One Way United

Well, we are now in Antigua, Guatemala; just resting for a day after the last few nights of little sleep (Jordan will cover that in his next post on TIKAL).  But my job is to tell you about the wonderful, beautiful, rustic, friendly country of El Salvador, even though we were only there for 2 nights.

It took a lot of pushing on my part to go to El Salvador as were very crunched for time on our way to Guatemala.  I had always wanted to go because when I worked at Delfinos, all of the cooks were from El Salvador; it was really what sparked my interest in Latin America.  Unfortunately, however, El Salvador is slightly out of the way when heading towards Guatemala; and out of all the Central American countries, it is the least touristy and the least visited.  But my pushing won out and we hopped on an 11 hour bus in Managua that went straight to the capital, San Salvador.

San Salvador was a delight.  The cab drivers didn’t try to rip us off (like in Nicaragua), a random man stopped and hugged us as we were trekking to our hotel (ok, he might have been drunk, not really sure), people didn’t hassle us for taxi rides, hotels, and tours, and people were always more than ready to help out with directions or information.  I believe the friendliness of the people owes itself in part to the fact that El Salvador has not yet been jaded by tourism; therefore, people are always ready to help and show a genuine interest in you.  Anyway, our hotel, Hotel Florida, was lovely and a great place to rest after so much travelling.  That night, we set out for the mall where we enjoyed Pizza Hut and TCBY (we are such Westerners, I know!)

The following morning we set out for the small Colonial Town of Suchitoto.  This town is where all of my old Delfinos coworkers were from so I had heard all these stories about how great it was.  Suchitoto did not disapoint!  Granted, there was not much in the way of tourist activities there, but I think that was part of the charm.  When we checked into the hotel, the lady who owned it had her husband give us a ride to the lake (we didn’t even have to ask).  As though that wasn’t enough kindness, she gave us a huge plastic bag with her family’s swim suits and towels for us to use (we had left most of our luggage in San Salvador).  Later that night, this little boy tried to teach us how to spin a-top-on-a-string thing, and was cracking us up as he made fun of Jordan’s many unsuccesful tries.  He would go around showing people (all that night and the next morning) how Jordan threw the top.  It was HILARIOUS!  Between interacting with him, eating in laid back restaurants, hanging out at the lake, and browsing in all of the Artesian shops, the best we can describe Suchitoto is TRANQUILO (we have agreed that there is no sufficient English equivalent to this word).  Jordan also said that the town might win the “Friendliest Award” out of all the towns he’s been to on his entire trip!

So all and all, we were only able to spend 2 days in El Salvador.  But it was enough to win me over to the county; I hope to go back some day and maybe do some volunteer/mission work of some kind.  While El Salvador might not be a top tourist draw, its richest resource is definetly the people! Love it, love it!

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Just kidding. I only wanted your attention. I love to travel and discover new lands and cultures. Already I have budding plans for future trips over the rest of this great Earth and all continents (that will all happen well in the future I can assure you). Traveling like this has been one of the grandest experiences of my life. I would definitely recommend that everyone at some point in their life should get out and explore the world around them at least a little bit. Despite the wonders this planet has to offer though, I know a good many people never really go anywhere. They might say things like “I can’t get time off work” or “I don’t have the cash” or any number of excuses, which may or may not be valid. But I think a lot of the time people don’t go anywhere because they’re afraid something bad might happen to them.

It is true: if you travel for any length of time eventually you are going to run into some misfortune. It may not be serious but it will be frustrating at the very least. We’ve had all sorts of things happen to us over the months. We got lost in a huge city. We had a cab driver rip us off. We’ve lost various belongings. We’ve gotten really sick in really inconvenient places. And there’s something about being a really long way from home that tends to magnify even the slightest of problems. But so far we’ve been very fortunate in that nothing incredibly terrible has happened…until recently.

Bocas del Toro was an awesome place. A bit crowded and touristy at time, but how can you turn down snorkeling in the Caribbean? We did and saw lots of cool stuff including a 1 meter long baracuda! After spending lots of time playing cards and chilling out we set out to say goodbye to Panama and make our way to Costa Rica. Taking a couple taxis, one of which had this guy zooming down these winding roads at around 70 mph that you should really only be doing 35 on. This is rather common of cab drivers down here but he also might have been showing off his new car since he’d only had it for four days. We crossed the border to Costa Rica and made it into Puerto Viejo.

Take every image you’ve ever had of the Caribbean and you’ve got this town. Beautiful beaches, open bars with sand floors, fantastic drinks and food; this place had it all. We were all set to just kick back and enjoy everything there was to offer out here. The restaurant we ate at had daquris 2 for $4 at happy hour. We asked the waitress when happy hour was and she replied “All day”. Tell me that’s not cool. So we ate and enjoyed a drink and played some Pinochle (yes, we know we’re odd). Then we headed out to the beach to catch some surf. We marveled at the beauty around us, and we found a nice semi-empty beach with some good waves. We got into our suits to head out wave jumping. The water was the absolute perfect temperature, comfortable the entire time even as the sun was setting. We rode waves, laughed, and got way too much salt in our mouths. And then…it started.

This next point I freely admit was all my fault as I was being a bit of a bonehead. While wave jumping at some point I got turned around and hit by a rogue wave I wasn’t ready for. I was drug under, remained there for several seconds, and in the chaos of it all the riptide pulled my glasses off (reason I hate wearing glasses #175). I grabbed frantically for them but the slipped just out of my fingers. Jordan and I searched for them in the surf, which is useless when the waves are pounding on you relentlessly. I knew it was a lost cause right away and we headed back to where our stuff was. In the end though, it turns out I got off easy. We arrived to fine some hooligans had made of with some of our stuff. Jordan lost his camera and Amanda lost a bag with her journal, glasses, sunglasses, her book Elantris (which she was only 100 pages away from finishing), and her camera as well. We searched and came up with nothing. We walked to the police station in the dark, defeated, me going very carefully as I am functionally blind with out my specs. The police were nice of course, but we all new the odds of anything coming out of this were slim to none. So we went back to the first bar to take advantage of all day happy hour. We decided to play some cards to unwind only to realize, the final insult, that both the regular cards and the pinochle deck were in Amanda’s stolen bag! I tell you we were pretty pathetic. Of coarse we were all aggravated to various degrees. I feel especially bad for Amanda who in her few short weeks here has had more regular stressful occurances then Jordan and I have seen in our first six months! She has been taking it very well I think and will enjoy the rest of her stay here I’m sure. We were all able to laugh and get on with life.

We caught the bus to San Jose, a city we’d told is not that great. It’s actually rather non-descript. Not bad really, but not anything to write about. We did get to finally see Pirates of the Caribbean, after a much anticipated wait. So now I sit here updating the site with a long post and pictures at the same time (note to future employers: I am a good multi-tasker) while Jordan and Amanda are out doing some white water rafting. Ordinarily I would have gone but my funds are rather diminished now and things in Costa Rica are pretty dang expensive. So we will leave tomorrow, right after I get my new glasses hopefully. Where we’ll go hasn’t really been decided yet. But even with all these troubles I still enjoy traveling. Learning to roll with the punches is essential if you’re going to do something like this and since we’re all physically ok you learn to appreciate that.

As always our best to all our loved ones at home. Be sure to check out the photo gallery as a bunch of new pics have gone up. Later!

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Back in Quito, I sit at this high tech internet cafe trying to think of words to describe this experience.  It seems like there is so much to say but no words come to mind.  In a nutshell, I loved my time in that tiny village.  At the end, I felt like I was a part of the community and it was hard leaving.  But, it was time to move on.  Our main goal was to teach the guides English and we did not accomplish what we set out to do, but somehow it didn’t matter.  The guides were in the middle of the busy tourist season and they did not want to spend their free time learning English.  So we only had one teaching session with them lasting an hour and no more.

Our main activity turned out to be teaching English at the small school in the village.  We taught two classes for a half hour each day.  In one class there were younger children between 4 - 8 years of age.  In the other class there were children aged from around 9 - 12 years.  None of these kids have ever had exposure to English before so we had to start completely from scratch.  By the end we had taught the bigger kids common words and phrases, the alphabet, numbers to one hundred, subject pronouns, the present tense of the verb to be and 4 other common verbs.  There was no way we were going to attempt to teach the younger kids verbs (keeping their attention for any amount of time over a minute was a real challenge).  We taught them the alphabet, numbers to 20, colors, a few animals, and a few body parts.  While this might not seem like much, believe me, this was plenty of material for them.  When a lot of the younger kids began being able to count from 11 to 20 without help from us, I felt like superman. 

When I was in high school, I thought there was no way I would ever be a teacher.  I feared public speaking and maybe did not want to think about that kind of responsibility.  However, after teaching these children in Agua Blanca in Spanish, I discovered I could actually picture myself as a teacher.  I’m not saying I want to become a teacher, I am only saying I can picture it now.  It is so fun when children actually get what you are teaching them.  In the bigger kid class, we had several competitions to review material that we taught.  When kids came up with the right answer it was very rewarding.  While it was very hard to keep the attention of the littler kids, I enjoyed teaching them as well.  I liked the challenge in finding ways to keep their attention and when they come up with a right answer, their faces really light up.

Besides teaching the children, we spent a lot of time in the fields helping out with agriculture.  The main crop are bananas.  It was a great way to start out the morning.  We would rise to the roosters at around 7:00 but refuse to get out of bed for another hour (for me anyway).  We would eat breakfast that a family prepared for us and then walk to the banana fields with a machete or a knife in hand.  The activity we did most often was cutting dead branches off trees but it was more fun than it sounds.  There is just something fulfilling and peaceful about working outdoors.  One time we were clearing out an area with Camilo (we stayed at his house) and I got to hack up a good sized tree (ok it wasn’t that big) with a machete.  It was so fun!  We generally worked until 10:00 when classes began at the school.  After we were done teaching for the day we sometimes went back out to the fields and worked for another hour and a half. 

The rest of the time was spent either swimming at this peaceful thermal lagun (when big groups of tourists weren’t coming through), chatting it up with tourists, reading, playing with kids, and just being a part of the community.  By the end, I knew many people’s names (especially the kids) and when people saw us, they would light up and try to make conversation.  During our second week there people didn’t look at us like another tourist.  We began to be a part of the community.  That being said, I’m going to miss the people of that village, especially the kids.  Now, it’s back to the regular life of a traveler, which isn’t so bad.  Amanda (my sister for the uninformed) will join us in a couple days here in Quito and then we will most likely be moving north again.  We have to make it to Guatemala in 5 weeks after she arrives (yikes!)  In Guatemala, Adam and I will join our church’s mission trip to the small village of Cajixay on the 18th of August, while Amanda will have to fly back.  Soon, there will be a page up about the upcoming church trip to Guatemala.  For now, love to all, and for all those lost in the busyness of the real world…hang in there!  : )

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