Day 4 (02/22)- El Salvador--> Nicaragua

At 1.30am a taxi pulls up to take us to the bus stop. We get there but it is locked. The driver meanwhile gets out to take the luggage. I point out to him that it’s locked and tell him to take us to the other stop. He takes us, along the way tripling the fare on the pretext that he is now traveling all the way across town. In 10 minutes we arrive at the area Juan was nervous to be in in the daylight! The man with the huge rifle is there, I ask him about the bus, then walk in and ask the lone passenger sitting there. Nervous, we pay the driver and settle down to wait. Lots more passengers show up in time, including an old man who tries to chat me up (B snaps at me to shut up!), a couple of young Salvadorian women with no luggage, and some completely tanned European backpacker chicks. When it is time to board the bus, the front door is locked and the man with the rifle moves to the back entrance where we board. I am a little freaked out by this level of security. We pull out and pass by some good-looking hookers who I am convinced could have made a fortune on the streets of Hollywood. In twenty minutes we pull up at the first bus stop, which is now open and bustling. The rest of the trip is uneventful. By 11.30am we reach Managua, Nicaragua and get our tickets for the next leg. The driver from the hotel El Maltese in Granada is not there yet, so I make a local call to the hotel. He shows up a little later, his name is Sr. Don Rigoberto. En route he points out Masaya Volcano and Mombacho Volcano. We ask him what local dish we should try and he suggests Gallo Pinto, which he describes as a mixture of rice and beans. We check-in and take a walk into the small colonial town of Granada. On the way we pass a sign for night tours to Masaya Volcano, and decide on the spur of the moment to do it. Thus what was supposed to be a relaxing day turns into a rushed affair. We run to Parque Central, snap a few shots, then stop at a restaurant for some Gallo Pinto. It turns out to be a mixture of rice and beans, but so much tastier than that description implies! We change into sneakers and head out to Masaya, where we climb to the top of a hill overlooking the major active crater Nindiri, and peer down into the smoke. We walk to a dormant volcano in the complex, and then trek down into volcanic caves full of stalactites. This proves quite an adventure, as we are surrounded by shy fruit bats. We come to a temple in the middle of one of the caves, the spot at which the subjects for human sacrifice were chosen. Our guide, a sweet Nicaraguan girl with a strong accent, tells us the volcano is like a cemetery. As usual, the chief victims were beautiful virgins and children! We walk to another cave but the weather is too harsh to attempt the descent. The guide kindly offers to take four cameras in and snap bat pictures, and lo and behold, ours is the lucky camera that gets the best pictures! It is very dark at this point, so we walk back to the crater to attempt to see the glow from down below, but are unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the sulfurous gases are choking us, and the group is overcome with a long bout of coughing. We are dropped back at the hotel but the restaurant is closed. No dinner tonight, just beer.

Day 3 (02/21/2009): El Salvador- R and J’s wedding day

We wake up late and saunter down for a ‘Desayuno Tipico’ (typical breakfast) at the hotel, which consists of an egg, refried beans, plantains, and toast with coffee. It is satisfying, and I learn that ‘estrellita’ means sunny-side up. We begin the long process of getting ready for the wedding, including struggling in vain to get our sari pleats to fall properly. The coaster bus (which turns out to be the big Toyota bus I went to school in) shows up, J’s younger cousin coming in to get us. We feel distinctly out of place in our ostentatious get-ups, seeing that people seem more simply dressed for the wedding. We pick up a family with a little old grandma, who very excitedly makes conversation with us, most of which is too fast for me to understand! We get to the ranch where we see J, and R’s sister H. We’re told there’s a mix-up and we were supposed to go to the church. We pile back in and get to the church. It is a meltingly hot day to be in a fancy outfit! We try to locate a fan to sit under, but are quickly shooed to the front like guests of honor. People are extremely friendly and excited about our foreign appearance, and we're overwhelmed to be treated so lovingly. J’s dad comes up and breathlessly welcomes us to El Salvador, which simple sentence I am unaware how to respond to and grin stupidly. B asks me how to say congratulations, I am lost, she asks ‘feliz something’, and I blurt out ‘Felicidades’! Sr. Coto seems confused but smiles graciously. The band strikes up with classical melodies. Soon enough, R walks in looking demure and lovely with a single red rose in her hair. She is handed over to J, beginning the mass. The priest is an awfully sweaty young guy, and B leans over to ask if I can understand him. I am not sure, because from what I can tell he is telling the lovers that their lives are wasted and marriage means nothing. R later tells me I understood right, and she was looking down in anger rather than being the blushing bride I supposed her! He also fumbles through the vows, making them say two or three versions, with the ‘sickness-health’ promises a couple of times. Ultimately though, he proclaims them wed, and a white cord of roses is placed around them, sealing them together in this lifetime and the next. We blow bubbles at the couple as they walk back. We are then taken back to the ranch for hors d’oeuvres, which are such a treat, and B and I sample the local beer, Pilsener. The guests are friendly and try to make broken conversation with us. The day is unbearably hot, so dinner is served only at sunset. A little old lady at our table asks if we like the guacamole, and tells us they make it at home with onions and eggs. Sounds yummy in a completely new way! T suggests we get our feet wet on the beach, which turns out to be a lovely idea. After dinner, there’s mad merengue dancing! B and I try our hand but have trouble keeping up. There’s a dash to catch the garter and bouquet, I make an attempt :-) The wedding cake has almond filling, which I prefer to the jammy stuff in other wedding cakes. J’s parents have a lot of energy on the dance floor, in light of which J’s dislike for dancing seems very surprising ;-) We are introduced to J’s best man, who we were firmly convinced was his brother..they look like twins! We meet H’s best friend D, who lives in New York. We promise to meet up again once we’re all back. We say our goodbyes, but J’s father wants to take one last photo with the ladies in costume! The photographer is totally enamored of us and tells R he wishes he could’ve been able to communicate with us. We are dropped back at Happy House, where the bus waits to make sure we are buzzed in safely. Tired, we begin packing for the bus trip to Nicaragua and take a short nap.

Day 2 (02/20/2009): El Salvador (Santa Ana Volcano complex)

The day starts at 8.15am, when our tour guide Omar, apparently a surf instructor, has shown up super early. He looks amusing in his khaki shorts, sneakers and white T-shirt, like an out-of-place aging surfer dude. We scramble to get ready soon, no breakfast except for cereal bars. We pull up at a convenience store that’s seemingly everywhere, called ‘On the Run’. The boss, Julio, meets us and sets us up with a lunch box, giving us the usual stories about having to charge more for credit card or travelers cheques. We offer cash, and are on our way. Omar regales us with his life story- apparently he was an agricultural engineer who quit his job to surf, and wants to take us to see his beautiful beach house. Two hours of solid drive later, we pull up at a stunning vista of Lago Coatepeque, a crater lake in the complex. Meanwhile we’ve picked up a passenger in the back of the pick-up, a fact that makes me slightly nervous. He jumps off soon enough though. We enter the volcano park, whence our guide points out Izalco volcano and expresses his excitement over us climbing it. We look at each other in alarm and quickly assure him climbing it was never our intention. He seems very disappointed. The entrance fee is a dollar per head, and we have a boy speaking broken English as our guide. We trek down Ilamatepec, down a series of what one could call for lack of a better word, ‘steps’, defined by a log across the end of each one. The trek down takes half an hour, bringing us to the foot of Izalco. Izalco is dark grey and devoid of vegetation. It is an incredibly windy day, and even climbing up a few feet of the mountain leads to us almost toppling over. We decide to break for lunch while Omar happily saunters up the volcano. After a while, we begin the slow hike back up Ilamatepec; every ten minutes I am convinced we must be close to the top. But it takes an agonizing two hours back up. B has difficulty breathing and stops every few steps to calm her heart down. I break ahead occasionally only to realize my heart is beating like a jackhammer in my ears and I may drop dead unless I slow down! The security guards in front and behind us have a tough job of it, waiting patiently as we huff and puff our way back. When we have been going for a while, the guide points to a marker and tells us that is the height of Izalco, which is the first point at which I realize the mountain we are climbing is even higher! Getting to the top is quite an event, needless to say. B takes Omar up on his earlier suggestion of driving us to the beaches, and he resists citing time constraints, but she persuades him. Exhausted from the midday sun, I fall asleep in the front seat, but when we get to the beaches, oh what a sight! Straight out of a postcard!! The sea and sand are beautiful, coconut palms dotting the shoreline, a few brave surfers battling the indomitable waves. The beaches we see are in an area called La Libertad, the tiny one we first saw being Playa Mizata (Mizata Beach). He takes us to another that is a fishermen’s haunt, lined with row upon row of fish stalls. I walk queasily through the market, while B takes in delightedly the smells and sights of dried fish slit open and displayed temptingly. We also stop at the small resort Omar works at, where there is a tidal pool filled by water from the sea. It is lovely and we wish to stay longer, but the day grows long. We ask Omar to stop at a Pollo Campero (like KFC but so different!) on the way back. After showers, we settle down to our feast of fried chicken with buns, and coleslaw that tastes like green coconut chutney…yum!

Day 1 (02/19/2009): San Salvador, El Salvador

The airport reminds me awfully of touching down in Trivandrum, hot dusty tarmac rimmed by coconut palms. The ‘visa’ line is empty, and they seem so surprised to have visitors that we are ushered to the front of the line ahead of residents. The customs guy rambles on in Spanish, of which I only hear the word ‘declarar’. I emphatically declare ‘nada’ (nothing), later praying I hadn’t just done something illegal. We wheel out and around, coming upon a throng of people waiting for loved ones (Trivandrum again!). R and J find us easily- I guess the two lost-looking foreigners is an easy call :-) Amazingly, I feel like a giant in El Salvador, the men here come up to my shoulders. This is a completely new feeling for someone who’s been a pygmy most of her life! We drive out and stop by a street-side ‘Coco helado’ (ice-cold coconut) vendor. This is our typical Kerala coconut water, except that instead of drinking it straight from the fruit, they pour it into a bag with a straw! We marvel at the concept of taking something so intrinsically organic and environment-friendly and turning it into something non-biodegradable. R tells us that’s how most things in El Salvador are- there’s a big focus on ‘disposability’. A little nervous about the hygiene, I take small sips of my coco helado in a bag, it’s cool and refreshing, not too sweet. They’ve also scraped off a few chunks of the cold delicious fruit into the bag for good measure. We stop at the bus terminal to buy tickets but are told it’s the wrong place, the right one being in the heart of mangy scary downtown San Salvador. J drives us nervously there. The entrance is a small door, at which stands a guard brandishing a Civil-War era rifle, I mean, this sucker’s huge! We buy our tickets and are deposited in our Hotel ‘Happy House’, where they speak no English. R takes us on a walk to MetroCentro, one of the big malls, which is right down the block. It all seems very modern but in a decidedly un-American way, which I love! We stop in at Mr. Donut, which sells traditional food. B points at some empanadas, and I can’t take my eyes off a black sticky mess of plantain. The empanada is tasty but familiar, the black stuff turns out to be called ‘Platanos en miel’ (plantains in syrup), though what it really is like is the dense black sticky jam we make in Kerala out of jackfruit that’s had the heck boiled out of it with jaggery..yum! We walk back in the hot sun and pass out in our cool room for two hours. R comes to get us and we drive up to Los Planes de Renderos (a place famous for the traditional dish called ‘pupusas’, which are stuffed tortillas, and for a make-out hill where much of the last generation is believed to have been conceived!). I have some hot chocolate, which is delicious and completely unlike the Swiss Miss version! This one is bitter but sweetened overpoweringly, boiling hot and thin. The pupusas arrive after a long wait and they are wonderful! I try a corn stuffed with cheese, and a rice stuffed with beans and cheese. B goes for the meat. There’s a humongous jar of some kind of pickled cabbage on the table, we take heaping spoonfuls to go with our food. I’ve never tasted refried beans like this in my life!! I do it Indian style and lick my fingers happily :-) B wishes for an aloo (potato) or mooli (radish) pupusa! We walk back and look over the mountains. R’s incredible sweetheart of a best friend, who goes by T, makes conversation about the weather, during the course of which I mistake the word for ‘wind’ as ‘snow’, leading to some excited debate. R puts us straight soon enough :-) We go home and fall asleep.

Some long overdue travel blogging..

I traveled to Central America for a good friend's wedding last year, during the course of which we hopped between El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. It was one of the best times of my life, providing me a healthy dose of rejuvenation when I needed it desperately. I intended to record my memories via blog for the longest time but never finished my journal. Having come across it recently, I felt sad for such good memories to be accumulating electronic dust in a hidden folder on my work computer, and decided to put them online in whatever half-finished condition they're in. And with that warning, here goes...