Vacation Round 2
El Salvador-Day 1.
s/p arriving at 8 pm and being threatened of bus robbings, not that buses were running at that hour, i finally make it to the hostel. And so what if nobody there wants to go out explore the town, and so what if the bed is reminiscent of a hammock in shape if not in purpose one beer in, one person out.
Day 2.
buses buses and more buses as I try to make it to the volcano climbing trip on time. i don{t, courtesy of an outdated travel book which steered me wong. no matter, i still get to see fun things like the lake by Santa Ana, little-tiny-whithered-away-must-be-90-yo ladies carrying wood stacks heavier than yours truly, pretty mountains etc. etc. I also get to be the only person at the lake hostel where I crashed. Spent most of the day hanging in the hammock, reading, napping, staring at the water and swimming every now and again. Have i mentioned it's hotter than haides? At night it's a fricken DELUGE. it's raining so hard, the place where i'm staying is leaking through every imaginable and unimaginable hole so i boot it to another housing option. thankfully there was one. Granted i was already asleep when i started getting rained on inside-it might have been all of 7pm or some such thing.
Day 3.
I finally make it to the volcano. The one I was planning on climbing is closed, courtesy of some seismic activity which was apparently picked up several days ago. Not that anyone saw/felt/smelled anything, but now nobody is allowed to climb it. We can climb it's sister volcano, a mostly dead place with only steam coming out of it. Which is cool too. It's a STEEP bunch of steps running down, then a climb pretty much straight up (what happened to switchbacks? don't ask, they won't tell anyway). You get to putz around the crater for quite a bit, while trying to figure out where oh were the massive quantities of flies are coming from. I didn't discover it. Then a lovely SLIDE down the lava sand back to the bottom of the volcano (goodbye my lovely shoes, i will miss you i'm sure!) and then a torture climb up the million stairs in million degree heat while i curse myrself for not bringing enough water (having finished my supplies at the top of the volcano). Fun times were had by all. Pictures to follow eventually.
Day 4.
I chicken bus it over to the beach. This chicken busing i have not seen before- we're talking people shoved in until you can't fit in anymore, then shoving some more people on top of those anyway. Then following them with some luggage. Damn semana santa. Damn all those local people getting vacation at the same time as i get mine. Damn everybody deciding to go to the beach at the same time. Definitely damn everybody coming to the same beach and taking up all the rooms, beds etc, before i even FINALLY make it there. At least somebody took pity on me and let me stay in a hammock. hurray for nice people everywhere.
First ever surfing lesson-I can stand mostly on all fours for about a second or slightly less. woof. tail wag.
it's really really hot. the ocean is really really hot. you'd think it would be refreshing? it's almost as warm as the air. pfft.
i sleep most of the day in the hammock. in the intervals between sleep i get to read a little bit and then doze off again.
at night i get woken up by a loving mosquito kiss smack on my lower lip--those suckers HUUUURT!! the whole next morning i felt like i had a lip the size of texas. it didn't look as bad as it felt though. itchy itchy scratchy scratchy by this point everywhere. arms legs, neck face, fricken LIP???
turns out palm friday the buses are on a loose schedule of running whenever whereever (a la Shakira) as a li'l o'le lady in the road store tells me. good thing i couldn't get my onward tickets till next day anyway. between a random pickup truck (please don't kill me or kidnap me) and some random colectivo van going smack to where i needed to go i finally make it to my favorite hammock-bedded hostel (what, you think there would be others in a big city like San Salvador, wouldn't you? you'd be wrong). Not that there's much to do around town from what i can tell- folks have been around the hostel for the past several days, nobody came up with a better option than going to see ninja turtles. (really?? really!!! no way. no how)
Day 5. Still going strong but i'll write about it anyway. 4am pick up and until 6am putzing around to get to leave San Salv. for Copan Ruinas in Honduras (via Guatemala) you can always look at the map to figure that one out. At least we're THERE by around 10 am. A small scare of ATMs not working is easily and quickly resolved by apparently turning the card upside down. AAAAH??? OOOOH!!! yeah, i'm smart like that. Copan ruinas.... kinda interesting in that amidst all the destruction they still have these super detailed elements. very weird. pictures to follow once the kids i'd met up with forward me their pictures from today (i brilliantly left film with the pack in the hostel) have i mentioned i'm smart like that?
s/p arriving at 8 pm and being threatened of bus robbings, not that buses were running at that hour, i finally make it to the hostel. And so what if nobody there wants to go out explore the town, and so what if the bed is reminiscent of a hammock in shape if not in purpose one beer in, one person out.
Day 2.
buses buses and more buses as I try to make it to the volcano climbing trip on time. i don{t, courtesy of an outdated travel book which steered me wong. no matter, i still get to see fun things like the lake by Santa Ana, little-tiny-whithered-away-must-be-90-yo ladies carrying wood stacks heavier than yours truly, pretty mountains etc. etc. I also get to be the only person at the lake hostel where I crashed. Spent most of the day hanging in the hammock, reading, napping, staring at the water and swimming every now and again. Have i mentioned it's hotter than haides? At night it's a fricken DELUGE. it's raining so hard, the place where i'm staying is leaking through every imaginable and unimaginable hole so i boot it to another housing option. thankfully there was one. Granted i was already asleep when i started getting rained on inside-it might have been all of 7pm or some such thing.
Day 3.
I finally make it to the volcano. The one I was planning on climbing is closed, courtesy of some seismic activity which was apparently picked up several days ago. Not that anyone saw/felt/smelled anything, but now nobody is allowed to climb it. We can climb it's sister volcano, a mostly dead place with only steam coming out of it. Which is cool too. It's a STEEP bunch of steps running down, then a climb pretty much straight up (what happened to switchbacks? don't ask, they won't tell anyway). You get to putz around the crater for quite a bit, while trying to figure out where oh were the massive quantities of flies are coming from. I didn't discover it. Then a lovely SLIDE down the lava sand back to the bottom of the volcano (goodbye my lovely shoes, i will miss you i'm sure!) and then a torture climb up the million stairs in million degree heat while i curse myrself for not bringing enough water (having finished my supplies at the top of the volcano). Fun times were had by all. Pictures to follow eventually.
Day 4.
I chicken bus it over to the beach. This chicken busing i have not seen before- we're talking people shoved in until you can't fit in anymore, then shoving some more people on top of those anyway. Then following them with some luggage. Damn semana santa. Damn all those local people getting vacation at the same time as i get mine. Damn everybody deciding to go to the beach at the same time. Definitely damn everybody coming to the same beach and taking up all the rooms, beds etc, before i even FINALLY make it there. At least somebody took pity on me and let me stay in a hammock. hurray for nice people everywhere.
First ever surfing lesson-I can stand mostly on all fours for about a second or slightly less. woof. tail wag.
it's really really hot. the ocean is really really hot. you'd think it would be refreshing? it's almost as warm as the air. pfft.
i sleep most of the day in the hammock. in the intervals between sleep i get to read a little bit and then doze off again.
at night i get woken up by a loving mosquito kiss smack on my lower lip--those suckers HUUUURT!! the whole next morning i felt like i had a lip the size of texas. it didn't look as bad as it felt though. itchy itchy scratchy scratchy by this point everywhere. arms legs, neck face, fricken LIP???
turns out palm friday the buses are on a loose schedule of running whenever whereever (a la Shakira) as a li'l o'le lady in the road store tells me. good thing i couldn't get my onward tickets till next day anyway. between a random pickup truck (please don't kill me or kidnap me) and some random colectivo van going smack to where i needed to go i finally make it to my favorite hammock-bedded hostel (what, you think there would be others in a big city like San Salvador, wouldn't you? you'd be wrong). Not that there's much to do around town from what i can tell- folks have been around the hostel for the past several days, nobody came up with a better option than going to see ninja turtles. (really?? really!!! no way. no how)
Day 5. Still going strong but i'll write about it anyway. 4am pick up and until 6am putzing around to get to leave San Salv. for Copan Ruinas in Honduras (via Guatemala) you can always look at the map to figure that one out. At least we're THERE by around 10 am. A small scare of ATMs not working is easily and quickly resolved by apparently turning the card upside down. AAAAH??? OOOOH!!! yeah, i'm smart like that. Copan ruinas.... kinda interesting in that amidst all the destruction they still have these super detailed elements. very weird. pictures to follow once the kids i'd met up with forward me their pictures from today (i brilliantly left film with the pack in the hostel) have i mentioned i'm smart like that?
posted by Irene @ 7:59 PM
2 Comments:
At Monday, July 16, 2007 5:52:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I stumbled across this by looking at Cornell '99ers on MySpace. Did you die on one of your adventures and that's why you haven't written in the last three months???
I was so proud of myself for driving up to the Grand Canyon of PA this month, which is pretty great. This all goes way, way beyond that little jaunt though.
You've answered a question I've often had... could a person really sleep through the night in a hammock if they aren't used to it? Here's one person who can.
At Tuesday, April 09, 2013 4:12:00 PM,
Irene said…
oh my goodness, I forgot I even had this blog until I ran across an email in my JUNK mail saying there were comments to moderate.
Hope you're doing well. I'd stopped blogging about adventures but kept taking pictures. Now I just need to remember to back them up (crashed two laptops worth many many photos at the same time and have yet to learn my lesson)
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