Well it has been a few days so lest anyone think I am dead let me say rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Well I left Chiquilumilla and continued south. Let me say something about the busses around here, they are very colorful and they are all the same type of bus used in the U.S. for school busses. Now you all know that all school busses have an emergency door in the back. So picture this a bus passes me and it is probably doing 45-50 miles per hour and after it passes I see that the rear emergency door is not only open but someone is climbing out the back of it. Now these busses, unlike school busses, have huge luggage racks on top and the ladder to the rack is next to the emergency door. So to continue on the guy grabs on to the ladder and closes the door with his foot and proceeds to start climbing the ladder while the bus is going 50 mph. Who the hell knows what happens next the bus went around a turn. I wonder how many stunt men come from Guatemala. That same day i crossed the border into El Salvador and spent my first night Acajutla. The only thing this town has going for it is that it had the first ATM in the country. And it was about 45 miles inside the country. I was getting a little bit nervous since I had changed my money and had about $16 in my pocket. Actually there was a town before named Cara Sucia (dirty face?) it had an atm but it didn´t like either of my debit cards. So onto Acajutla. What a miserable place. Yes it did have an ATM but that was it. Actually it sort of scared me a little. I actually stayed outside of town in an overpriced motel. So the next morning I took off. The Salvadoran terrain has been long gradual uphills followed by equally as long or longer downhills. The problem is there is no break, as soon as you get to the bottom you have to start climbing again. Lots of up and down and then came the tunnels. All 3 of them. I knew there were 3 becasue the first sign warned me that tunnel no.3 was ahead. Not bad, maybe 50 meters long I just prayed no would come in behind me. Then tunnel no.2 tunnel 2 was relatively long maybe 20-250 meters long. I could barely see in front of me but no one behind me and until I got about half way through the tunnel, no one in front of me. Then a semi comes into the tunnel. He did not turn on his headlights, for what reason I don´t know. An of course instead of staying in his lane he drove in the middle of the tunnel. This got me a little nervous so I went a little further to my side where it was wet and sloped down at an extreme angle. The bike went out from under me and I skinned my elbow and apparently, really badly bruised my shoulder. Any pressure on it whatsoever was absolutely incredibly painful. So I got to La Libertad and rented my hotel room for $8 per day and I´ve been recuperating since then. The day it happened was saturday and the first night was torturous. If I moved at all the pain was excruciating. The pain was such that sleep was impossible. I was beginning to wonder if I had in fact dislocated my shoulder. Arnica was ineffective, aspirin did nothing to help. I did manage to sleep a little by sitting in a chair and putting my feet on my bed. An I noticed the next the pain had gone down. It has been getting better everyday and I think tomorrow I will be able to continue my trip.
Thoughts, comparisons, mental meanderings
In the short time i was there I can think of nothing bad to say about the Guatemalan people. They are all very nice very friendly people. The roads in Guatemala are very good. They have a wide lane in each direction and a large shoulder on the side. Maybe this is because a lot of people use a bicycle for transportation here and the gov´t. accomodates them instead of setting them up as target practice for cars and trucks. They roads are well paved and smooth. Unlike Mexico I never saw any trash along the highway in any part of the country. The poverty in Guatemala is as obvious as in Mexico but it is different somehow, there seems to be somewhat less desperation than in Mexico. I know I´m not doing a very good job of describing it but I really don´t know how else to describe it. The women in Guatemala are attractive in their own way but I still think overall the women in Mazatlan are much more attractive. Maybe nightclub means something different in Guatemala than the U.S. one night when I had finished diner in Guatemela City I thought I´d like to have a couple of beers and I saw a sign that said Paradise NightClub well I guess I should have known something when I got patted down for weapons by a guy in a suit at the door. They then said welcome and I walked into the bar and it turned out to be a whore house. OOPS! Well keeping my eye on my budget and other things I said
no gracias and left.
El Salvador is much the same as Guatemala, the scenery is the same the road is the same although not quite as good as Guatemala. Also there is sometimes garbage on the highway but nothing like Mexico. I guess the difference down in Salvador is that there is a feeling of real desperation everywhere. Whereas I like the people of El salvador I feel like someone is trying to hustle me on regular occasions.
Since I´ve left the mountains and been on the coast the weather has been pretty cooperative. It is often overcast during the day which is nice because it keeps the direct sun off of me. Of course it is also humid. But the pattern now is that it rains late at night and stops during the day. I´m happy I´m not camping in it.
That´s all for now hasta la vista baby
No comments:
Post a Comment