Santa Ana and the war of mosquitoes
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2006
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20
110
Trip End
Ongoing
Santa Ana,
El Salvador
Friday, January 12, 2007
Modestly called the Queen of the West (of El Salv) by its inhabitants, we originally came to Santa Ana in order to climb Cerro Verde (imaginatively called the Green hill!) nearby. We booked ourselves into the dodge of all dodge accomodations but we were so glad of a shower after coming from Bosque Imposs that it didn't initially matter that there were bout 15 different species of ants in our bathroom with more malicious looking creatures sporadically appearing at our sides. It was a different story when the sun went down and the lights went out..
Now as most of you know, the word sleep is not synonymous with the name RoRo but I had had cramps all of that Friday and had almost fainted in the supermarket so I was looking forward to a good, long sleep before getting up at 7am for the climb. But it was not to be..It was Friday night so the disco outside our mainstreet window pumped the volume, the dogs barked to the beat, the hotel owner three rooms away snored to his heart's content and the mosquitoes, oh the menacing, mudda ducka mosquitoes.
I now know what Emily Dickenson meant when she said "I heard a fly buzzing in my ear"(or something to that effect)...Well Emily, try having five buzzing in each ear. I had the "Love Actually" album blaring in my ears but every time Girls Aloud sang "Jump", I jumped, feeling another mosquito gnaw at my skin.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to mosquitoes. I once got 62 mosquito bites on ONE leg in the space of two hours. But mosquito bites are fine when you're outside in trees or whatever. I have also come to expect a few per night inside but there is a fine line between a few and being a human buffet..especially when you're in the middle of a CITY paying to sleep in a "HOTEL"...albeit a cheap one but still!
I wanted to sleep so badly cos I knew I'd need energy for Cerro Verde, the following day. I eventually got up and read. I gazed at Don Juan across from me and I don't think I ever had such an cold-blooded impulse to box someone in the gob.
Now I have my fair share of friends who can sleep easily-there's Oatsie who once slept on the ground in the middle of a crowded, singing mini-bus after SHE won the all-Ireland debating title, Reagan who fell asleep for three hours amidst all in Slane and Conway, who went into sympathy with me when I was sick in Spain, and slept from 4pm Saturday straight through to 11am Sunday morn...But Collins beats them all. That lad-12 hours sleep is a normal night's sleep for him and if it takes him more than ten minutes to fall asleep at night, he thinks he's had the worst sleep ever. This night, he slept through it all. The advantage of being awake was that I got to slay some of my attackers, he, on the other hand, was DESTROYED. German measles, how are you...pics to follow!
Next day, I was dizzy and tired, Collins was scratching his skin raw and we decided Cerro Verde just wasn't worth another night in Santa Ana. Onwards we tottered to San Salvador, the capital
