The Wanderings of busman7

Life at Las Brisas IS GOOD!!!

I am sure most of us have all dreamed of retiring in a tropical paradise but never taken them seriously.

I know for a fact that had you asked this ole farm boy, from Quebec’s Eastern Townships, ten years ago what his retirement plans were he would have laughed & said he would never be able to afford to retire.

Well times change & we either change with them or drop by the wayside. I was given some excellent advise by a successful businessman, when I first started out, he told me “The secret is knowing when to get out!”. So when a local bus company with around a hundred buses sold, I saw the writing on the wall!

To make a long story, that has been told elsewhere in this blog, short, I bailed, traveled for a couple years & find myself living at Las Brisas in Playa San Diego, El Salvador.

However in his wildest dreams this farm boy never realised the reality of living in paradise, which consists of owning not one but two houses, one of which is occupied by the caretaker & his family, who for a negligible amount of money are looking after cooking, laundry etc.

Like it’s been drilled into the heads of us peasants that only the elite are able to live life with live in help in paradise! Yep but it was all a big lie to keep us down, staying in a frigid country paying outrageous energy costs & merely subsisting on the pittance handed out by social security!

The truth is that anyone willing to find the truth can not only live well in a number of countries, but also provide a living to a local family, on that social security check!

This week has been spent, getting to know my caretaker & his family, making a couple renovations, getting a fridge etc. Wouldn’t have bothered for myself but as mother is 90, did break down & purchase a toilet seat + suicide heater for the shower. Internet stick & satellite dish from Claro working fine as is Tigo’s cell phone.

All in all it’s even better here than I had anticipated, friend of the caretakers installed the shower heater this morning, he will do the toilet seat in the morning while I hang a few pictures, then it’s off to Compalapa to pickup mother who is due in at 16:00 on a medical flight by Air Nunavut. Now that’s different!

Hit the El Salvadorian border (the last one) about 4:00 pm on day 29 & the fun began!

Seems that on my Guatemalan vehicle entry papers they had given me one day to transit the country but I had taken 3, so a letter stating why the delay was in order.

Next The Ministerio de Hacienda (Aduna) had a cow over my van being a tad too old (actually 9 years too old), so that took up a couple hours, especially when I didn’t have the address of the house I bought. Managed to find my lawyers iphone # & got that straightened out.

Next step was to completely unload the van so everything, being brought in, could documented (had been expecting this so no biggie).

Finally 5 hrs later I was cleared to enter my new home country. Have to say that both the inspecting officer & her supervisor were very professional & pleasant throughout the process, with the supervisor constantly apologising for his poor English. Now as it was way past dark & the prudent time for a gringo to be driving in CA, the officers allowed me to park on their patrolled lot for the night (took the extra precaution of hiring a local, who was watching a few trucks, to keep an eye on it also.

Then after a night spent in a local hotel. half a block from the compound where the van was parked, I commenced the final 3 1/2 hrs of my epic road trip! Stopped at a roadside “Mirador Tourista” with a small open air restaurant & had desayuno of huevos, frijoles y platano frito while overlooking the Pacific Ocean with the smell of the sea in the air.

An hour later I pulled into La Libertad, hit the ATM at Biggest then out to Playa San Diego & El Roble Hostel for a much needed cervaza to celebrate the end of a 30 day road-trip!

30 days on the road from Peterborough ON, via Chicago, US Route 66 to the Santa Pier, 14 days & 5020 km with the side trip to Roswell NM. This was followed by a tour through San Diego CA onto Douglas AZ where I entered Mexico for an 8 day excursion through that country, 3 days in Guatemala with an overnight in my beloved Antigua. Arriving at the El Salvador border with the trip meter odometer reading exactly 9,999.9 km, that has to be some kind of an omen!!

Finally arrived at Playa San Diego with 10,138 km wracked up driving solo in a 1993 Ford E350 with a Thomas Minitor body & a 7.3 litre International diesel.

Only repairs on the trip was a muffler in Holbrook AZ. Added 1/2 litre of oil + 3/4 litre tranny fluid.

Spent Friday afternoon arranging for internet (can’t live without that) & a satellite dish. Kind of out in the boonies, 2nd house from the end of the road so no cable available, a Canadian couple staying at the hostel, while awaiting fund transfer, have also purchased a house here in Playa San Diego, but on the beach so I joke with them that they may have`the beach but I have the cows.

Saturday found a bed & a couple things needed for the house but stayed another night at El Roble as mama was cooking her to-die-for popusa’s for cena, one would have to be a fool to miss that & my mama didn’t raise no fools LOL!

So after unwinding for a couple days at El Roble that has just made it into the new edition of Lonely Planet, Sunday I finally moved into my new home, Las Brisas (The Breezes) at Playa San Diego, La Libertad, El Salvador!! 🙂

Three countries + 3 border crossings are now history & there is light at the end of the tunnel & I am pretty sure it’s not a dirty big ole train.

Made it out of Mexico without incident, spent ... [Continue reading this entry]

A few miles south of the city things started changing again as we got into the mountains where it was impossible to make any time, loaded as I was. Towns big enough to have accommodations were virtually nonexistent, resulting in ... [Continue reading this entry]

There is something I have to get of my chest concerning the false perceptions of this country, fostered by subtle government interference of the western news media, which skews the reporting so it is actually propaganda, limiting the average persons ... [Continue reading this entry]

Well we didn’t have one of our finest inspirations when we left Santa Monica Pier shortly after 5:00 pm on a Friday evening!

There was a hotel just up the street from the pier but it was a couple ... [Continue reading this entry]

California wins, hands down the prize for the absolute worst stretch of Interstate bordering the Mother Road in it’s entire length. In fact the Route 66 old alignment is in better shape than California’s stretch of I-4O.

... [Continue reading this entry]

Returned to Route 66 at Clines Corners which consisted of a service center whose humongous store contained the largest collection of kitsch & junk  pertaining to  Route 66, or anything else you could think of, west of the Mississippi.

Sorry folks have been having a great trip & neglecting my blog, full details to come, however spent a night in Albuquerque NM, Holbrook AZ after seeing the awesome Painted Desert, another bight in Needles CA, 2 at the Wigwam ... [Continue reading this entry]

That’s the best word I can find to describe Roswell NM. It doesn’t feel like a city, more like a friendly small town. The wide streets combined with low buildings, gives it an open & free feel, the auction barn ... [Continue reading this entry]