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Ahh Central America
Susie and I realized that we were soon leaving the
comforts of Mexico and would be moving on to the rough
and tough of Central America. Two months in Mexico
gave me just enough time to get accustomed to the way
some things work and realize that it would, in some
respects, get a bit more chaotic further down. Once
you get adjusted and can sift through all of the crap,
you can really find beauty. Or, just complete comedy.
Entering into Guatemala proved easy. However, finding
things that you might expect to be at a border town,
like, a map, proved quite difficult. After some money
exchanging, Susie and I set out to look for a map and
maybe a flag of Guatemala. The more inquiries we made
for maps, the more variety of answers we got. I
finally found a stationary store at the end of town
that had a Budget Rental Car map of the country. It
was old and pretty faded and there was no Budget
Rental Car locale in the area, but the town of Tecún
Umán decided that this was the best I was going to
get.
We spent almost three days biking through Guatemala
and experienced the best smoothies and the worst air
quality. With the smoothies came a devastating loss in
arm wrestling with 16 year old muchachas. As for the
air quality, the buses, trucks, and sugar refineries
were vomiting out gases and fumes of so many different
colors and smells it was grossly overwhelming. We
tried to breathe through our noses so as to filter the
air with our nose hairs, but at the same time, we
couldn't stand the mix of burning plastic, cow poo,
and the rancid, sweet smell of
burnt sugar cane.
As we neared the border to El Salvador, I wondered who
exactly was El Salvador-Italics (The Savior) and what
he was going to salvarme-Italics from. We arrived over
the border to La Hachadura just in time to meet a few
locals that were so friendly. We were quite surprised
by their willingness to help and figured we would find
a map and a country flag with ease.
We were, however, informed that there was no such
store that sold maps of the country, but luckily,
Manuel a local, had a map at his house. While he ran
and got it, Luis, another local, brought us little
flags of El Salvador. We were also informed of where
the best pupusas (1) were in town and we put out bikes
in our dorm room and got ready for dinner. At this
point, Manuel came back with a map alright.... a map
of Mississippi. He said he thought it would be
helpful. I choked on my water a bit and graciously
thanked him but said that I didn't think this map
would work for us. He was so nice and you could tell
he was trying to be so helpful but it
was quite
amusing.
He sent us over to the pupusa place where we didn't
run into the same hospitality. When we asked if we
could have another order of pupusas, the waitress
responded "Go check" and proceeded to her stoop to
watch the telenovela that was on.
Rosa Luz, on the other hand, was so kind and helpful.
We met her the next day while biking. We noticed her
colorful fruit stand and asked if we could buy and
open one of her melons right then and there. She said
sure and gave us a million dollar smile adorned with 2
peace signs in her front teeth. She was so nice and
offered us some sweet bread with our juice and melon.
We had such a good conversation with her that we
forgot to pay for the food and remembered about a
kilometer up the road and coasted back down to close
our tab.
That, in an nutshell, is El Salvador. We passed
through the length of the entire country in about 3
days and were impressed not only by the beautiful
people, but the nicely paved road canopied with huge,
beautiful, old Ceiba, Cedro, and Guanacaste trees.
Now onto the Central American country I know best...
Honduras.
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(1) A Pupusa is a wonderful little cheese filled corn
or flour tortilla sauteéd to perfection with pickled
cabbage and carrots on top. It is sooo good. You will
only find it in El Salvador and Honduras.
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