Guatemala to El Salvador

the day before leaving Lago Atitlan, we were looking quite desesperately for a place to eat. not a place full of gringos. we found a little comedor, not a single white faces in there, not mentioned neither in my Rough guide or marie-pierre Lonely planet. sure, the place looked really authentic and this is what we wanted, but thoughts of spending the next 12 hours or shitting our asses off made us thought twice before actually getting in there. even more so: we knew we were spending the entire next day in buses in transition to El salvador. god knows you do not want to have diaharea in a chicken bus. what the hek, we decided to live dangerously and went up for it. the food was great (chicken broth soup with vege, a full plate of fried chicken, peas, a juice - i´m still not sure from what fruit but it was tasty- all this with the enivitable but so comforting tortillas de mais). The whole thing was ridiculously cheap, and while we were there and eating real food with other natives, we felt quite fulfill, in all its meaning.

we cought a chicken bus early on the next morning. for those whom have never been in such dangerous but fun transportation, here´s how it goes: the outside of the bus is always, de facto, highly colorfull. their run on schedule, but these serves only as guidelines and are not binding. the one we were waiting for got there earlier then expected, totally counter culture, so it cought me in the middle of my coffee, which i had to sink down, cuz they just don´t wait. how they function: one guy is in charge of yelling the directions. he will help people with luggages or stuff to sale for inside the bus, and then collect the money for the ride. the bus driver drives. drives like crazy. drives madly, like there´s no tomorrow. inside the bus are more colours, stickers of all sort, in most cases music latina or hits from the 80 ies. in one case, there was evec a t.v. with the original videoclip from the 80 ies. that was so entertaining it made me forgot that my life was threatned with an eminent accident, fatal car crash.

we got to guatemala city, but just outside the center. we were more or less lost in a chaotic city of 3 million known more for its crime scenes and gang then anything else. we fought with a bunch of crazy taxi drivers to understand where we were and how much it would cost to get where we wanted. marie-pierre totally lost nerve with them (they are more then anoying) so we opted for public transport, which ended up to be smart, something like 15 cents instead of 30 dollars. Guatemala ciudad is frentic yet ugly. there is one exception with the parque central: nice cathedral, nice municipal building, a fountain, some pigeon feeders...
We ate city food: vegetarian toffu, chicpeas salad and other helathy stuff that we knew would not be available for the rest of our trip.

the bus from guatemala ciudad to san-slavador was suppose to pass every hour or so. not so. we had to wait for 3 hours. again some bargaining. we met a bus driver from the company with which we were traveling and got a considerable discount. great. this interstate bus was nicer then average chicken bus but something was off with the a|c and it felt more like a freezer. we got to santa ana at it was 8h30pm and dark. very dark. the city, was dead. everything: closed, shut down. el salvador is struck with an epidemilogical gang problem. when it s dark, it´s simply time to go to bed. you don´t hang around, you don t walk around, you do not fuck around. we were scared, we saw a lots of military and police patrolling the streets. after a walk that seemed like an eternity, we finally saw an hotel open, with a guard with a hughe gun (bazooka ?). We went up for the guidebook recommendation, wich was shut, there was someone, but the dueno wasn´t there, so no way to open the metallic gate. the second recommendation was a small hostel serving both tourist and as a hub for your 2 hours siesta with your favorite prostitute. it is quite handy has they hang right in front of it. we went to bed, only after fighting with 2 mosquitoes and one hughe, enormous cockroach.

we woke up next morning in a different city. colorfull, lots of action, plenty of tiendas, big market, very nice parque central with the cleanest neo-gothical cathedral scene so far, sparkling white, a nice theatro and a municipal building with arcades. we had a super nice breakfast with huevos, chorizzo, avocados and a malaria pill, as usual. we took off to Rutas de las flores, a nice road rich with farms of all sort, fruits, cereals, flowers and ofcourse coffee. In Ahuachapan, the first city to start the road, we were recommended to go to a particular office as for our coffee inquireies. There we met Ruth, the mother that everyone needs in vacation. Ruth was super helpfull regarding the farms we wanted to visit. more then that: she fed us with cookies, coffee, she placed half a dozen calls to arrange something for us, including a driver with a pick-up trucks, a tour to those specific farms i wanted to visit, and a nice hotel in a beautyfull village nearby. we didn t know ruth. ruth didn t know us either. i don´t think we will see her again either. it´s fair like this. plain generosity. we also took off with two hat from her organization, one blue sky for marie-pierre, one black for me.
will continue this journey shorty as marie-pierre is waiting for me for a pina-colada by the side of the beach...