The Festival shows up in Juayua

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After leaving the "wonderful festival city of Suchitoto" it was off to the beach, El Tunco. Nice and sunny, with descent sized waves...too bad there were so many beginners out there (me included), making for dangerous times in the lineup. Sand and sun was blistering hot during the days, with a 10 second time limit on the black sand that wasn´t being cooled by the waves. After relaxing at the beach for a few days and being reunited with the Spanish couple from Suchitoto it was off to Juayua.

The day we arrived, the center square was being prepared for the festival. Large tents were being set up around the side streets and the square itself for the food festival that occurs every weekend. Unlike Suchitoto, you could tell there were people getting bused in from the city by the large amount of pasty white obese people wandering aimlessly around the festival site. A sure sign this festival was one stop on some overpriced whirlwind tour of El Salvador.

The day after arriving I went for one of the hikes into the hills to see the waterfalls nearby. After hiking for a while we ended up at one of the waterfalls that had been turned into a swimming hole with a (neck high in water) tunnel to another falls a couple hundred metres away. Having been to the other falls as well before returning to this one, I remember looking for the tunnel exit above water but didn´t see it. Nonetheless I decided to venture to the tunnel entrance to see if I could see light at the other end. I could not. And the current was exceedingly strong at the entrance to the point that I was sure I was a dead man if my hand slipped from the slippery moss covered rock that I was using to drag myself back out of the tunnels grip.

A short while later our guide suggested we go through, being as he was the guide, and had done the tunnel 100´s of times...ahh, after all that´s why I wanted on that hike in the first place, the heart pumping exhileration of being neck deep in water in a small claustraphobia inducing blackened tunnel. As we made our way through we came to a spot where the tunnel was blocked by rocks and we would have to swim under to get to air on the other side, how long? If I understood spanish I could have understood what the guide was saying, as it was I took a deep breath and hoped for the best.

Gasp! Now I see the light, a hundred metres away. Feeling at ease again, while still being neck deep in a small tunnel I started to ease up. Moments later I nearly knocked myself out cold by a mass of rock hanging down from the cealing that I spotted a split second before smashing my face on it, lol, close one.

The food festival was great, with lots of offerings of seafood, steak, you name it, all for about $6 a plate. Pick the meat yourself by pointing to it while it´s still on the grill, or your likely to get some "room temperature" food that had been cooked earlier that day.

This time we ran into Frenchie from Suchitoto, who´s following who??

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