small words, big world

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, making most destinations a short hop from the capital. While travelling through small towns, we can’t help but be reminded of quaint New England towns that spring to life with New Yorkers and Bostonites on the weekends.

Because there are fewer ¨natural wonders¨ here than neighboring countries, local travellers vastly outnumber foreigners. Tourism is growing rapidly as Salvadoreños become more affluent reconstructing after their civil war. Travelling here, there are two distinct experiences, the weekday and the weekend. Weekdays are quiet and relaxing as people go about their business. On the weekends, towns and villages burst into life as families take day-long picnics and the Capitaleños flee the city for a two day break.

No place exemplifies this more than the Ruta de las Flores. During the week in this string of adorable towns, everyone is shut indoors by 7pm and most of the restaurants are closed for business. On the weekends, each town sets up tents in the park of their handicrafts and cuisines, and there is dancing in the streets.

Weekdays and weekends we enjoyed El Salvador for its reliable local pupusa joints and its  gimmicks to attract Capitaleños… and us.

Throughout Suchitoto posters hang for a gallery opening on Sunday. Adam joked they might have wine so we should go, continuing our favorite Pittsburgh habit. I laughed. But lo and behold, before the mid-day sun was beating its hardest, we were sipping iced sangria while perusing paintings of the female body by a popular Salvadoran artist. In this town with two art museums and numerous galleries we even expect this happens regularly. On the contrary, it’s not often that an orchestra plays Tchaikovsky then parades through town with fireworks on every corner. We just happened to be lucky in timing our visit.

Sitting in the central park in the cool evening surrounded by children playing while their parents chat, the city is transformed from a sweltering afternoon ghost town. The next morning will inevitably start off slowly with a stroll down cobblestone streets past whitewashed buildings to our favorite panaderia for a pastry and coffee. We understand that 8am is too early in this laid-back town for all the baking to be finished, so there is no hurry. That’s one of the many reasons we love Suchitoto.

As our bus approached a police checkpoint near the El Salvador border, the bus conductor informed everyone, they would need either their identification or 100 Lempiras ($5) in their hands. The actual border crossing was our easiest yet with a doctor checking for sick people, Honduran and Salvadoran officials, and a money changer all filing through the bus. As a bonus, we didn’t even have to pay any fees or bribes.

15 minutes into El Salvador, we arrived in artsy La Palma, where the base hotel is more expensive but comes with a hammock swinging on a patio, a table and couch, 3 beds, a TV, and hot water. The town’s buildings and electric poles greet you with technicolor murals and whimsical designs. We have already sampled the biggest difference to us so far from Honduras – pupusas. Starting in the evening, pupuserias open up to serve these sealed and grilled tortilla packages filled with cheese, beans, pork, or anything else. We appreciate never again being forced to eat a dinner of eggs, beans, rice and tortillas.

It almost gets repetitive. Great civilization flourishes over a thousand years ago. They abuse their natural resources. They decline rapidly, and all they’re left with is corn and cold showers or illegally immigrating to the USA.

Copan is the proclaimed ¨Paris of the Maya¨ – famous for their intriguing sculpture work and detailed heiroglyphic histories. Due to a historic lack of funding, many sculptures have been stolen and thousands of stones remain unassembled. Luckily, the Maya covered up their old temples with new ones and by digging tunnels archaeologists find a layered history intact.

The sculpture museum here opened barely 10 years ago. Its centerpiece is an imposing full-scale replica of one such underground treasure. Excavation, reconstruction, and an emphasis on preservation of the current findings lead us to believe this will be a spectacular place to visit in 20 years, but it´s still really cool right now.

Stepping into the cold room of Celaque Botanical Gardens is a nice respite from the heat of the Honduran lowlands. Orchids bloom profusely in hundreds of lush different varieties and pleasantly sculpted structures funnel the water into falls. In the canopy, the sounds of chirping birds are piped in through speakers. On the cardboard displays, you read about the monkeys, lizards, and snakes that would inhabit this forest. After your hour long stroll, you sip a cappucino in the cafe.

But no such place exists in Honduras, there is only Celaque National Park. The orchids bloom but need to be found. Every orchid you discover is a different color or shape, elegantly clinging to a tree amongst dense foliage. There is plenty of water, plenty of waterfalls, but sometimes you have to walk through it. Bright red or orange or green birds chirp, darting overhead and through the trees in front of you drawing your eyes away from the views down the steep ridge you are hiking on. Spider monkeys and lizards flee in fear of you, and snakes hiding where orchids might be make you jump. At the end of the day, you emerge from the forest and Doña Alejandra serves you her own special coffee ground with cinnamon and pepper in between grinding corn, kneading dough, and grilling tortillas for your dinner.

We will never see as many orchids as in the New York, Singapore, or even Pittsburgh botanical gardens while hiking in the wild, but it’s nice to leave Disney World.

San Juan, Honduras is a small town on Sunday when the market is open and bustling. On Monday morning, it´s a really small town. We arrived in San Juan after 3 hours of bumpy windy dirt roads North along the old Lenca Route, peers of the Mayas. Amongst the natural attractions of forests and waterfalls, we can say there are two very interesting people here that make the commute worth the trouble.

 Doña Soledad is an 84 year old cheese-making, plantain-selling great-grandmother who rents two rooms for tourists. She also dries, roasts, and brews a mean cup of coffee at any hour of the day. She limits herself to six cups. In this land of broken families and fatherless children, we´ve learned not to ask about husbands. But Doña Soledad waits every night to have dinner with hers. She´s the kind of woman that makes you realize 84 isn´t so old.

We have no idea how old Don Jesus is but he climbs hills to lookout points, has a 3 year old son, and is as wizened a farmer as you will ever meet. He lives a 45 minute walk towards the mountains from town on an almost self-sufficient farm with his family. Don Jesus reads Spanish National Geographic, milks the cows every morning, and smiles when he shows us newborn kittens and his ¨museum¨of collected artifacts and kitsch. He also has a secluded, rustic cabaña for tourists and welcomes them with home-made tamarind juice and fresh pine needle carpeting. Proud to share the bounties of his farm, we feasted on his cheese, corn tortillas, coffee, fruit, and chicken while listening to Honduran instrumentals or Italian Catholic choirs on his portable radio. He´s the kind of man who makes it seem enjoyable to live in a house where the only source of electricity is a car battery.

We know the lives of these characters and their families are made easier by tourism, but the influx of tourists at the Mayan ruins a bus-ride away has passed them by.  It was difficult leaving San Juan after having had such a pleasant time and knowing that it could be another month before more tourists cross their doorsteps.  Visit San Juan.

On our last trip, we went to mostly tea-drinking areas, including New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and India. Even Tanzania, which grows some of the best coffee in the world, is inhabited by tea-drinkers. When we were able to find coffee in those countries, it was almost always instant. We had fortunate tasty exceptions in Vietnam and Egypt, but their rich, concentrated versions were a far cry from the Western cup of joe.

In Central America, they grow and drink a lot of coffee. In Nicaragua, though, most of the coffee is an instant sugary sludge poured out of thermoses into small styrofoam cups. It is as ubiquitous as Starbucks and it got us through the mornings, but that´s about it.

Now in Honduras, they serve us cafe negro at every restaurante, comedor, and cafe. It´s a nice strong cup of coffee that beats the pants off of Maxwell House. The sugar is served on the side.

This morning, we were going to hop the border to El Salvador for a week or two. Then we had a cup of coffee and decided to stay in Honduras for a while longer.

After crossing through the misty mountain pass from Nicaragua to Honduras the first sign of change was our breakfast ‘ rice, beans, eggs, ham, coffee, and mini-tortillas.

Our first bus was still a school bus but our next connections introduced the crazy notion of ticket booths, reclining seats, and company bus terminals. These sound like good improvements but we were getting used to Nicaragua´s convenient pay as you go system and flagging down any bus as it goes by. The bumpier rides and roads also made us pay more attention to the scenery slowly rolling by instead of dissapearing into a book.

The last difference we´ve noticed in this day of border crossing and transit is the Americanization. We can walk to Wendy´s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesar´s (?!), and soon a Dunkin´Donuts. This is decidedly not an improvement, at least for us.

Breakfast in Nicaragua is one of two options.
1) A pastry from the panederia or street corner
2) ¨Desayuno¨ which means gallopinto (rice and beans), eggs, queso, tortillas, and optional meat, served with a sugary sweet black coffee.

If we opt for #2, we wouldn´t need anything else until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Otherwise, we line up with the Nicas promptly at 12:30PM for the freshest steaming buffet, an overflowing plate of rice, beans, plantains (sweet or green), a starchy casserole option, salad, and chicken or beef, fried, grilled, or sauced up with spiceless jalapeños.

Weekends are a special treat of ¨nacatamales¨ for breakfast/lunch, a jumbo banana-leaf wrapped tamale with mushy cornmeal holding together potatoes, pork, and a slice of tomato.
Another specialty is Monday mondongo soup. For those that are aware this is tripe, you may not have been as excited to order it as we were on our third Monday in Nicaragua. Still, it tastes better than you would guess, and really is enough to satisfy even Adam for a whole day.

The night-time options are buffet leftovers, a fancy restaurant, or what the locals eat, food from the street vendors. Hamburgers and hot dogs are the most popular amongst the locals – both redeemed by their tasty rolls and ridiculous amount of pickled condiments. Mostly, we rely on the more traditional street vendors grilling up fried tacos, enchiladas, and meat.

All meals, even breakfast, are served up with a jar of the local ¨chile¨, ranging from mildly spiced pickled onions to habañero puree to generic tabasco.

Lastly, the best part of Nicaraguan cuisine is the beverages. Refrescos Naturales come in an endless variety of fresh fruit and spice mixtures, tasty, cheap, and excellently refreshing on a hot day. Our favorite is orange/carrot. When we can find real coffee, the coffee is to die for. The beer is mediocre, but hits the spot after a day of hiking. The Nicaraguan rum is so deliciously sippable that we weren´t even tempted to buy 1.5 liters of Bacardi for $5.

After 3 weeks and 2 days, we had our first hot shower in Nicaragua. In the lowlands, cold showers were a refreshing afternoon break, but taking them in the mornings or evenings when the weather cooled was avoided. As we ascended in elevation, the weather and water cooled which made even afternoon showers unpleasant.

Finally, in a forest ¨resort¨, our baseline room included a hot shower. We rejoiced at this new luxury. Unfortunately, the next town experienced a water problem and no showers – hot or cold – were to be had. We won´t discuss the state of the toilets. When we woke up the next morning with no electricity as well, we knew it was time to move on.