Otro dia en San Vicente

29 June

We’re still in San Vicente.  This morning we had to take the obligatory trip into town.  We rode in a small Toyota pickup truck complete with hand holds, cost 25 cents.  Here’s the church and the “world famous” tower in San Vicente.  The clock tower was closed for climbing up the stairs, due to a prolonged painting project of the tower.  

We also went to the town’s “Mercado” where Sandra bought a hammock.  As soon as she made her purchase we had to get out of there, because there were too many people.  

We stopped at several hardware stores to see if they could cut a key (Roger had misplaced his key on the other key ring.)  Unfortunately they couldn’t.  The good news was that Sandra got more “gigi’s” which to the tune of 2GB of phone internet data for $10.  She is an Internet data piglet, to say the least.  Throughput is a challenge, and a lot of places only sell in terms of MB for “navigacion.”  The things we take for granted.  We also stopped at Pollo Campero, for breakfast (again), so Sandra took advantage of the free wi-fi Internet.

For lunch we had pupuso’s again.  They are made with Harina de Arroz (rice flour), and then you can request cheese, frijoles, chorrizo.  They are cooked on a hot propane heated griddle.  The lady was very nice in explaining how she makes puposo’s.

Another nice day in the pools, but we are ready to resume our trip south tomorrow.

San Vicente

28 June

On to San Vicente, this was only a 40 mile drive inland that took about 1.25 hours.  We’re now at a National Tourist Site, near San Vicente Volcano.  The site has huge artesian spring that supplies water to 6 different pool areas of varying depths. 

One natural pool area has fish that eat the calluses and dead skin off your feet.  Roger was really funny when the fish first started to attack his tender feet.  Then of course he thought of George, who would be going crazy with the fish nibbling at his hyper sensitive feet.  Once  Roger got used to the sensation he was somewhat able to relax.  The fish look like minnows, and Norm said that in Asia the Japanese pay big bucks for the same treatment.  I thought it felt like very small nibbles on my feet, nothing painful or ticklish.  The water in the pools is fresh, like swimming in a lake.  We came to the conclusion that Norm likes swimming holes.There were the below flowers around the pool areas.  

 Roger bought pupusas for our lunch.  They taste like greasy quesadillas with thick tortilla top and bottoms.  There were quite a few vendors selling all different types of food.  Roger also bought some fried yucca, but what we had in Cerro Verde was much better.

Later after we walked around some more out drivers had to have refreshment from their arduous day behind the wheel.  Roger and I concluded that this National Tourist site reminds us of old Schliterrbahn, or old Aquarena Springs, or old Silver Springs in FL.

La Libertad

27 June

We left at 7am to go to the fish market in La Libertad.  The town looks OK from the North, the South side looks sketchy.

Norm took us around the pier and showed us the fishing boats, which are wood, laminated with fiberglass, inside and out.  The boats are stored on the pier when not out fishing.  The outboard motors get taken off, too, and stored securely elsewhere.  

When the boat is ready to be lowered into or raised out of the water, a large, 2-piston, slow-speed diesel is fired up to wench the boat on/off the pier and raised from/lowered to the water.  The process takes about 10 minutes. 

The fish market has a variety of seafood.  We are having corvina prepared for us by a friend of Norm’s for lunch (around 2 pm).  

After we picked out our fish we proceeded to take our bagged fish over a two hour walk.  Sandra, Roger and I were all concerned about a “fish walk” to breakfast, a haircut, a phone data purchase, a fruit stand stop, etc. in the warm weather.  Time will tell….

Norm had to take us to Pollo Campero for breakfast.  We all thought we were going to eat some place local, and were very surprised when we got to Pollo Campero.   The plus side of the stop was air conditioning.  Roger had a Diet Pepsi with a muffin. I had a Diet Pepsi, as we had both eaten breakfast due to a failure to communicate on somebody’s part.

After breakfast we walked to El Centro, where Roger got a haircut for $1.50 USD.  He said the barber did shave his neck, and the overall haircut is “nothing special, it’s short.”  Sandra was also able to get more navigation time for her Tigo chip phone.  Potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and cooking oil were also bought for our lunch.  

From there we walked to the bus stop and had to wait until the bus could depart El Centro on time.  The bus we rode was a short, 20-passenger former school bus, with front and rear passenger doors.

Our laundry was picked up yesterday evening and we’ve been told we should get it back sometime today.  This concerns us a lot, due to the vague response from Norm.  We strung our clotheslines yesterday in anticipation of wet clothes.   Unfortunately it decided to rain this afternoon, so the inside of our RV looks like a Chinese laundry.  Hopefully it will clear off and we can get the clothes back outside to finish drying.

Our corvina lunch today was very good.  Corvina is a white ocean fish.  One of Norm's friends fried up our morning selection for us.  Roger and I were both served headless fish, the rest had heads.  I had asked Ana before not to see the head.  Norm told me that we'd be served with the head, regardless of my request.  I guess it doesn't hurt to ask politely.  With the fish, Ana's mother had fried potatoes, and fixed salad with tomato, cucumber and onion.  For dessert we had sandia (watermelon.)  It was a lot of food and too much for me to eat.

In closing, the below is sent for Mark.  He just doesn't do enough in his dentistry practice.

Random thoughts:

-- Most everybody in towns has a cellphone.  Plans are generally sold as voice/text plus navigation.  It appears that month to month is the way the average person gets service.  We bought from Tigo a month of 2GB of data only for $10 USD, plus the cost of a SIM card. There are 3 major companies:  Tigo, Movistar, and Claro.

-- People who have smart phones take a lot of pictures.  Our RVs are very photogenic..

-- People want to see inside our beautiful RV (Casa Rodante). 

-- People are curious and will tolerate less than perfect Spanish to talk with you.
-- And finally, why would this sign have to be posted at the Retired Police Association pool?

La Conchalita

26 June

We left at 7 am this morning, as soon as the fog burned off and headed to the district of La Libertad.  Roger had talked quite a bit with a park policeman named Juan (John) Vaquero.  Juan liked to be called “Cowboy”.  Roger and he talked about Cowboy’s life and his desire to improve his English so he can get hired by the protective force for the United Nations mission.  Currently, Cowboy works 5 days straight at the park and then has 3 or4 days off.  There are 20 park police, so the rotation works with overlap.  His wife and three children live in Sonsonate, which is about an hour away from the park.  Roger gave Cowboy a small Leatherman (since he had 3 in the RV) and a flashlight.  Cowboy was extremely touched by Roger’s generosity.  This morning Cowboy had some tape on his thumb, which he eventually admitted to Roger that he had cut himself checking out his new Leatherman.  Sandra had an extra and old pair of binoculars that she gave to Cowboy as well.  Cowboy gave Roger his official park police hat and Sandra a park police t-shirt.  All involved felt special about the friendship that we made with Cowboy.  Cowboy was anxious to get home the morning we left Cerro Verde National Park because his oldest (teenage) daughter had been briefly hospitalized during his duty day with an asthma attack.

It took about 2.5 hours to drive to the Police Compound on La Conchita beach in La Libertad.  The road on Sandra’s map software looked extremely curvy, so we were somewhat concerned about the drive.  As it turned out, it was no worse than a drive along the Washington/Oregon coast, save for the pot holes. 

There were 5 tunnels of various lengths, but not much in terms of a scenic view, because there were lots of banana plants, coconut trees and other vegetation on the right side of the highway.  We did come across one place where there was a family drying corn on the side of the road.  The corn is laid out on the roadside ground where it is wide, and periodically raked during the day.  The black roadside helps by providing a good hot surface to dry out the corn.  This seems so odd to us sanitary freaks, seeing future edible corn being raked on the roadside.  Of course, Norm was going so fast that we missed the photo opportunity.  Hopefully we’ll come across another example as we head south.

The Police Compound is a public park that is secured at night.  We’re parked behind a cement wall and can hear the road traffic on the other side of the wall.  Access is limited after 10 pm, so Norm considers this a safe place to spend two nights.  The swimming pool is like lake water swimming.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.  The ocean water is very warm, with a very strong undertow.

We have no idea how much it is costing us to park here, but Norm did point out a couple of resort places on the drive south that he said “are upscale places to stay.”  Sandra and I were wondering what was wrong with staying at a few upscale places?  This question may or may not be raised at a future prep meeting.  We have prep briefs every evening before we head out the next day.

The beach is rocky in some places and smooth in others. These pictures were taken close to high tide.  Facing west, on the southside from the compound the Conchita river (think big creek, when there isn’t rain storm runoff) flows into the ocean.  There was lots of human generated flotsam in the area around the river.  We made sure we entered the ocean well away from where the river meets the ocean.

Looking south, you can see where the river is meeting the ocean on the left mid picture.

Looking North

Hike up Volcano Santa Ana

Today we hiked up Santa Ana Volcano.
What they didn't tell us was that we had to hike down Cerro Verde, across the saddle and then begin our assent up the volcano.  It took us 4 hours.  The trail was not kind to us.  There were lots of big steps, rocks and general scrambling.  Tough on us over 50 crowd.  The group from the hostel weren't bother by it at all.  Also add to the altitude of almost 2100 meters and we were both craving oxygen which we were in short supply of.  I'm typing this so it is now a story of our survival.  Our guides were 17.  They make the climb at least 3 times a week and told us that we were going too slow to make it in four hours.  It felt like a sprint to the top, over rough terrain.  Nobody told us that it was going to be a quick 4 hour trip to cover 12 km.

The sky was clear all day today, so we were optimistic about star gazing tonight.  No such luck.  At 6 pm it started to cloud over and now it's overcast.  Drat.

Back on the road tomorrow.

Cerro Verde morning pictures

Blue sky and volcano view

Fat hummingbird on a perch

Green lizard, tail color (which you can't see) was a darker bluer shade of green

Cerro (hill) Verde (green) National Park

24 June

We left the coast and headed to Cerro Verde National Park.  However, we had to stop at the local shopping center to buy SIM cards and data service for El Salvador.  You can’t use the same SIM card in El Salvador that we had in Guatemala.  The phone we’re using requires a micro SIM card, so we bought a regular SIM card and then had it cut to the small card size.  The SIM card cost $3 USD, and to cut to size cost another $1 USD.  Service for 2GB of data for one month (the minimum time) was $10 USD.  We weren’t expecting data at the park, but to our happy surprise we have the best connectivity that we’ve had in several days.

The road to the park was rough with the added dimension of dodging over-hanging tree limbs.  Of course, both Roger and Sandra did excellent jobs driving their rigs.  It cost $12 USD for us to get into the park, including overnight dry camping.  It is chilly here due to the altitude of 2030m. We were able to see Coatepeque Lake, which is a volcanic crater lake.

 http://www.tourism.com.sv/destinations/cerro-verde.php

We did a nature walk through the orchid area, new and old forests.  It is very cloudy, so it is hit or miss on good shots on the two volcanoes:  Amire Izalco Volcano and Santa Ana Volcano.  Amire used to be called the “Lighthouse of the Pacific”, since ships used to be able to see it from sea.  A hotel was constructed by the park and finished in 1981.  Oddly enough only a couple of months after completion, the volcano quit putting out visible light.  The hotel went out of business and has deteriorated since it was abandoned.  The view was nice from around the hotel, but the clouds were rather frustrating.

The orchid area only had a few orchids blooming.  According to our nature guide, the majority of the orchids bloom in May and December.  Tonight we may or may not be able to do some star gazing.  Norm says the stars are amazing, since there’s no light pollution.  Right now it’s too cloudy.  Hopefully the breeze will push the clouds away so we can do a little stargazing this evening.

Puerto Acajutla

23 June

We left Amatitlan and headed south to El Salvador.  The border crossing from Guatemala to El Salvador took about 3+ hours to transit between the two countries.  Lots of paper work and we had our VIN checked three times by three different officials.  Norm was doing paperwork and Sandra got asked questions by an official and we received a panicked call for Trinora to come help.   The official was very nice and professional, so things weren’t too traumatic for Sandra or Roger, who I left alone in our RV’s. 

We then drove on to Puerto Acajutla, which took about 2 hours.  We are camped at an El Salvador Naval Base.  

Calling the building a base is a stretch, as there is just one large building.  For example, in front of the main building is the volleyball net.  We talked with some sailors and they said that their mission is to make sure Guatemalan fishermen aren’t fishing in El Salvador’s waters.  Small boat fishing and not commercial fishing is the concern.  When asked about narco-traffic, they said they didn’t have the problem.

The beach water is warm, and the sand is dark.  We took a walk on the beach and the sun is strong.  We saw several guys playing soccer on the beach.  One guy had some fancy foot work.  The rest were just playing for the sport.  

We also watched a man net fish for lisa fish.  He had 4 in his bag and caught 4 more while we were around.  I asked him if the fish were bait or to eat and he said to eat.  I thought they were rather small eating fish.

It is rather sticky here, but we’ll survive.  It beats the alternative which was to stay at the border and listen to diesel truck idle all night long.