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Published: April 12th 2009
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In the Perquin war museum: the artillery used by the FMLN on a backdrop about love and peace painted by school children.Our entry into the land of pupusas was very relaxed; we were greeted by a man standing on a bridge who looked at our passports and...that was it. We immediately bused to a small El Salvidorian coffee town in the mountains called Jauyua (WHy-you-ah). After checking out the local waterfalls and swimming holes we had two unique experiences. The first was the weekend food festival where the main streets were packed with hundreds of stalls selling various food dishes, from chicken, beef, sausages, to shrimp cocktails, rabit and frogs. It makes you wish you could eat 10 different plates of food for lunch. This was highlighted by a fun Saturday night where we met some very friendly locals who were proud to be Salvadorians and showed us a good time.
The favorite El Salvidorian food is called a "pupusa:" a corn tortilla made with cheese, beans and/or meat inside (think Salvadorian version of pizza pockets). We were thankful for change from Guatemala's corn tortillas, and feasted for the first night on them, which came to a total of 1.25$ including tip. (Not bad tasteing especially with ketchup!)
The second unique experience was when we went to check out a
Pacific Sunset
On Playa El Tunco nearby "Lucho Libre" (Free Wrestling) show. Pulling all of our Spanish Lucho Libre knowledge from the Jack Black movie, Nacho Libre, we were expecting a pretty good time. Apparently they were on El Salvidorian time, and after 4 hours of waiting and observing a group of overweight Salvadorians (who later donned masks and transformed into the wrestlers) the matches started. It was quite comical, but more geared for the younger audiences (8-12 yrs old). El Zombie dominated El Ninja and the highlight was when about 30 kids all jumped into the ring and had a massive royal rumble before the "real" matches started. All in all, the highlight of the event was the delicious barbequed corn and strawberries and cream!
Having had our fill of hikes and mountains in Guatamala, our next destination was the surf and sand. We bused down to a small surfing town with a long beach and good waves called Playa El Tunco. We both rented surfboards, had a 1 h surf lesson, and were on our own for the rest of the day. Surfing is hard!! After 4 hours of paddling, trying to figure out where the waves were going to break and trying
Lucho Libre
El Zombie in the midst of eluding El Ninja. to actually be there, dodging other surfers who actually caught the waves, and trying to not be plummelled by the waves, we were exhausted. We were rewarded though by a few caught waves which is all we need to keep trying in the near future.
On our way north up to the Honduras boarder we stopped in two more mountain villages, Alegria and Perquin. Alegria was a beautiful, quaint little mountain village. Britt got food poisoning there which made the bus ride to Perquin interesting.
Perquin was the headquarters base for the guerilla army during El Salvidor's civil war (which ended in 1992), and the town still bares its scars. Now it draws tourists up and gets on with life as well it can, despite nearly everyone in the area having been affected by the fairly recent war. Physically, the scars of war are still visible as the surrounding forest is riddled with trenches, old bunkers and crater holes. As for the people, they were friendly but our lack of Spanish prevented us from talking with them in depth and hearing some of their stories of the war. We did spend one morning exlporing the war museum there,
Jauyua Food Festival
Britt enjoying a chocolate covered strawberry kabob. guided by an ex-guerilla and both learned a lot through pictures and a decent display of information. To top it off we stayed in our best hotel of the trip so far in this interesting little town. From Perquin it was only 26 kms up a dusty road in the back of a pickup to Honduras.
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Dad Craigen
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La Dolce Vitae
Hey guys, what a packed agenda you have every day. Good on ya. Andrew, keep an eye open for any tradesmen doing tiling-I could use any tips in my project. Mom likes the hippie hair.