Wednesday 26 December 2012

Leon, Nicaragua

We avoided San Salvador and hitched all the way to Perquin in the northern mountains near the Honduras border.  This area was a stronghold of the revolutionary FMLN forces during the civil war and is the location of the Museum of the Revolution at the site of one of the old camps.  We were able to camp there at the museum for only a dollar each.  The museum was created in 1992 immediately at the end of the war by some of those who fought in the war and still staff it today.  It receives no state funding at all and it was really interesting chatting with one of the guys there who drew a clear separation between the various guerrila factions united as the FMLN and the political party of the same name formed after the ceasefire (for example, he told us that of the thirteen commanders during the war only two joined the party that formed after the war).  The museum was a modest building and featured many weapons, both those used by guerrillas and those captured from the national forces.  There was the wreckage of the helicopter of the nationalist commander who oversaw the massacre at nearby El Mozote, where the U.S. trained division rounded up, tortured, raped and executed the village's entire population of 900 men, women and children.  The U.S. government at the time said no such thing had taken place and that El Salvador's forces respected human rights.  The local government offered an apology for the massacre last year.  The camp, with its trenches and hidden kitchen and medical tent was still in place as was the local radio station of the FMLN in the area which was a target of the nationalist forces (though how you conflate that with raping children I'm not sure).  Overall it was really interesting and talking to people there really informative.  One person there had also been in Nicaragua during the revolution and the (U.S. created and paid for) insurgency there and he was very scathing of the current president Daniel Ortega, criticising him for living in a palace, and the museum of the revolution in Leon, Nicaragua (more on which later) as little more than "government history".


Mortars at the museum


It was cooler up in the mountains (though not the "very cold" the people of the lowlands insisted it was) and in addition to the museum we wandered around the village, making the most of the delicious pupusas mentioned earlier and found somewhere selling real, strong coffee, which made J very happy.  Contrary to what you might think its not very common.  Coffee is grown in this part of the world and exported and day to day most people drink weak instant.

We set off towards the Rio Sapo that our Couchsurf in Suchitoto had told us about.  After a lift from the local (incredibly bored) cops and a bus down somewhere more gravel hillside than road, we were dropped off and walked 1.5km to a completely empty campsite right on the river.  We tramped to the nearest houses to see if we could buy water or food (which we could and did, thank goodness every second house is a tienda (small store)) and by the time we returned some other people had come for the weekend and the guy who minds the site was back.  There was a pan there as well as matches, so we enjoyed hot meals for dinner and breakfast, as well as swimming in the cold, but clear river.  The landscape was really gorgeous up there, but we didn't take photos as they can't capture the sounds and smells and light that makes somewhere so magical and peaceful.

Deciding to try and make it to Nicaragua by Christmas, we left after just a night at the river and hitched down to the Hondruan border.  We've come to the conclusion that it is quite hard to hitch from border points as buses outnumber cars and people just think you want the bus.  With only about 130km of Honduras to cross we just bussed it, and raced the (ridiculously early) nightfall to make it through and into Leon, Nicaragua by half past eight, even with all the border faff and paperwork.

Our Couchsurf lives 20km out of Leon on the coast and went out there to pitch our tent 50m from the Pacific Ocean.  The water is warm and the waves very powerful and we have dashed ourselves against them several times now.

Our host is really nice and keeper of a fair menagerie of animals including dogs, a horse, chickens, cats and a baby raccoon, who was taken to her by someone who found him abandoned.





His name is Pancho and he is a crazy, never-still, banana-fixated dude.

Christmas day consisted of lots of reading and chilling in hammocks,



drinking from (and then eating the flesh of) fresh coconuts, swimming in the aforementioned warm ocean and a dinner of plantain, yuca and coconut with lime juice!  It was very satisfying overall.

Today we came back into Leon and looked round the museum dedicated to Ruben Dario, the celebrated poet who is buried in the central Cathedral under a very upset looking marble lion.  The cathedral itself is the largest in Central America, built over 113 years.  We also went to the Museum of the Revolution we'd been told about, (apparently also known as Museum of the Treasons, though I imagine not to its face).  Like in El Salvador it was staffed by (and seemed home to) many old veterans of the war.  It is located in an old, crumbling presidential palace.  Also like El Salvador, it received no governmental funding.  However while the one in Perquin seemed glad of this, our guide in Leon simply said the government had other priorities, though it was regrettable.

Tomorrow we are going to slide down a volcano on a giant skateboard.  As you do.  Hopefully we will survive this and let you know how it goes.

Thursday 20 December 2012

Guatemala City and into El Salvador

Our host in Guatemala turned out to be very helpful.  Apart from the fact she put us up and the whole family couldn't stop shoveling yummy food into us, she was keen to show us everything about the area and drove us around for the next couple of days, full of information and recommendations.  This was a life saver as the city itself is huge and the bus system impenetrable, and we would have found it much more difficult to get our head around the place without help.  On Sunday we went out to Antigua, which was the capital before Guate city and is full of beautiful old architecture and looming views of the volcanoes which have leveled the town more than once.



It's pretty expensive though, and also pretty full of tourists who apparently by about nine pm start vomiting drunkenly on nearby culture.  It's a strange atmosphere in places which obviously don't appreciate this kind of behviour, but also continue to encourage people to visit as that is where all the money comes from, and a lot of the history is frozen in time for visitors.

This also makes it expensive, so we escaped and got a delicious lunch elsewhere and then went looking for some ruins, but they turned out to be closed.  How rude.

Monday we went into the city centre.  A lot of people, Guatemalans and travelers, have implied there's nothing there worth seeing.  It's a big modern city but not completely empty or dangerous.  There's a giant relief map of Guatemala that you have to view from a viewing platform (this made C very happy).  The map was made in 1904, prior to use of areoplanes for topography, making it an impressive achievment.  The whole thing was so clearly an expression of ´modern´ Industrial Era Guatemala, with its little model oil rigs and railroads (the latter of which no longer exist).  There is also an ice cream shop which claims to have 1000 flavours and certainly had some weird ones, including beans, gum and beer.

We got a tour around the palace.  Arriving at about one o'clock we were told we would have to wait a little while for the guides to be ready.  We settled down in the sun to watch the world go by, and it was at this point some walking stereotypes appeared.  They were white (turned out to be from LA), middle aged and a couple, and seemed deeply offended that the guards at the palace did not speak english.  Our host, who is Guatemalan, helpfully stepped in to help clarify the situation.  On hearing that we would have to wait for the guides to be ready to work the woman delcared (not for the last time but we'll spare you the repitions) "I´ve never HEARD of such a thing!"

They went on the emit such gems as,
"Gonna have a fiesta and a siesta, huh?  This IS Guatemala."
and
"What if they don't want to work at all?!  What are we supposed to do?"  J could not resist suggesting at this point that we sit in the sun and eat ice cream.  It seemed necessary to difuse the atmosphere of having been kidnapped or something equally terrifying.  Not familiar with sarcasm the woman registered the comment as a suggestion but did not seem comforted.
"We are at their mercy!" she said.

Given the time of day and the fact that when our guide did appear he was very friendly, patient and helpful indeed, we suspected he was actually grabbing a coffee and a sandwich rather than trying to emotionally humiliate us.  His spanish was very slow and clear and both of us managed to understand the whole tour and help with translation for the Californians.  They had attached themselves to our host announcing that they would 'stick with her' despite her not actually having offered to translate everything into what is her second (if completely fluent) language.  We saw the official 'point zero' of all Guatemala's major highways, beautiful architecture and stained glass



and the murals of the country's history.  Our guide compared them to Rivera's work in Mexico City, and they are indeed big stylised historical murals, but there the resemblance ends.  The context in which they were painted, the governments in charge, and the different artistic styles give them quite another bent.  Rivera's images of rape, in-fighting and political unrest are in Guate replaced with conquistadors shaking hands with Mayan women, big white chargers and bolts of lightning, and an indigenous population made up of 6'4'' broad shouldered men and slim waisted, tall women, half dressed and being mystical.  It was interesting to see the contrast.

As we left, the couple did better than ever.  They asked our host the way to McDonalds as it was "the safest place for them to eat".  Thankfully it was in the opposite direction so they couldn´t see us laughing.

The next morning we hitched off towards El Salvador.  Guatemala continued to be the best place we've ever hitched and though none of our lifts were going very far at a time we made it to the border easily and then on to Santa Ana.  We were planning to get across to Suchitoto where our next Couchsurf was waiting, but the roads between the two were dead quiet and buses stop surprisingly early.  We ended up staying in Santa Ana, munching pupusas which are a big traditional food here and REALLY GOOD.  The next morning was C's birthday so we had a decent breakfast before bussing to Suchitoto.  We had to go to San Salvador (the capital).  All bus routes go there and people aren't even sure other roads exist.  We shouldn't have to go back with the route we have planned but may get sucked in again...

Here our host runs a hostel and lets Couchsurfs have a couple of free nights.  There's also a restaurant so we had some dinner there after a walk to the nearby lake, and then relaxed in the hammocks.  Today we explored the town and market in the morning (more pupusas for breakfast and the necessary papaya which is still plentiful) and then took a hike up the river to a set of two magical little pools where we went swimming.



We couldn't find the bottom, and we'd only recently seen an advert for a hotel with an 'infinity pool' and been wondering what it was, so concluded they must mean this.  It's warm enough that we just dried in the sun while we picnicked.

We move on tomorrow, hopefully not back to San Salvador, but will have to let you know...

Saturday 15 December 2012

Chico Mendes

During our time in Xela we had been told by three seperate groups of people about a mythical bakery of surpassing excellence.  A Mennonite bakery no less.  There were delicious Anabaptist treats to be had, but no one actually knew where the bakery was, only that it existed.  When we announced at Quetzaltrekkers we intended to find it, one person claimed knowledge of its location.  Four more claimed to have money for various orders(1). The person who 'knew' where it was placed four crosses on our map numbered by likelyhood of location.  C nobly resisted the urge to saddle J(2) or call her 'Sancho Panza' as we tilted off on our quest(3).  Minute after minute of walking followed, location 1 on our map was a blank brick wall.  If the magical bakery appears here it was not today.  Eventually we found, down an allyway and under a stairwell,




The Bake Shop!  You don't even have to spin round three times and say the password, but it DOES give the impression if you try and go back it won't be there.  Like all quests, the rewards were some 'phat loot'(4) indeed.  Large fresh baked donuts with hefty fresh fruit filling, strawberry, peach, fig.  Pumpkin pies and cinnamon rolls.  We collected people's orders and settled on one each for ourselves. The fig donut actually tasted like fig the fruit, not fig the brown stuff in fig rolls.  Back at the Quetzaltrekkers office, in return for a custard-filled, chocolate-coated donut, C got a much needed haircut. 

With a ample supply of cinnamon buns,(5) we set off to another project.  The Chico Mendes Reforestation Project, named after this guy who is very interesting himself, was recommended to us by several people in Arizona(6) and we, in turn, cannot recommend it enough to anyone who is spending any time in Southern Mexico or Guatemala.  Although it doesn´t seem to have its own website the link above is a good account of the project.  We spent a week there, helping organise and sort lots of tiny trees that will eventually be planted on public land to help reforest areas stripped bare during the difficult(7) times the local population faced in the 70's and 80's.  There are several different kinds of trees from pines and cypress to some we don't know the English name for, which thrive at different altitudes and encourage biodiversity.



Armando, who runs the project, welcomed us into his home and we had many chats with all his lovely family over very tasty meals.  There was a wedding on the weekend we arrived and we also got help with preparation and consumption(8) of tasty wedding food, such as spiced meat stuffed tamales, hot chocolate with sweet bread (though after Oaxaca, most hot chocolate anywhere else tastes too sugary) and of course pollo(9)!

We also got to help with the maize harvest, which is collected from the fields and laid out in the sun for 20 days to a month to dry.



After this, the maize is put into a machine (this is the part we helped with)



 which separates the kernals from the husk and the kernals are bagged up. Some of these will be sold, but mostly it will provide the year's supply of cornflour for tortillas, tamales and other Central American food staples.  Being from the UK, we were really curious about all the different colours of corn, from pale white to a rich yellow which look already cooked and covered in butter.  Some were red, black, purple or a mixture of colours.  They had different textures too, from big knobbly kernals to ones that were spiky.  Apparently they all taste much the same however.(10)
          

While working we met with various other nice volunteers from numerous different places (Australia to Finland).  There are exciting plans to build some cabins in the nearby forest and expand the project to include education on local Maya traditions and history amongst other ideas(11).  Our time there passed almost too quickly and we were sad to leave.  But after a week of constructive, useful labour the road was calling(12) and we could spread the word after all.  Despite some warnings about hitching, the hitch-hiking (called jalón (spelling unsure) here) was in line with our previous Guatemalan experience and we easily cruised into Guatemala City.  One lift even bought us lunch of delicious local chorizo and quesadillas, which hasn't happened in a while.

A lot of people asked us if we were here for 'the end of the world'.  For those who don't know, this is a theory currently going wild in white hippy circles about ancient Mayans predicting the end of the world at some point this month.  Given that we are clearly young, white, and hippies by a lot of people's standards, its a fair question.  But it's actually a weird phenomenon.  For one thing, as you may have guessed, no ancient Mayan predictions mention the end of the world.  Its just the end of one large calendar made out of stone and the start of another.  But for another thing, no one who actually follows Mayan traditions or has Mayan heritage is paying attention to this.  And there are actually still a lot of these people living in Mexico and Guatemala.  For the trendy alternative crowd to ignore this is as insulting as when the conquistadors first arrived and decided a mythical race of gods must have built the Mayan temples because the people they met were simply too small and the wrong colour.  We haven't been able to visit any Mayan historical sites, which is definitely a shame, time and money and all that.  We would have liked to.  And you can't deny that there's a difference between the ancient cities and how people have lived since the combinations of different social problems drove them out of the cities and back into forests and smaller pueblos.  Of course its interesting.  But having been to Monte Albán and Teotihuacan we're not too sorry it was Tikal and Palenque (Mayan) that we had to miss.  The large crowds of white people telling you nonsense about things they don't understand would have been pretty hard to handle.  And we have met a few actual Mayan people.  One of them taught us Spanish for a week.  She was very nice and didn't once suggest we don't bother buying Christmas presents because the world will end before then.

When we got into the city we were immedietly struck by the return to a vast, sprawling mess of humanity and concrete, every square metre covered in advertisments for everything from soda that could 'refresh your world' to a chicken that was 'more chicken than a chicken' selling electronics.  On our bus to the centre of town we smashed a lorry's wing mirror and a clown who borded the bus to yell at us stopped because there was already a preacher doing so, so our bus already had its component of madmen.

We are off to meet our host here soon and then will explore the city some more.

------------------------

Footnotes

1 -  Including one person who slapped 20Q down and wanted "as much as this will buy!"
2 -  What with her ankle/knee issues.
3 - Windmills are often linked with bakeries.  See? Method in the madness.
4 - C would like to make it clear he has no issues differenciating video games and real life.  He just prefers video games.
5 - Which lasted all of twenty minutes.
6 - See our 'No More Deaths' post for more on the project where people told us about this project.
7 - Read 'racist and muderous'
8 - One of which we were better at than the other.
9 - Proper fried chicken, the kind of which Pollo Campero (see last post) is only a poor imatation.
10 - With slight differences. Armando told us the black corn made slightly better tortillas.  C wasn't sure of this, but his inner goth loved the black food anyway.
11 - Maya, because the people here are Mayan (see later in post)
12 - And our return to being drifting drains upon society.

Friday 7 December 2012

Xela

You'll all be pleased to hear that we are now officially in the country, and also have officially exited Mexico (though never entered it which really is very impressive).  Once J was more mobile, we moved from our Couchsurf host's sofa where we had been enjoying some very nice food, and trundled back to the border to set things straight.  We had to pay Mexico a bit to get it all worked out, but the whole operation was an experience  We wandered, confused and fairly freely, between the two countries, presenting guards with stories like 'We just need to nip into your country for some money, we're coming right back' which, despite being true sounds rather weak and would not convince anyone.  Meanwhile under the bridge in plain view dozens of people (those without any kind of passport or our privileged treatment as obvious tourists) walk the river, packs held high on their backs.  The guards don't react or even watch- there's no way to make a quick quetzal or peso in it for them most likely.  Certainly this was all the Guatemalan woman who tried to charge us imaginary fees for entering her country seemed interested in (we avoided them by very convincingly appearing very stupid).

Things shut early in Guatemala and we missed the last bus back to Quetzaltenango (hereafter referred to as Xela.  The names are interchangeable and Xela- pronounced Shayla- is easier to type), but found a very cheap hotel and were back the next day just in time to get pounced on in the street by our Arizona friends.  We had known they were in town but hadn't been able to meet up.  It was a lucky chance encounter as we were able to spend the evening with them before some more sad goodbyes as they head back north, a direction we try to avoid.

Mexico is famously more rich and 'developed' (whatever that really means.  Same as richest perhaps?) than Central America.  You actually do see it, at least in this part of Guatemala, though it starts north of the border in Chiapas and Oaxaca.  The state of the roads, the amount of children working or begging, the way the ayudantes (conductors/shouters/loaders on the most common form of public transport, converted USA school buses known as Chicken Buses) play an even more enthusiastic game of human Tetris and of convincing you that you REALLY want to go the way they are going.

J no longer limping, we had arranged a 45km trek from Xela to Lake Atitlan, with Quetzaltrekkers.  We knew the profits go to local kids, but the organisation is really worth a mention.  They fund a school, with dormitories for those who live further out of town, and were only started as a way to do this (rather than the charity being tacked on as a second thought once someone is making a profit).  They're also totally volunteer run and non-hierarchically organised, the guides volunteering at the time making all the decisions.  We'd recommend them to anyone interested in hiking trips in this part of the world, or those who are into hiking already and want to volunteer somewhere that sounds like a lot of fun.  Even if you don't have great spanish, if you have a bit of money and time this is no problem in Guatemala.  The country has really made a name for itself as a great place to learn spanish and schools are everywhere, of every shape size and level of cost.  Xela in particular is full of them, and other volunteer organisations.  A lot of international travelers are here and getting involved.  It's a city full of people from all round the world (including someone we already knew, from London, proving that world is small).  In some ways its like a giant hostel, and whilst its nice for a change we're glad we don't always travel this way as it can get oddly samey no matter where you are and it gets too easy to just spend time with other young English-speakers.  But its also full of energy for genuinely interesting projects like Quetzaltrekkers or PLQ language school and very lovely people full of ideas.

Ruminating all this (and some slightly suspect hot sandwiches, which was not pleasant) we set forth with our two guides and small band of co-hikers.  We covered 20km the first day, past fields of corn



bamboo forests and gorgeous views.  The trek price includes all food and accomodation, and we picnicked in the hills before staying that night in a municipal building in an almost deserted village.  Hurricane Mitch hit the town and caused half the population to leave, destroying buildings and infrastructure in the process.  What remains is like a ghost town, made all the more eerie by the fact some people still live there.  But some of them run a temazcal sauna, traditional Mayan steam baths, and we all got to take one that evening.  It was amazingly cleansing and felt very good on the day's aches and pains although we were very scared of burning ourselves on the low tin roof.

The next day we set off early and covered another 20km.  Almost needless to say, the views remained spectacular



and the hike was challenging but satisfying.

That night we stayed with a local family, who have been housing Quetzaltrekkers Trekkers for seven years.  They made us amazingly welcome, with a delicious meal, smoothies and a song and dance show by the kids of both local and popular songs, which could not have been cuter.  There was also a cat, which always makes C happy.  We also toasted marshmallows on a fire and the family were playing some Christmas songs.  The whole evening was very cosy and everyone discussed Christmas in their country.  Did you know the traditional Czech Christmas dinner is deep fried carp?  (Though our Czech guide is not a fan...)  Or that in the States they have one TV channel playing nothing for weeks but a picture of a Yule Log fire so that if you don't have one you can watch it on TV instead?

Here in Guatemala, Christmas is in full swing, much more than in Mexico.  There are lights and decorations everywhere and at least one huge tree in every town, though because they are mostly sponsored by the beer company which has almost total monopoly here and is called Gallo ('rooster'), they are mostly topped by a gigantic rotating chicken.

This is actually rather appropriate.  As far as we can tell, chicken is the national religion.  When they're not being eaten (and they do not have a lot of spare time from that) they are advertising other products (the beer a case in point, also seen on electronics stores...) and appearing in lots of imagery (one pueblo even had a statue, there was one of Jesus but it was much smaller and hidden away).  When a Guatemalan chicken fast food place opened in Los Angeles, ex-pat Guatemalans from across the States queued around the block.  We tried it tonight but don't have much to report that you couldn't guess about fast food chicken.

After the kids at our host family had taught J a dance, we took an early night as we were up at 4am.  This was to hike the short distance to a viewpoint to watch the sun rise over Lake Atitlan.



We breakfasted on porridge and coffee and relaxed for a while watching the views until descending the hills to the towns which surround the lake.  Some of it is beautiful to look at, but the sight of the rising waters engulfing peoples' homes and livelihoods is horrible.



Not surprisingly, this is most likely due to human society.  Lake Atitlan has no overground entrances or exits for water, only submerged tunnels which were once lava flows when it was a super volcano.  Pollution is not only causing the layers of thick algae, but probably clogging these tunnels and thus raising the water level.

We passed a lot of coffee plants and people picking them.  Maybe we're especially ignorant, but we never knew a coffee bean growing looks like this:



and is juicy, almost like a grape though not that soft.  They start green and then turn this red by the time they are picked.  It's weird how little you know about things you use all the time.

Several resort towns edge the lake (hotels and bars of course safely higher up than low income farms) and our trek finished with lunch in one of these, before we wished everyone goodbye and good luck on their varied and exciting travels and jumped on a Chicken Bus back to Xela (after J had got her papaya fix.  It's turning into a worse problem than the iced coffee).  Sadly, our bus was not a happy bus.  It broke down three times and we ended up squashed into a minibus (C not so squashed but clinging onto the back) and almost two hours late back.  We are here though, and taking a night and morning off before joining another interesting-sounding project in the area.  More on that next week...