Dear Friends and Family,
No, we haven't been eaten by a tapir or driven off a cliff.
We tend to travel in off-the-beaten-path kind of places and while we may come across internet access (not always) it is often so slow that posting a blog, with pictures, is not possible.
I have several posts ready to go, to catch you up on our travels, and just as soon as we are in a place that makes it practical to post I will do just that.
Meanwhile, thanks for all the emails and appreciate you still being interested in our adventure. We are well and having a lot of fun. It's actually hard to put the whole experience into words.
Best,
Trish
Friday, February 26, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
I'll show you my kitchen if you show me yours
On one of our outings we stopped in Ataco, a town along the Ruta de Flores. We fell in love with the town...you know the story by now: it had the right vibe.
We bought coffee, shopped in the mercado for fresh veggies and stopped for an afternoon pupusa, one of the national dishes.
Mike, who makes friends where ever he goes, chatted it up with the ladies making the pupusas, telling them about our trip.
Remember when I told you it's kids who love the van the most?? Well the ladies were like kids as Mike gave them the grand tour. A fridge! A stove! A sink! Two beds! Lights! They were truly amazed.
We bought coffee, shopped in the mercado for fresh veggies and stopped for an afternoon pupusa, one of the national dishes.
Mike, who makes friends where ever he goes, chatted it up with the ladies making the pupusas, telling them about our trip.
Remember when I told you it's kids who love the van the most?? Well the ladies were like kids as Mike gave them the grand tour. A fridge! A stove! A sink! Two beds! Lights! They were truly amazed.
Mike with the pupusa ladies in Ataco
They loved Missy Chettie, too. Her hair! So curly! It was fun to watch as our van and our dog made friends for us again.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Much as we were at home at Puertezuelo, it was time to move on. We said good-bye to our favorite guard, Oscar, who reminded us oddly of an old friend of Mike's. To repay our sharing a cup of coffee with him one morning, Oscar brought us some fresh coffee his wife had ground. I have declared it the best cup I’ve ever had, the bar by which all java will be measured from here on out.
We were headed to Parque Nacional Cerro Verde but some advice from a chance encounter with Martin, a native Salvadoran who runs tours from Antigua Guatemala, changed our plans. One of the Akwaterra guides had previously suggested we check out La Palma and Martin concurred. We blew by Cerro Verde with our mantra for things left unexplored: We’ll save that for our return trip.
We had some info on camping in Rio Chiquito, a small pueblo above La Palma and we set off up a 13km road that rises straight up. The grade was incredible, but the Burly Beast rose to the challenge. The place we wanted to stay didn’t work out and we ended up spending one night in a very weird place—not scary, just weird.
The, was he the owner?, lurked around and appeared out of nowhere whenever we stirred. We tried to engage him with our fabulous Spanish language skills, which were great a day before, but he didn’t seem interested. If ever there was someone who shouldn’t be in the hospitality business, it was he. And, we made up all kinds of scenarios that may have led to his current occupation. Perhaps he and his wife owned the place and she was recently deceased leaving him to manage it despite being socially ill-at-ease. We’ll never know the real story.
We departed his odd company early the next morning and decided to explore the Rio Chiquito area before we made the trek down the steeeeeeep road. This proved to be a good decision as we found a great place to camp just below the summit of El Pital, the highest point in El Salvador, on the border with Honduras. We camped 2 nights on a perch with an outrageous view, hiked the peak (okay, if I’m completely honest here I’ll admit that the summit was only about a kilometer from our campsite---the Burly Beast is really the one who climbed the peak), and just generally hung out watching the clouds rise and fall around us.
Got to tell you, El Salvador is a great place. I hate to let the word out because we like the fact that much of it is ‘undiscovered’, but indeed this is a great country. The people smile and wave. Many people here have relatives in the US and many have been there. There is a general sense of warmth and understanding.
As we were leaving El Pital we passed a group of college kids who had been camping as well. We stopped to ask if they wanted a ride and they quickly hopped in. We thought there were 3 of them, but it turned out there were six. They piled in with all their gear (Chettie shared her space in back) and down we went. They opted to stay with us all the way to Suchitoto, our next stop. They were great kids and their group reminded both Mike and I of the many camping trips we did when we first got to Colorado. It also gave us a chance to converse in Spanish. When we were dropping them off they presented us with an El Salvadoran flag which now flies in our van.
Mike Oscar and Trish at Puertezuelo
We were headed to Parque Nacional Cerro Verde but some advice from a chance encounter with Martin, a native Salvadoran who runs tours from Antigua Guatemala, changed our plans. One of the Akwaterra guides had previously suggested we check out La Palma and Martin concurred. We blew by Cerro Verde with our mantra for things left unexplored: We’ll save that for our return trip.
We had some info on camping in Rio Chiquito, a small pueblo above La Palma and we set off up a 13km road that rises straight up. The grade was incredible, but the Burly Beast rose to the challenge. The place we wanted to stay didn’t work out and we ended up spending one night in a very weird place—not scary, just weird.
The, was he the owner?, lurked around and appeared out of nowhere whenever we stirred. We tried to engage him with our fabulous Spanish language skills, which were great a day before, but he didn’t seem interested. If ever there was someone who shouldn’t be in the hospitality business, it was he. And, we made up all kinds of scenarios that may have led to his current occupation. Perhaps he and his wife owned the place and she was recently deceased leaving him to manage it despite being socially ill-at-ease. We’ll never know the real story.
We departed his odd company early the next morning and decided to explore the Rio Chiquito area before we made the trek down the steeeeeeep road. This proved to be a good decision as we found a great place to camp just below the summit of El Pital, the highest point in El Salvador, on the border with Honduras. We camped 2 nights on a perch with an outrageous view, hiked the peak (okay, if I’m completely honest here I’ll admit that the summit was only about a kilometer from our campsite---the Burly Beast is really the one who climbed the peak), and just generally hung out watching the clouds rise and fall around us.
Mike and the Burly Beast on El Pital
Border Marker atop El Pital
Chet and the Burly Beast at El Pital Campsit
The site more than made up for our strange encounter the night before.
Got to tell you, El Salvador is a great place. I hate to let the word out because we like the fact that much of it is ‘undiscovered’, but indeed this is a great country. The people smile and wave. Many people here have relatives in the US and many have been there. There is a general sense of warmth and understanding.
As we were leaving El Pital we passed a group of college kids who had been camping as well. We stopped to ask if they wanted a ride and they quickly hopped in. We thought there were 3 of them, but it turned out there were six. They piled in with all their gear (Chettie shared her space in back) and down we went. They opted to stay with us all the way to Suchitoto, our next stop. They were great kids and their group reminded both Mike and I of the many camping trips we did when we first got to Colorado. It also gave us a chance to converse in Spanish. When we were dropping them off they presented us with an El Salvadoran flag which now flies in our van.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Full of natural beauty with just the beginnings of tourist infrastructure in place, El Salvador fits our style. We tend to shy away from big developed resorts; cities don’t match our current traveling mode; and we love to explore wild places.
El Salvador is small and easily managed. We spent nearly a week in and around the Western Highlands and the Ruta De Flores, exploring some very cool places that made me think of the Wild Women more than once.
Let me try to explain Calera de Los Chorros. They say it is fed by an underground river. There is a cliff wall and the river pours through hundreds of small cracks in the cliff creating numerous bridal-veil waterfalls. To get here you (trespass) cross an electric company’s property which doesn’t seem to be an issue.
The electric company has built retaining walls at the bottom of several stretches of the cliff to collect the falling water. The water is then channeled through a series of tunnels and (presumably, as we didn’t see this part of the operation) used to turn a turbine. In addition to the beautiful cliff walls, waterfalls and pools, part of the adventure here is to go with the flow of the water through the tunnels. The water moves swiftly and the tunnels are long enough that at times you are in near-darkness. It was an experience like none I’ve ever had. We had a blast riding the currents. Chettie swam in the pools, but we didn’t let her go through the tunnels as you had to know where to bail out in order not to get sucked further down.
This was a place where a local ‘guide’ was necessary for safety and for security sake we did not bring the camera along on this adventure. Too bad as words don’t come close to capturing the fun. Perhaps a search of You Tube would turn up some footage.
The next day we hiked from Puertezuelo through the coffee to thermal waters. There is huge geo-thermal activity in this area. Our hike with Francisco, one of the guides from Akwaterra which operates from Puertezuelo, led us to a place where steam escapes from the earth. In some places it was merely a hiss, in others it was jet-engine loud. Here, the energy is lost to the atmosphere as no one is harnessing it; further north in the city of Ahuachapan there is a power-plant that uses the super-heated steam to provide 10% of the county with electricity.
The locals, of course, have built a small pool to collect some of the water for their soaking pleasure. We are still laughing about Chettie and her hot springs experience. She was the first one in the pool when we arrived and she stayed in nearly the entire time we were there. She found a ledge to stand on that put the water just at the top of her legs and then she’d plunk herself into the water and take a little swim around. It was hilarious. We enjoyed the water, but maybe not as much as she did.
El Salvador is small and easily managed. We spent nearly a week in and around the Western Highlands and the Ruta De Flores, exploring some very cool places that made me think of the Wild Women more than once.
Let me try to explain Calera de Los Chorros. They say it is fed by an underground river. There is a cliff wall and the river pours through hundreds of small cracks in the cliff creating numerous bridal-veil waterfalls. To get here you (trespass) cross an electric company’s property which doesn’t seem to be an issue.
The electric company has built retaining walls at the bottom of several stretches of the cliff to collect the falling water. The water is then channeled through a series of tunnels and (presumably, as we didn’t see this part of the operation) used to turn a turbine. In addition to the beautiful cliff walls, waterfalls and pools, part of the adventure here is to go with the flow of the water through the tunnels. The water moves swiftly and the tunnels are long enough that at times you are in near-darkness. It was an experience like none I’ve ever had. We had a blast riding the currents. Chettie swam in the pools, but we didn’t let her go through the tunnels as you had to know where to bail out in order not to get sucked further down.
This was a place where a local ‘guide’ was necessary for safety and for security sake we did not bring the camera along on this adventure. Too bad as words don’t come close to capturing the fun. Perhaps a search of You Tube would turn up some footage.
The next day we hiked from Puertezuelo through the coffee to thermal waters. There is huge geo-thermal activity in this area. Our hike with Francisco, one of the guides from Akwaterra which operates from Puertezuelo, led us to a place where steam escapes from the earth. In some places it was merely a hiss, in others it was jet-engine loud. Here, the energy is lost to the atmosphere as no one is harnessing it; further north in the city of Ahuachapan there is a power-plant that uses the super-heated steam to provide 10% of the county with electricity.
Coffee Worker at Puertezuelo
Coffee Harvest
Francisco with the Venting Steam
The locals, of course, have built a small pool to collect some of the water for their soaking pleasure. We are still laughing about Chettie and her hot springs experience. She was the first one in the pool when we arrived and she stayed in nearly the entire time we were there. She found a ledge to stand on that put the water just at the top of her legs and then she’d plunk herself into the water and take a little swim around. It was hilarious. We enjoyed the water, but maybe not as much as she did.
Chettie taking a lap
Trish and Chettie
Mike and Chettie
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