Pool and Pupasas

There is something that troubles me when I see an armed security guard protecting a grain store.

I was not expecting much from El Salvador, nowt to see and really dangerous was how most people described it. Thought it was worth the look though. I was actually pleasantly surprised. Apparently it's the most affluent of the Central America nations, probably due to it's closeness to the USA. They even use the dollar as their currency. It is though notorious for crime particularly gang crime. Guns are everywhere. I am sort of used to seeing the shotguns the security guys use now but when you see random people in the street checking their handguns in their waist belts it unnerves me.

I continued travelling with my Aussie mate Kris through the country, this makes things a lot easier I think when you have another set of eyes on the lookout as well. We decided to steer clear of San Salvador and overnighted in a random town called San Vicente when we first arrived. On the bus there a local asked me why on earth are we going to his town. It turned out to be a fair question. It's highlight was a very tasteful mini concrete version of the Eiffel Tower. Beautiful.

What El Salvador does have is amazing surf, so we headed to the beach to El Tunco. Big big waves far too big I later discovered for someone as s*** at surfing as me. I got spat out and dumped by a lot of waves and sported many bruises, cuts, and pulled muscles following my attempt at riding some of the waves. What was however good was that I was with a really good group of 6 of us learning to surf and all pissing ourselves laughing on the beach watching the others getting dumped in their battle with the surf. A really fun weekend with the sun even coming out to play as well. Hardly any other backapckers there, just locals coming down tothe coast for the weekend from San Salvador.

For the second half of the week I had in El Salvador we headed up to a place called Tocuba in the mountains. A cute little town, again the only tourists there looked after well by Mama from Mama & Papa's Guesthouse. We struggled with food there though, the only food we seemed to be able to get was Pupusas, a corn bread stuffed with cheese and pork rind and then grilled. In fact one day we had to resort eating in a shoe shop who did food on the side. Very random. The Pupusas were OK every now and then but not for every meal. We did an awesome canyoning trip in Tocuba but struggled to get where we needed to be in the 4WD as there had been loads of mudslides in the area and the road had not been accessed for a couple of weeks. We ended up having to clear the roads of some pretty big trees with the help of a machete. When we finally got to the start of our trek the water was pretty full on because of the rains, not the safest thing I have done but it certainly got the adrenaline going jumping off the waterfalls, wading through the river and pools and clambering around on the slippy rocks. Buzzing by the end, one of the best days I have had for a while.

Central America is small but the buses do seem to take for ever with multuiple changes always needed. Believe it or not but the best way of getting into Honduras from El Salvador was through Guatemala. 8 different buses and 2 border crossings to handle in one day. Very mardy by the end of that day and ended up in a pointless argument with passport control in Guatemala. I have dicovered that my Spanish is not good enough to argue.

Copan the first stop in Honduras. Ancient ruins from around 500AD, some pretty impressive pyramidal temples and courts. The spot is quite a big tourist destination out here in Central America, but as it is low season and we got there at 8am, we had the whole complex to ourselves, absolutely stunning enjoying the peace and tranquility of the site without a group of overfed Americans wandering around yelling about how good everything is. Buildings impressive but the atmosphere that day was something else.

Have been playing a lot of pool here learning the very random local rules. I have confidently cleared the table on many occasion only to be told by a local that I should of potted one of the balls in a special pocket and therefore lost the game. A great ice breaker with the locals all the same. The pool bars are often special places with all manner of randomness about them. My favourite place had a urinal in the corner of the room, no cubicle. I liked the simplicity of it.

Kris and I went our seperate ways after Copan. I headed up to the Bay Islands for some diving. It was a chance as the weather was meant to be terrible this time of year there. It was. Went out for two dives but the visibility was poor at best with so much rain you were at least glad to be underwater. The highlight were some really tight caves we dived through, first time I had done underwater caves. I got fed up easily on the islands and came back to the mainland pretty quick. Had a couple of one nighters in places along the coast but no stories there really. Honduras probably my least favourite place in Central America.

Today I saw a child using a machete that was as big as he was.