El Mozote

Our Christmas Day guide didn’t look like an ex-guerrilla. In his late 50s, slight, wiry and well turned out, Matilde spoke to us in measured tones, possibly adapted to his foreign audience. This consisted of me, Carolyn, the author of the El Salvador part of the book, and Dave, a mountain-climbing Yorkshireman on a month-long jaunt down Central America. Matilde explained the background to the civil war that blighted this beautiful mountainous part of El Salvador throughout the 1980s. As we walked in the mid-morning sunshine, he relaxed and spoke more naturally. He told us how he joined the guerrilla movement after government bombs destroyed his family home. He had been making his living from the land, but was now an insurgent in a movement protesting about El Salvador’s social inequalities. The guerrillas were being ruthlessly pursued by the country’s military and Matilde went into some detail about the hardships involved – days with little or no water and learning which twigs you could eat for sustenance.

If that sounded harsh, it was nothing compared to what we were about to see. We arrived in a small, poor village called El Mozote, a few kilometres down the road from our base in Perquin. In December 1981, El Salvadoran troops had rounded up all the men, women and children in the village. After killing the men and adolescent boys, they raped and killed the women. They then killed the children in one massive assassination, international forensic teams later confirmed. The youngest of the children killed was 3 days old.

Cold facts on paper, but they had an extraordinarily raw affect when we stood in the well tended children’s memorial garden on a beautiful sunny day. A wall with all the names of the children under 12 massacred that day stands there – 140 in total with an average age of 6. A local senora showed us round the village. With one little child running round her, and heavily pregnant with another, she explained how she happened to be out of the village on the day of the slaughter. Three of her brothers and three of her sisters were not so lucky.

Signs of the violence remain. We saw a bomb crater and bullet holes in houses caused by air-force strafing. Much of the ammunition was US-supplied. Under Reagan, the American government used millions of dollars of funds each day to help the El Salvador government crush the red ‘threat’, which apparently included newly-borns.

A pretty intense experience, especially for Christmas Day, although we did do some normal festive drinking and over-eating (including some mince pies battered after more than a month in my backpack) that day – more of which later.

Feliz Navidad

If you’re hoping for another shot of either my shoes or a bird’s eye view of my shoes, you’ll be leaving this blog disappointed today. I didn’t use my camera in Tegucigalpa , largely as I heard I would survive about 30 seconds before a crowd of thieves, vagabonds and gangsters overwhelmed me if I ever let it be seen in public.

In fact, I was most in danger of being overwhelmed by the traffic. It was unbelievable.
It was virtually gridlock when I arrived. For some reason, Tegucigalpans seem to think honking their horns will make things better but it doesn’t really seem to work. Maybe it just makes them feel better. Anyway, the jams did provide some entertainment. Most of my friends over the last few days have been taxi drivers and some go to extreme lengths to overcome the city’s over-population of cars. Take Rene: a very likeable man who drove me right up into the unpaved – and relatively traffic free – heights of the shanty towns before careering onto a main highway in the wrong direction and then weaving through mostly stationary car queues to get on the right side. Gulp. He had some interesting stories to tell too. Once he was held up by three pretty girls, one of whom was holding a gun. He said he didn’t believe it was real, so they fired a bullet (not at him). He handed over his cash. Another time he was kidnapped and was forced to drive a gunpoint to an isolated and very dodgy part of the city. He decided to crash the car rather than go up there. He escaped unscathed. The kidnappers got away with his radio.

The dodgiest thing I have come across in the city, however, is the number of moustaches. I actually counted a random sample on the bus journey on the way in (it’s for the book, I should add). 39 % of men surveyed were wearing facial hair on their upper lips. That’s exclusively moustaches – goaties and stubble did not count. Fascinatingly, this means the moustache ratio is even higher in the capital city than it is in cowboy country, where I did another survey of 100 people – only 33 were moustachioed.

Anyway, there should be slightly fewer handlebars where I am now, in a Honduran border town. I went over to Nicaragua today, where the highlights were the ridiculously corrupt border officials and the amount of people that managed to cram the six different forms of public transportation I used today. On one bus there were four people on a seat designed for two US schoolkids. It was topped later on in my final ride of the day in a minibus where there were 5 people on the backseat, including a pudgy kid and his even pudgier mother.

So in the relatively open space of an internet café booth, here’s wishing Merry Christmas to all who happen upon this blog just in case I don’t get the chance to update it again. I will be spending 25 December in El Salvador with the author of that section of the guidebook. Definitely an alternative yuletide. I may even get some pictures of my shoes at some point.

Feliz Navidad all!

chicken bus

Had the biggest heart-in-the-mouth moment so far on my journey from the Caribbean coast into Honduras' cowboy heartland. Took the chicken bus (so-called because of its reputation for transporting the locals' livestock) across an unpaved country road. It's been raining here quite a lot - I think I may already have mentioned that - and the road, already badly potholed, was in a very bad state in some places. At one point, the road support seemed to have practically been washed away by a creek. We got over that, but couldn't get up the hill on the other side. For one moment I thought we were about to career back into the water. Somehow the vehicle managed to stay put.

The conductor took control: "All the men out now to push." I didn't need any encouragement to get out as quickly as possible. All the women and children then disembarked to make the load lighter. The local guys gathered right behind the truck where the mud was thinnest - maybe to preserve the shine of their shoes. I went right to the rear right-hand side (ie out of the way if the vehicle slipped backwards) where the mud was thickest - definitely to preserve my continued existence on this planet. Then we pushed as hard as we could. Thankfully we pushed it out of the bog and up the hill.

Here are the bus guys cleaning their pride and joy before she continued to the capital:

And here are my shoes (I am ashamed to say they remain festering in a plastic bag in my hotel room):

to make matters worse, there was a teachers' conference in the cowboy town where i stopped. No hotels had room - apart from one. It is the type with naked lightbulbs and marks on flaky painted walls. It also had a 9.30 curfew and none of the guests were supposed to drink - even outside the hotel. I was very rebellious and had a bottle of beer to wash down my steak supper.

i am now in the capital, Tegucigalpa, a chaotic, massively crowded city typical of Central America with shantytowns perched up the surrounding hillsides, street hawkers lining every available space of the pavement and black bus smog choking the streets. Which is nice when you spend most of the day as I did hanging around bus stations (to check the timetables and prices just to clarify).

hasta pronto.

Gecko

Just a quick update from a crooked Internet café. Spent one night in an interesting hotel. I had a room-mate that evening, a little gecko who ran away when I tried to take pictures. They blasted out reggae music at the dodgy nightclub next door. I owe my current sanity to Boots own brand ear plugs.

I have changed to a lovely hostel just outside Trujillo, a sleepy little place where Spanish conquistadores used to ship gold pillaged from the interior back home. This used to attract pirates and some big battles occurred in the bay in front. The famous buccaneer Henry Morgan was involved in one. There is also a strong Garifuna community here.

I went for a dusk swim in the ocean in front of the hostel last night. Actually more of a night paddle (I still remember Jaws). Tomorrow I am going into cowboy country, taking the bumpy ride along unpaved roads to get to the capital.

I might not get to the internet for a while, but will blog on as soon as I can.

Adios xx
jol

yellow submarine

Meet Karl Stanley, 32 years old. He's got a history major. And he's built a submarine. In fact he's built two submarines. The first one he started building at the age of 15, and finished when he was 23. This one you see here he built more recently in an Oklahoma aircraft hangar. It goes 2000 feet under the sea (more than 600 metres) where daylight cannot reach. For $500, you too can go down to that depth and watch sixgilled sharks as well as creatures with iridiscent eyes. I was tempted, believe me, and almost got a trip (talking up the chances of coverage in a magazine article). But Karl's schedule meant I couldn't. You may hear more about him. HBO were making a documentary about him while I was there.

The super sub could actually come in handy over here in La Ceiba, the coastal city where I am currently. It's rainy season and everything is getting submerged. It is definitely not very guidebook author friendly. This morning, I went to a little outlying village to check out one hotel, which is normally reachable by walking along the beach. But the waters from a creek going to the sea had risen so precipitously that I couldn't go that way.

So I had to go this way, talking of precipitous. This image I took on the way back. Now imagine this with torrential rain. I certainly wasn't stopping to take any photos!





Here's the bird's eye view:


And here's what it was like in town:


Anyway, other hostel guests are forming an orderly queue to use this computer. I am hoping my shoes will dry sometime soon. Bye for now.

one man and his island

ok couldn't resist. Here's a token picture of me on a desert island. Yes really. Sorry. I got pretty frazzled from being on the go non stop so decided to take half a day time out. I got a dive boat over to a cay off the coast of the island of Utila where I have spent the past 2 nights, then sea kayaked over to the place where you see me above. Nobody else there. A whole island to myself. Of course, once i had beached my kayak, there was only one thing to do. Go for a run. I lasted all of 4 minutes before the pebbles started to hurt my bare feet too much. But never mind. I almost regretted taking my camera when an unexpected wave threatened me with capsizing. But i am pleased to have brought back evidence of my trip.

So if that hasn't sickened you too much and you are still reading this, the job is going pretty well. I have been getting quicker and a lot more assertive. It's amazing how being with a clipboard gives you a sense of authority. Hondurans are a friendly bunch and so far so good. A couple of observations:

1. if you want to look like charlie big potatoes, here's the place to do it. They barely have any coins here. the smallest note is 1 lempira (the currency is named after an indigenous warrior who almost defeated the Spanish conquistadores). It's worth about 5 pence. So you could have a wad of fifty and only be carrying two pounds fifty.

2. it's interesting how TV limits and tastes are different. I switched on the hotel telly after arriving from a bumpy chicken bus ride. within half an hour of news i had seen close-ups of four mangled bodies (don't worry mum and dad, there weren't many gringos).

anyway, my internet time is mounting. i have to check out the final few hotels here. It's the sort of place were people seem to linger longer than they planned. oh well. i've had my time on a desert island....

more soon. xx

after mitch

I worried before i came here that i might be hanging out with 19-year-olds who know everything about the world. The sort that tell you about the time they went diving in the Bay Islands and felt really "at one with everything and even saw a whale shark, man". But, fingers crossed, the people I have met so far have been really interesting.

Take the hotelier I met last night. Probably late 50s , with the perma-tan of an established ex-pat, he came out with his wife from France to set up a beautiful hotel in the Caribbean beach town of Tela. They renovated and decorated a house for 3 years. Then Hurricane Mitch came and gutted it. Most people would have gone home, but they simpy re-did it all again. He worked in advertising in Paris for 30 years, and his wife used to be a professional ballerina.

I sat listening to their stories of the storm. Apparently no metereologist knew where it was going, it zig-zagged everywhere. The aftermath sounded like madness. Every country wanted to help but much of the work wasn't co-ordinated or thought through. Efforts were well intentioned but slightly bizarre - one aid package included snow boots! Apparently there used to be 40-metre high palms on the beach. They all fell sick after the floods and died, so now there are replacement mini palm trees a fraction of the height.

After speaking to them, I went to eat with friends I made in San Pedro Sula: a very welcoming and helpful German couple who have lived here several years, and their friend, a Honduran girl who can tell when it is going to rain because she starts to sneeze a couple of hours before hand. So I have been lucky with the company i have kept in these first few days.

But like the littlest hobo, i just keep moving on, and I am about to go to La Ceiba. They have a saying here. San Pedro works, Tugicigalpa governs, La Ceiba has fun. We shall see.

...and the rain has stopped so I better go - it's not all beer and sunshine you know.

Hasta pronto.

Honduras blog begins

San Pedro Sula is one of the most ordered and industrious of Honduran cities. The streets are in a systematic grid. Street locations are labelled (north-west, north-east, south-east, south-west) for geographic dunces (sometimes handy). But a very Latin American chaos hits you almost as soon as you land. It was my taxi ride into town that did it for me (the airport is 10 miles outside of the city, plonked in the middle of banana plantations). Cars with dents for doors (you think a 1989 Renault 5 looks knackered?) swerved in front - indicating is for wimps here. Families stretched out in the back of battered pick-up trucks that were belching clouds of dark diesel fumes. One middle-aged lady ride was riding pinion on a motorbike without a helmet. Nearer the city centre, we waited at the traffic lights behind a scrawny mule dragging a cart laden with bananas and some tired looking coriander dangling over the edge.

Coventry it ain´t. It´s exhilarating, maddening and intoxicating. And a bit of a shock to the system. My plan to hit the ground running involved me going to sleep at 2 in the afternoon on the day I arrived (3-hour queues at the immigration desk at JFK do little for energy levels or mood).

But I have landed on my feet here. The hostel owner Juan Carlos has been a mine of information. Slightly randomly he also offered me a vegemite sandwich (when he knew I came from a land down under). Even more randomly, I ended up at an exclusive party last night held in a car park, celebrating the 10th anniversary of a shopping mall (Juan Carlos and his wife Angela play in a band and were performing for the great and the good of the San Pedro commerical elite). Fun in a bizarre way.

I also got my first linguistic gaffe out of the the way early. At the very good restaurant just opposite the hostel, I asked for ´ironed chicken´ (pollo planchado) as opposed grilled chicken (pollo a la plancha). The waitress very politely corrected me. On the scale of things, not quite as bad as the time I said ¨thank you for eating me¨ after a friend´s grandparents in France had invited me round to lunch.

On that bombshell, I better sign off. I have already abused my right to 15 minutes´internet time. Suppose I better keep this blog thing short and snappy.

I´ll probably be on the Caribbean coast next time I write - should be getting the bus there tomorrow. Adios for now.