i heart el salvador

so, were gonna start from backwards, if that makes sense. im on the first fast computer i have been on since i landed in this amoeba-infested land of beauty and i can finally type with a third of my mental ramble so i hope theres some good flow here. im in a mall in san salvador that reminds me of overland park, kansas or any other suburb mall with a lot of lights, huge tvs, large folks gorging on something excessively sweet, kids yelling at parents (though, a lot less here), random massage machines made of water and folks hawking anything and everything under the sun.

i stopped by here cause im hoping to catch a friend whos staying across the street and i figured it was worth the experience to rock the internet amongst the corporate throngs...even if i wont be able to swallow for a few weeks cause my integrity is caught in my throat.

think of a corporate chain and it is in this town. my bus pickup to venture to the romero museum is in front of the fucking blockbuster, to roll into town i need to forge my way through mcds, burger king and campeo -- more or less kfc but better, so some say.

i fell in love with el salvador the second i crossed the border and got {questioned} by an immigration official that just wanted to talk politics and see where else ive been. nothing like drawing a map of nagorno karabakh and talking oil politics. love it.

the last few weeks has been a hodgepodge of mountain villages, volcanoes, incredible juice, exceptionally warm people and the flow of buses like you wouldnt believe. for a while i thought i had the special touch cause i was catching buses like carlton fisk caught behind homeplate -- solid, routine and with no excess of energy expended. for real, i thought i was the golden child of travel for a few until a driver noted the ridiculously fast rhythm of all buses in el salvador...then he dropped me off at a random intersection where i waited an hour and read the same three pages of 100 years of solitude around 30 times. murphys law.

a few brubujas from the last few week: mountain air and a town of people all producing one persons art for mass consumption. the entire fucking town, yall. check out las palmas, el salvador. trees and the smile of earth, reunited once again. split for the bus and the mountain town of suchitoto and have the surreal timing of a, meeting aryeh in a sea of red (fmln rally) and dancing and chatting all night AND b having the timing coincide with the 45 year anniversary of the peace corps so attending their {function} and trying to wrap my mind around that...and sliding in chats about tlc or cafta in the states with the ambassador...got nowhere. no surprise, but i learned he has a huge house on a secluded island. tough.

suchitoto is a town that deserves a story or two. while i was there i was routinely greeted by cackling birds and trickling waterfalls. i had one of those hikes that where one fears for his or her life while on the hike and then feels alive and like a badasssssss when one is done. a glorious frolik down to a group of waterfalls with two pools to swim in, slippery rocks to fall-off of and of course the friendly, low flying bats or birds or whatever the fuck that haunt my nights. on the way back i got lost and literally had to indian-jones it with twine and swings and jumping and gliding from cavern to cavern. fucking brilliant but i tore my pants for the third time and decided i could no longer let the package breathe to such an egregious extent. i now have nice linen pants i bought a few towns down the road from a woman that loved god and talking about god more than jesus himself. the longest and most difficult experience i have had trying to buy pants since i tried to haggle with a smoked-out hippie running a thrift store that needed thirty minutes to debate the 50cent difference. why did i stick around and wait, cause that 50 cents just bought me a jug of fresh oj, yall!

back to suchi and random folks like tito who is 25 and has a smile like a child that rockwell might of painted who loves his parakeets and macaws and talks soo sweet i really wish i had a recorder. also, his boss that invited me to sit in these MASSIVE chairs they put in the road and just watch the day pass...of course, we talked politics and they threw down their version of history and whatnot. loved it.

met a norwegian woman, need i say tall, and she and i had a day of rambling and i got to learn of her and four other womens project in a village up the road an hour in a community that as a group fled during the war, lived in panama for ten years and then returned to el salvador and had to fight for their right to land. needless to say i visited those cats, stayed the night, got some good history lessons, embraced the hammock and rose with the sun and rolled with the morning dew to santa ana and lago de coatepeque -- a volcanic lake that is clear and cold and was very, very needed.

before i go on, back to suchitoto adn my love for cigars. some know this, others not so much, but, i love cigars and clearly, i love commas as well. back in the day i think it was a way to embrace the manly side of my father...ill just let that sit for now, then my uncle got me hooked and when i have the opportunity to smoke a cigar that an 85 year old woman rolled im gonna drink that stick, for shizzle. amazing times.

so, the lake and random chats and a cold ass night of sleep in a hammock cause i ran out of money and my charm did no wonders on the cat or anyone else. all in all a delightful experience and a treat, for sure.

then, i started the path of the flowers. all of these little mountain towns with artisans and random festivals, trees and glorious paths to get lost on, or not. some highlights were a sunset run to a small lake, apaneca, and racing political trucks with loudspeakers and out of principal not getting a ride with the wrong party even though i was hella, hella tired and out of shape.

street soccer is what makes the world go around. after this epic run and chat with the only family that lives on this lake in a crater in the shadow of a tippy volcano -- see if you can get a picture, a - fucking - mazing...i got back to town and joined a game where i held my own for the first time. it was great cause a few days before i played with the kids in copapayo, the community i mentioned above, and got kid-handled and relearned my inadequacies as a northener. im just waiting for my chance to play basketball...i will school some kids down here. ill just have to make sure they are not over 18 and 5-10...the latter shouldnt be too hard.

woke up with crazy pains and ill write a few notes on that cause i know some of yall dont like the bowel movement stories but seeing this is my journal....hang in there. i did!