Rain Damage in El Salvador

As some of you may have heard or read in the news, well over a hundred lives were lost last weekend in El Salvador as a result of the flooding and landslides caused by the heavy rain. Basically, the poor of the country cannot afford to live in areas that are well-insulated from weathering elements, and many of them resort to living in potential landslide areas. While people were still sleeping on early Sunday, the rain grew very heavy and buried entire houses or townships under the mud. It has been several days, and the death tolls are still rising steadily as they search for the missing people.

Even areas near lakes and the ocean were severely impacted. A country club that Geoff and I had only very recently visited near Lago de Ilopango was completely destroyed. One of my friends who lives by the beach said that although her particular area (El Tunco) is fine, just down the street (within about a 15-minute drive), other people had to swim to get out of the shoulder-high muddy water. Those people lost their homes and all of their clothes and their belongings in the flood. The situation is very sad, because I am not sure whether there is a plan yet for helping the people rebuild their homes, beyond providing them with immediate relief. One of the American teacher's maid lost her nephew, her nephew's wife, and their 7-year-old child in the flood. Her own home is destroyed as well, but her family's lives were spared as they had been staying with her sister for the weekend.

The irony is that our lives, for the most part, were relatively unaffected by the rain. Geoff and I were out late last Saturday at the Marine Birthday Ball held by the US Embassy, and didn't get home until about 5am Sunday. Sure, it was raining for a good amount of the time, but we had no idea the extent of damage that the rain had done to other people's lives until we woke up with a slight hangover and read the news Sunday afternoon. It's just another example of the vast disparity between the social classes here in El Salvador...

Please keep El Salvador's victims in your prayers. If you wish to help out in some way financially, Tim's blog post lists some options for donations at the bottom.

Guatemala!

Geoff, Colleen, Eric, and I had a most unforgettable weekend in Guatemala! I won't go into all the details here, but some unpleasant things happened on our way back from Guate and we were delayed a day in getting back to work. We also experienced various car troubles throughout the trip, which were worrisome only because they meant that we had to get out in rural areas to fix the muffler or to crash in a random rural town for the night. At one point, our brakes overheated and started to fail while descending very steep mountainous roads. (None of us even knew that overheating was possible for brakes!) It was scary as shit, as Eric would say...

Alas, we made it back safely! So, let's focus on how beautiful the rest of the weekend was. This weekend lasted 4 days long, in celebration of Central American independence from Spain*, so the crew had decided that we would take the opportunity to go across the border to check out Antigua and Lake Atitlan, both located in Guatemala. As it turns out, Antigua is a beautiful cobble-stoned city that has retained much of its colonial look and feel, but mixed in with an international crowd and awesome restaurants and bars. Geoff and I loved Cafe No Se, which is a bar with an eclectic crowd, great tequila (although they call it something else there), and very interesting internal decor. The town is also filled with colonial ruins, and just generally had a lot of character. It being independence weekend, there were performers and crowds galore, and we had a fun time just walking around this pedestrian-friendly tourist town. At night, Geoff and I closed down Cafe No Se (which wasn't hard to do -- bars closed in the town at 1am).

The next day, we set out for Chichitenango, which has a weekly Sunday market that sells everything from food to traditional goods. Geoff and I had been looking for a cheap and water-proof hammock, which we found there for 150 quetzales. (The exchange rate is about 8 quetzales to 1 dollar, so it was a pretty good deal. Similar hammocks we found in El Salvador for at least twice the cost!) Geoff also began shopping for his parents for Christmas, since we saw something very unique that they would like. I bought a traditional weaved Guatemalan skirt, along with a belt (also weaved/embroidered) to hold it up. Colleen and Eric bought a ton more stuff than us, so it was a good day trip for everyone. :) At night, our brakes failed while on the way to Lago de Atitlan, so we decided to crash in a small town called San Juan to wait for the daylight to come. In San Juan (a tiny town about 15 or 20 minutes from the lake), we found a hotel right across the street from the police station. There, all of us just relaxed and chatted, finishing the bottle of wine that we had brought on the trip...

As it turns out, the brakes often fail for cars going down those windy mountainous roads, because of how many tumulos (speed bumps) there are, the steep grade of the roads, and the many sharp turns that lead to the bottom of the mountains. The mechanic told us not to worry, so we headed on down to Lake Atitlan on Monday to enjoy the beautiful view. Lake Atitlan is amazing! It's huge and gorgeous, surrounded by volcanic mountains, and has really cool little bars and restaurants -- and hippies! I think I had the most amazing sandwich of my life there, at an organic bar called Freedom. (I don't even like sandwiches normally!) During the day, we also took the boats out to another town, hiked a little, and then jumped off a cliff! Everyone else (Geoff, Colleen, and Eric) had done something like it before, except for me, so I was scared as hell. The cliff was about 20 to 30 feet according to Geoff and Colleen, and there were rocks in the water. The lake itself was really, really deep, so we weren't really worried about hitting the bottom of the lake, as long as we could jump far enough to get away from the rocky shore. Anyway, I put my hand over my heart and felt my heart pumping like crazy, and when I jumped, Geoff was scared out of his mind because he saw me almost hitting the side of the cliff and going with my head first into the water. It was so fast, I really didn't know what was going on, but I felt a little dizzy upon entering the water, like someone had hit me over the head. Fortunately, I was OK and didn't pass out or anything. :) Colleen and Eric helped guide me to the shore, because I was feeling a little disoriented at that point. Honestly, I don't know if I will do it again. I really wanted to do it this time, just to know what it feels like. Not sure if I should tempt fate in the future, especially because I was so clumsy about it this time. :)

All in all, we had a brilliant time. (I'll post pictures very soon, I promise!) The only bummer is that I had to miss work today, because I had been looking forward to a really productive day at school with the kids, and returning late from Guate definitely is going to throw things off. But, I'm really glad to be home after a long weekend, and in the grand scheme, things could have certainly been a lot worse. :)

Ciao! Next weekend is Geoff's and my three-year anniversary! I almost can't believe it; time has really flown by!

*Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador all celebrate their independence from Spain on September 15.

Climbing Volcano Izalco

A few weeks ago, when Geoff and I drove out to see Volcano Izalco for the first time, we had found out from the locals that there are guided tours to climb the volcano. The tours cost $1, and they start actually at a recreational campsite on top of a nearby volcano, Cerra Verde. We had decided that this sounded like a climb not to be missed, so yesterday, with a group of other teachers, we set out to climb the volcano.

To give a little bit of background about this volcano, Izalco had been continuously active between the 1700s and 1966, and was called the "Lighthouse of the Pacific", because ships would use its light to help guide their navigation at night. It is perfectly cone-shaped, and has a height of 650 meters, with a crater that measures 40 meters deep and 200 meters wide. At some point, some businessman decided to build a hotel on top of the nearby dormant volcano Cerra Verde, to try and make a profit off of the beautiful erupting Izalco. The hotel costed a lot of money to build, and you were supposed to be able to have a beautiful night view of the erupting volcano from the hotel. But, as the local lores have it, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano erupted for the last time! Nature, in fact, had the last laugh... :)

Since its last eruption was relatively recent, Volcano Izalco still looks like a pile of rocks, only sparsely covered with vegetation. The so-called "path" to the top is also rough, at best. Most people in my group were in great shape, but I was pretty nervous ascending the volcano. I had to grab on to the rocks for the most part, and to lean into the mountain because I was nervous that I would slip down the side of the steep mountainside. At one point, I fell and was lying flat on the ground, because the rocks I was grabbing onto were loose and slippery themselves. When, finally, we got to the top, the view from top of the volcano was absolutely stunning! You are literally sitting on the edge of the crater, looking both into the crater of the volcano and looking out to the surrounding farmland! We walked almost all the way around the crater to the vent that was still emitting hot steam from underground. (Oddly, it didn't smell like sulfur, unlike the volcanoes I remember visiting in Hawaii.) Geoff and I had brought some bread, so we had a quick bite at the top before it came time to head back down. (By that time, the clouds had set in, and the view was obstructed. It was pretty clear that the guides wanted to get back before the rain would arrive, because I can imagine that hiking down that already-slippery mountainside in the rain would NOT be fun!)

Climbing down the volcano was much easier than going up, I thought, even though the gravel was definitely loose under our feet, and you slip downwards with every step. I fell once on the way down and was cut on a sharp rock, adding to my battle wound scratch marks for the day. The hardest part of the whole day was that after we had descended Izalco, we still needed to climb back up the other mountain -- to an even higher ground than the summit of Izalco -- to get back to our cars on top of Cerra Verde! Holy smack. That trail is well-paved and maintained, but the steepness of the incline makes it really exhausting. By the time we finally got back to the top, everyone was eager for some drinks and food.

We wrapped up the beautiful day by driving down the mountain to Lago de Coatepeque. The last time Geoff and I had gone there, we had found a nice little "restaubar" that is right on the water. This time, the gang went to the same place to grab some food and drinks, and Geoff and Greg both went for a quick dip in the lake. It was a perfect wind-down time after a day of hiking! I think everybody had a really great time. Even the weather remained beautiful the rest of the afternoon! :)

--Oh, and throughout the day, we had continued to encounter some amazing wildlife. Geoff took a picture of a giant grasshopper on top of the volcano; it was about 2/3 the length of my hand! And earlier, during our drive, Geoff and I had seen a vulture dragging a roadkill off to the side. We continued to see similar (big) black birds -- maybe vultures, maybe hawks -- as we were climbing the volcano...

I love El Salvador. I miss many things about New York City, but I really love it here. :)