had long sleeves and boots on!)
We also have our own little rays of sunshine in the form of Matthew and Eve. His birthday party was lovely and your names came up whilst we enjoyed dancing to the music you had put together for Ferns birthday previously. There was fizzy pink stuff and chocolate cake and balloons, it was great. Hope to see some more pics soon.
Keep safe, lots of love Mum xxxxxxxx