jeep near death weekend adventure

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on friday after school 4 of us teachers decided it would be a nice relaxing weekend escape to go up to Cusuco national park which is in the Merendon mountain range behind Cofradia. to get up there u need a 4x4 so Ben, our host very kindly let us use his "1996" russian jeep. eventually Rory (Irish) and Sean (form Philly u.s) turned up at the bottom of our road with afore mentioned vehicle. they couldn´t bring it to the house where me and Fiona (irish- R´s girlf) were waiting because the state of the art car doent have a handbrake (and we live on a hill).... great start and we hadnt even started heading up the mountain yet... the locals sitting near the car found it hilarious that we all had to climb in the car over the doors as the front doors dont open. the back doors do... they fall open all the time so they had to be tied closed but as im shit at tying knots i had to hold on to mine all the way.
we got a bit lost trying to leave the town but eventually found the "highway" up the mountains.

other problems with the jeep on the way up included...
shit scary bumping around
jamming gears
breaking down for at least half an hour when some very kind locals helped us sort out the problem... battery this time

then came the storm... the jeep is not equipped with roof so we got soaked to the skin. also there are holes in the bottom where the water comes up and no windscrren wipers (or so we thought until we arrived at our destination and found this random little box in the place where the mirror should be which u move by hand and a tiny wiper goes across the screen!). so sean had to climb on the front as we were going alñong to wip eit with a pair of socks!eventually, wet, cold and whiteknuckled we arrived at Buenos Aires, the beautiful village befor the entrance to the park. nearly dying climbing the last hill we managed to park in someone´s yard, when the battery promptly died and refused to come back to life.

this family gave us coffee, lend us clothes and dried ours by their fire. the man was to be our guide the next day and they lent us a car battery to get to the park and back home.

we found accomadation... in the village´s pulperia (cornershop)xcomedor (mini restaurant)x poolhall. our room was right next to the pool tables! but we were all so glad for a bed we didnt care... even if i coulnt sleep for the ammount of coffee a had drunk!

the park itself was beautiful and peaceful, just like we hoped.

the journey down was equally scary (4 tons of junk bombing down the mountain)... we broke down several times again but the guys managed to sort it out. we arrived back in Cofradia, soooo glad to be home and to live to tell the tale...
pictures and school updates to come xxxxx

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