The Trials of an American Dilettante

Sunday, January 02, 2011

El Salvador and Honduras

"Do you find Latin America exotic at all?" asked my friend Claudia on the next-to-last day of my trip, "I mean, really, they're not that different and I speak the language. It's just not like the Middle East or East Asia where everything is different."

I did agree with her, mostly. Latin America was certainly Western and with that came a certain ease in doing, well, nearly everything. Central America has little bargaining, cheating or begging. They don't think Americans and Europeans have infinite wealth and are all sexual deviants (at least not to degree the East does). They don't believe in ghosts or voodoo or CIA/Israel conspiracies. Basically, they are poorer, speak Spanish and are slightly more religious than Americans. Oh, and their countries are crippled by gangs.

Back to the beginning of things. I walked out of the El Salvador airport into the brilliant weather and was met by the standard pack of taxi cab drivers vying for business. I said no thank you and they backed off quickly, but they stared with puzzlement as I walked out of the parking lot. Does no foreigner ever take the bus? I walked up the road and the police stopped me. They asked Donde va and I explained I was walking to bus stop. They too watched as I got on the bus. Apparently foreigners don't often take public transit.

The buses system in El Salvador was top notch, though. Frequent colorful school buses zoomed across the well-maintained roads. For only 50 cents, I made it to El Libertad and then the beach town of El Zonte in less than an hour (not including my tasty pupusa stop). El Zonte was stunning, but lonely. I booked a room on the beach but the only other company in town was a group of fairly boring Aussies who were surfing for 9 months up and down the Americas. At sun down, everything closed, which made me again wonder about crime in this country.

The next morning I headed to San Salvador and toured some churches and markets. Other than the girls in market being extra flirty and there being a lot of well-armed security guards everywhere, nothing seemed too different about San Salvador compared to the rest of Latin America. I befriended a German documentarian and a Canadian ex-NHL player and the three of us walked to a bar in the evening and had beers to the sound of a heavy metal band. It'll all seemed civilized. The next day, I took a bus to see a temple at Chalcuapa and Lake Coatepeque. On the bus, I met a Peace Corps volunteer who was puzzled I was traveling so late in the day.

"You're not staying at the lake? It'll be dark by the time you get back to San Salvador!"
"Is that a problem?"
"Well, they hold up buses every once in a while."
"What? How many times has this happened to you?"
"In the last year? Four."

Well, the bus wasn't held up and I made it back to my hostel safe and sound. My friend Geraldine who was working in country picked me up later.
"Why are you staying in this part of town?"
"What? I'm across the street from a posh mall and down the street from the Intercon."
She showed me her GPS system which tracked the no-go gang areas. We were completely surrounded in red. She then scolded me on walking around downtown and riding the bus at all, two things she never does.

I headed to Honduras, befriending an American along the way who was working on a coffee farm to improve his Spanish. Over some beers in the border towns, we met to a local artist who painted murals. He complained that the US wont let him back into America to see his son just because he was in a drug-dealing gang in America and spent years in prison. The American was heading back to his farm and explained that he worked all day to produce about $8 worth of beans. His farm used to grow corn and beans, but they switched to coffee because it was so profitable. On my way to Copan, the buses all had to stop because of protests. I debussed, walked about a mile past cars, came to some burning tires and a mob standing around, then walked a bit farther to find a couple hundred riot police hanging out by the side of the road. I passed another couple miles of cars and rebussed on the other side.

I befriended some hilarious Belgian girls in Copan who cooked me diner and we toured the ruins the next day. One had had a romance with a Costa Rican and revealed that they really do yell "mami" in bed. And I then headed to the island of Utila for a few days of diving. Utila is a stunning land populated by the descendants of Irish and English traders and pirates who speak the weirdest English ever. It is also filled with some crazy drop-outs. There was a Canadian who was always drunk setting off fireworks and a Frenchman who brought a girl home each night, but couldn't disturb everyone in the dorms so they would go to the dive-shop kitchen. Everyone would come to Utila for diving, but often people partied a little too hard. The instructors, who were no saints, all spoke ill of certain individuals who "stopped diving." I made it off the island alive, despite taking some dumb risks like by riding on the back of offroading motorbikes after dark to get home.

I took a long bus ride to Tegus to visit my friend Claudia. She too scolded me for walking around the city and taking buses. And my trip ending with another long bus ride back to the beaches of El Salvador. I never did get the chance to surf. Shame.