San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas 5 al 16 de Septiembre

Dejamos San Salvador para dirigirnos hacia en noroeste, al Estado mexicano de Chiapas. El viaje duró unas 12 horas y la mitad del camino tuvimos a un norteamericano de Atlanta, de 69 años que no paraba de contarnos cosas con un fuerte acento sureño. Lo más divertido que escuché en esas seis horas de monólogo fue que no bebía agua. Solo bebe pepsi porque dice que el agua no le aporta nada a su cuerpo.... Llegamos de noche a la ciudad de Tapachula al sur de Chiapas y tras buscar un hostal económico (no había muchos) fuimos a cenar unos tacos mexicanos.
Al día siguiente fuimos hacia el corazón de Chiapas, San Cristóbal de las Casas! Es una ciudad preciosa que recomiendo a todo el que esté leyendo esto. Hay muchísimas cosas que ver y hacer por aquí y no es la imagen que tenía de Mexico. Es muy limpia, segura y se come bastante bien.
San Cristóbal de las Casas fue fundada en 1.528 por Diego de Mazariegos y debe su nombre al obispo Bartolomé de las Casas que fue uno de los pocos que defendió a los indígenas durante la conquista española. Chiapas tiene alrededor de un 20% de población indígena descendiente de los mayas (la más alta de Mexico) y puedes verlos con sus llamativos trajes andando por las calles mientras venden artesanías, principalmente textiles. En México hay 62 lenguas indígenas (180 antes de la llegada de los españoles) como el Nahuatl, Tsotsil, Tzeltal o el Lacandón. Como decidimos visitar una de las comunidades Tsotsiles, hemos hecho un curso intensivo de Tsotsil, una de las lenguas mayas más habladas en la zona. No es que vayamos a escribir el blog en Tsotsil desde ahora, hehe pero pudimos preguntar cosas básicas a los indígenas como Kuxa elan? ¿Como estás?, Lek oyun estoy bien, Kusi abi? ¿Cómo te llamas?, Bu likemotal? ¿De dónde eres?, likemutal ta España soy de España...... Fue muy interesante aprender a chapurrear algunas frases en un idioma maya.
El clima es algo fresco durante la noche (estamos a 2.100 metros de altitud) y muy agradable durante el día. En la ciudad hay una catedral y más de una docena de iglesias con distintos colores. Una noche fuimos a tomar algo y conocimos a dos hermanos, Juan Carlos y Fernando con los que hablamos de cantantes como Joaquín Sabina, Amaya Montero a la que Fernando conocía y hombres G ya que eran los ídolos de Juan Carlos. Después fuimos a otro bar con ellos y conocimos a un grupo de ingleses y alemanes. También descubrimos que Juan Carlos hace doblaje de películas en Mexico y puso la voz del guasón (joker) de la versión mexicana de Dark Night de Batman. Doblabá a Heath Ledger y nos hizo una demostración a todos que nos hizo reir durante horas.
Visitamos el museo Na Bolom (casa del Jaguar) fundado por Franz Blom y su esposa Gertrude Duby. Franz Blom fue un arqueólogo danés que tras estudiar en Harvard vino a Chiapas en 1.919 a buscar petróleo y se encontró con una comunidad de indígenas conocida como los Lacandones. Dejó la empresa petrolera y dedicó su vida a estudiar y ayudar a estos indígenas- Su esposa, era una fotógrafa suiza que documentó con miles de fotografías a esta tribu indígena. A diferencia de los Tzeltales, Tsotsiles y demás, estos indígenas (Lacandones) nunca estuvieron en contacto con los conquistadores ya que viven en una selva sin ningún interés mineral. Por lo tanto están considerados como los descendientes mayas más puros, no conocen el español, ni fueron cristianizados como el resto de comunidades por lo que aún creen en un dios maya con un nombre muy extraño. Lo malo es que sólo quedan 400 lacandones en la actualidad y como sólo se casan entre ellos empieza a haber un alto número de enfermedades genéticas como albinismo, mongolismo, etc. En la actualidad se les está convenciendo de que se mezclen con otros grupos indígenas para que no desaparezcan. En el museo Na Bolom, conocimos a un chico inglés, Alex, con el que estuvimos tomando un café mientras pasaba la tormenta- Alex ha vivido casi toda su vida en Chipre y se muda a Londres para trabajar una vez termine de viajar- por el momento está viajando por su cuenta por la misma zona que nosotros y probablemente volvamos a encontrarnos con él en Belice o Guatemala....

El Salvador Part Two - Suchitoto and San Vicente

29/08/09-03/09/09

By far the nicest of all the places we visited in El Salvador was the small town of Suchitoto, an hour and a half´s bus ride from San Salvador. It is completely geared towards tourism with a plethora of hotels, bars and restaurants and yet it has still retained its charm with its cobbled streets, colonial architecture and friendly locals. On the day we went there, we think they were celebrating independence from Spain, (we don´t know for sure), but the main square was filled with people in uniform and several musicians, making for a great atmosphere. Half an hour´s walk from the centre is the Touristic Port Centre, where you can buy handicrafts from local artesans and enjoy a meal at one of the several restaurants, with a great view of Lake Suchitlán. They usually have boat rides around the lake, with the chance to visit a couple of islands, but it wasn´t possible for us to get a boat, as the lake had been invaded with plants. When we had first arrived I had thought that the lake was quite small, but that was because all the greenery I was seeing was in fact the lake, but the water was no longer visible :)

On our last day in El Salvador, we moved back to the first hotel we had stayed in at the Ticabus terminal and arranged tickets to Tapachula, Mexico for the following day. We then went to the small and rather uninteresting town of San Vicente, another hour and a half´s journey by bus. We had read somewhere that San Vicente had a museum with information about the civil war, which occurred here between 1980 and 1992, but after asking a couple of people where it was and being told that they hadn´t ever heard of a museum, we assumed that we must have been mistaken and so we just walked around for a while, visiting the two churches, neither of which were anything spectacular, and making a trip to the post office to send a postcard, which Vic had been carrying around since San Juan del Sur :)

Before making our way back to San Salvador we bought ice creams at a small shop and the owner kindly provided us with chairs so that we could rest for a while and enjoy them sitting down :) We obviously got chatting to him and found out that he was a teacher at one of the local schools. He also told us a bit about the war and how he fled San Vicente to avoid the fighting, first of all staying in the country but in the safety of the mountains, and then later fleeing completely to Costa Rica, where I assume he stayed until the war ended. A permanent problem in El Salvador is the amount of earthquakes that occur. In 2001 the small country experienced two severe earthquakes within one month of each other, the second one causing much damage to San Vicente, and which was followed by several aftershocks, at the time rendering it almost impossible to rebuild. Thankfully, San Vicente appears to have recovered since then.

Tomorrow (04/09) we´re off to Chiapas, the 8th biggest and most southern state of Mexico and we can´t wait. We´ll tell you all about it soon so keep reading :)

Suchitoto y San Vicente 2 y 3 de Septiembre

Después de la visita a Panchimalco (pueblo a 15 kilómetros al sur de San Salvador), visitamos dos pueblos más en El Salvador. Suchitoto, a unos 35 kilómetros al norte y Sa n Vicente a unos 30 kilómetros al Este. Suchitoto es sin duda el pueblo más bonito que hemos visto en este pequeño país. Tiene casas coloniales, con techos de teja rojiza y calles empedradas. Si caminas al final del pueblo llegas a un embalse donde normalmente puedes alquilar unas barcas. No tuvimos suerte ya que el día que fuimos allí, había muchos lirios en el agua y las barcas no podían salir a navegar. Decidimos comer junto al embalse porque aún así la vista era muy bonita. El último día en El Salvador lo pasamos al este de la capital, en San Vicente. Habíamos oído que había un museo de la guerra civil (1.980-1.992) pero al parecer no era verdad! Visitamos varias iglesias y una moderna catedral (la vieja se cayó en el terremoto del 2.001) En una de las iglesias tienen a un Santo gallego asesinado en el siglo VII que no sabemos que conexión tiene con El Salvador..... Compramos unos helados en una librería y nos sentamos a charlar con el dueño que era un maestro de la localidad. Nos contó cosas de la guerra y de como tuvo que huir por las montañas primero y por mar después hacia Costa Rica. La guerra terminó en 1.992, triunfando los revolucionarios del FMLN (Frente Faribundo Martí de Liberación Nacional)

El Salvador no nos ha parecido un país tan interesante como como Costa Rica y Nicaragua por lo que decidimos no pasar más tiempo por aquí y dirigirnos al bonito estado mexicano de Chiapas! (De momento saltamos Guatemala ya que solo nos quedan unas tres semanas de visado en esta zona -Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador y Guatemala expiden 90 días para los cuatro países juntos y queremos dedicarle cuatro o cinco semanas a Guatemala, uno de los países más fascinantes según los viajeros que hemos conocido. Nuestro plan desde ahora es Mexico (Chiapas y Yucatán) Belice, quizás Honduras y finalmente Guatemala aunque puede que terminemos haciendo Guatemala antes de Belice si se confirma la visita de Tony, hermano de Lauren, a Belice.)

El Salvador Part One - San Salvador and Panchimalco

29/08/09-03/09/09

As if we had not already been to the cinema enough in the past few weeks, on the morning of our first full day in San Salvador we went to see the new Harry Potter film. I had first heard that it was being shown when we were still teaching in Nicaragua, but not having a cinema anywhere nearby meant that I had to wait. By the time we got to a place where there was a cinema, however, they had already stopped showing it, so when I saw that it was still showing in San Salvador, I was over the moon. Usually, all the English-speaking films are shown in English with Spanish subtitles here, which is great for me, as I always prefer a film in its original language. Unfortunately that wasn´t the case with Harry Potter, which they were showing in Spanish, so not only did I not understand everything, but in general I didn´t find it all that good. I don´t know what anyone else thought about it? The films will never be as good as the books, but the latest one just doesn´t seem to have much of a story. I will have to watch it again in English to see if it changes my mind at all :)

Our first impression of San Salvador was not a great one, and our impression didn´t change much during the week that we spent there. It´s very hot, dirty and polluted...the several ancient buses running around town emit clouds of black smoke, which force you to hold your breath when they go past. There are also people selling food at little stalls all over the place meaning that it smells wherever you go and there is rubbish everywhere! One afternoon when we went to see the few sights that the city has to offer, we were pleased to find that at least this area felt a bit cleaner and was even quite pretty. The cathedral is relatively modern, but is quite striking, both inside and out, and adjacent to it on another side of the main square is the National Palace, which we visited inside another day, and which served as the base for the three powers of State until 1974. There is a green room which served as the President´s office, a yellow room, which was the seat of the Supreme Court, and a blue room, which was home to the Legislative Assembly. If the number of seats on show in the room reflect the size of the Assembly at that time, it must have been quite small as there were only 32 seats. Nowadays the Assembly is made up of 84 deputies. The current building dates from the beginning of the 20th century, the original building having been destroyed in a fire in 1899. The idea for a National Palace was originally suggested by General Gerardo Barrios, and the main square on which the palace and cathedral sit is dedicated to this national icon. The first day we visited the square they were celebrating the centenary of his death and the army were holding a concert in his memory. The army´s orchestra were playing and there were several soldiers around the square with guns, I assume keeping an eye on everything. We watched for half an hour or so, and it was great to see something that was obviously so important to the local people. (There is a short video of part of the concert below).



Another thing that wasn´t great in El Salvador was the food. There are fast food places everywhere (Pizza Hut, Burger King and Pollo Campero, which is similar to KFC) and local food does not seem very easy to come by. We managed to find decent local food for a reasonable price a few times, but on several occasions we ended up taking the easy and unhealthy option of fast food. Also, the bars and restaurants close really early, at around 8pm-9pm, so if you leave it a bit late for dinner, you end up going hungry. One evening at around 9pm we were walking around trying to find somewhere open to eat, and all we managed to buy were some chips from one of those food stalls. They were good chips but it´s hardly what you could call a wholesome dinner :) Oh well!!!

Only spending a week in El Salvador obviously meant that we would not have the opportunity to see much of the country, but whenever we could we spent the day visiting places of interest near to the capital. The first village we visited was Panchimalco, which we had been told was one of the few remaining places where you could still see indigenous people wearing the traditional clothing and speaking their indigenous language. Unfortunately we didn´t see anything near as interesting (the only traditional clothing we saw was on little dolls in the local museum) and even the churches were closed the day we went, so we went back to San Salvador feeling a little disappointed. The highlight of the visit was when we got chatting to a couple of locals during lunch, one of whom had spent some time in Barcelona. Needless to say, he and Vic got talking about football and the rivalry between Real and Barcelona :) As we were about to leave we were treated to a cup of atol de elote, which is a kind of hot soup made from corn, but which they add a lot of sugar to to make it sweet. It is a common dessert here and we both really liked it :) On the way to Panchimalco we had also met a very friendly old man who was asking with interest about where we were from and telling us about other places that we could visit nearby. When we asked him if Panchimalco was nice, he said quite honestly that he didn´t like it, so I suppose we should have known then not to expect too much :) It was better than spending another day in San Salvador though. Our next two visits were to the towns of Suchitoto and San Vicente, more about them to follow in the next post.

San Salvador y Panchimalco 28 de Agosto al 3 de Septiembre

Dejamos Managua en un bus a las 5am con destino San Salvador, la capital de El Salvador. Cruzamos la frontera con Honduras y más tarde con el Salvador sin demasiados problemas. San Salvador es una ciudad bastante fea. Es caotica, muy contaminada debido a la gran cantidad de buses de los años 80 que emiten gran cantidad de humo negro. Cuando se juntan varios cerca de donde caminamos es mejor aguantar la respiración unos segundos. Tambien es muy sucia ya que hay una gran cantidad de mercados ambulantes con puestos a los lados de la calle que llenan de desperdicios las aceras. Caminar es más seguro que en Managua aunque tampoco es muy agradable por el hacinamiento de los puestos y las constantes llamadas de atención de los vendedores. La moneda local ha desaparecido. Según nos comentó un taxista, en 2001 pusieron a circular el dólar americano y dijeron que circularían la suya (el colón slavadoreño) y el dólar. Con el tiempo fueron retirando su moneda y ahora solo usan dólares. Los taxis son amarillos con unas franjas de cuadros blanquinegras (exactamente una copia de los taxis de Nueva York que podemos ver en las películas.) La ciudad es una mezcla de puestos callejeros y modernos centros comerciales con mucha fast food (Burger King, Pizza Hut, Pollo Campero, Mr Donuts, etc)
Los dos mayores problemas sociales que tiene el Salvador son las Maras (pandilleros de los barrios marginales) y el narcotráfico. Afortunadamente no conocimos ninguno de estos tipos. Visitamos el Palacio Nacional, un impresionante edificio de finales del S. XIX y principios del S. XX donde se reunían los tres poderes del Estado hasta 1.972. Hay un salón verde que era el despacho del Presidente, un salón azul donde se reunía el legislativo, con tan solo 32 diputados y con unos escritorios más propios de una escuela que de un parlamento y finalmente un salón amarillo para el Tribunal Supremo. En la entrada del Palacio Nacional hay una estatua de Carlos I (donada por España) ya que fue este rey español quien le concedio a San Salvador la categoría de ciudad (creo que en 1.535 aunque no recuerdo bien....)
Un día aprovechamos para salir del bullicio de San Salvador y visitarl pueblo de Panchimalco. En el bus, hablamos con un campesino muy simpático que nos indicó donde debíamos bajarnos y que nos preguntó con curiosidad sobre Inglaterra y España. Panchimalco no tiene mucho de interés.... dos iglesias que estaban cerradas y el pollo con arroz fueron lo mejor de la visita. En el bar donde comimos nos invitaron a beber atol de elote que es una bebida hecha con maiz y que parece una papilla. Por último, vimos una carta de Bill Clinton que visitó este pueblo cuando era presidente!

First Taste of the Carribean: Bluefields,Nicaragua

24/08/09-28/08/09

Following our reluctant stay in Managua, the next morning we were up at 3.15am to catch a 5am bus to Rama, from where we could take a 2-hour speed boat ride to Bluefields, on the Carribean coast of Nicaragua. The journey to Rama took about 7 hours, with very few stops, none of which provided an opportunity to get any decent food, although thinking about it, it probably wasn´t such a bad thing as the boat ride to Bluefields was extremely bumpy...not something you want to experience on a full stomach :) Vic and I, along with another Spanish couple, managed to get the worst seats in the boat. Right at the front, where it is the most bumpy, and facing backwards. On top of that it was the middle of the day and therefore extremely hot and sunny. I had my eyes shut for most of the journey, as it was hard to keep them open at the speed we were travelling, but what I did see of the journey was very beautiful. The boat trip takes you along the Rio Escondido (hidden river) and along the way are several small huts, the simple and modest homes of indigenous families still inhabiting the area. There are two indigenous tribes that remain in Bluefields, the miskitos and the garífunas. With two hours between Rama and Bluefields, the families that live in the middle of the two appear to be completely isolated. We saw a few local people using small speed boats, but it seems that most families only have small rowing boats or canoes, which would probably mean half a day´s journey to get to either of the two ports. I assume they must be very self-sufficient, and I wouldn´t be surprised if there were at least a couple of people within the community that make a regular journey to do a big shop for everyone. The people tend to work together a lot more here!

Bluefields is the oldest and most important port town on the Carribean coast of Nicaragua. Long ago it used to be a British Protectorate and so one of the major languages spoken here is English, along with Creole, similar to English but more difficult for us to understand :) The population mainly consists of people of African descent (the British introduced Jamaican slaves to the area when it was British territory) and mestizos (a mix of Spanish and indigenous peoples). It doesn´t have much in the way of sights and we didn´t like it all that much, but it serves as a base to visit the Corn Islands, an 8-hour boat ride away. There are only a couple of boats per week so we got to spend a day and a half in Bluefields before the next boat left. We tried to buy tickets in advance to ensure we had a seat but we were told that it was only possible to buy tickets on the day of travel, which meant that on the Wednesday we were up early to start queuing at 6am to make sure we got tickets. The ticket office didn´t actually open until 7.15am, and although there weren´t a huge amount of people in front of us, the tickets sold out within about 10 minutes :( It seems that a lot of tickets had been sold in advance!!!, which we had been told was impossible a couple of days ago. We could not believe it! It also didn´t help that several people in front of us had bought tickets for other people not in the queue and so the few remaining available tickets were soon accounted for.

We then found out that there was another boat heading to the Corn Islands at the same time (9am) that very day. It was a private boat that was primarily used for tranporting goods but that could also carry passengers. We managed to find the captain and bought two tickets...phew! All this time we had been accompanied by Sophie and Audrey, two lovely French girls who were staying in the same hostel us and who we had met on our first day in Bluefields. Once they had their tickets as well, the four of us rushed back to the hostel to get our bags and then rushed back to the port again to find a space on the boat. There must have been all of about 12 seats on board (well that´s all that I saw anyway)...the rest of the passengers were seated on the floor. We managed to find a space to accommodate all four of us and so from 8am we waited, and waited and waited. 9am came and went, as did 10am, 11am and 12pm. Just after midday, the captain appeared and told us all to get off the boat, as there were too many people on board and not everyone had purchased a ticket. We felt confident in the knowledge that we had our tickets, but then they started calling out passenger names from some kind of list that they had made up, and to each of these passengers they gave a life-jacket, which was necessary for the journey. They didn´t have enough life-jackets for even half of the passengers waiting to get back on the boat. It was an absolute nightmare!!! Eventually, more life-jackets materialised from somewhere, but there was such a mad rush to get them that it was almost impossible to get anywhere near to the man handing them out. Vic was great and after some skillful manoeuvering he finally managed to get life-jackets for all four of us, so we all clambered back into the boat, certain now that we would get to the Corn Islands after all. How wrong we were! Our wait continued throughout the early afternoon, during which time we were made to get on and off the boat a couple of more times and a man armed with a baseball bat came around to inspect our tickets. If you´re thinking this all sounds a bit surreal, let me assure you that it was! But it is so completely typical of the utter disorganisation that you encounter so often in this country. By 3.30pm we had had enough and the four of us decided to go back to the hostel and hopefully check back into our rooms. Vic and I decided that we would head back to Managua the next day and so at 4pm we were back at the port again to buy tickets (in advance this time) to go back the same way we had come a few days before. We couldn´t believe our misfortune when we saw that just half an hour after we had given up waiting for the boat to leave it had finally left! If we had waited that little bit longer we would have spent four fun-filled days on the Islands and we would have seen the fiesta del cangrejo (the crab festival - don´t ask me why they call it that), which is celebrated every 29th August in remembrance of the abolition of slavery. It would have been great, but que será, que será. To make up for the awful day we had had, Sophie, Audrey, Vic and I went out for a really nice meal and as a treat we even ordered a bottle of flor de caña (the most famous national brand of rum) between us, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Then it was time to say goodbye, as Vic and I had another early start to get back to Managua the following day. Sophie and Audrey, we are so pleased that we met you and I´m sure none of us will ever forget our Bluefields experience :) I hope you have had a brilliant time in San Juan del Sur and Costa Rica and really hope that we will meet again one day!

And so that was Bluefields...the next day we took the speed boat and bus all the way back to Managua. We had already arranged for our trusted taxi driver to meet us at the bus stop, although we ended up at a different place to where we had arranged to meet him which panicked us at first, but somehow he had realised where we would be and so we arrived at our hotel with no problems. After arranging our bus tickets to go to El Salvador the next day, we only ventured outside again to get some dinner, preferring instead to stay in the hotel this time :) We had to get an early night anyway, as we had yet another early start the next morning.

Our bus for El Salvador left at 5am the next day. We were travelling with Ticabus, a well-known bus company that provides transfers all over Central America. The journey took about 12 hours, with two border crossings, Nicaragua -Honduras and Honduras-El Salvaldor, and so we arrived in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, at around 5pm. We have decided to skip Honduras for the time being because the political situation is still a bit precarious at the moment, and knowing our luck, if we went there, something is probably bound to happen, so we will wait and see if it will be possible for us to go there towards the end of the trip.For the time being, we have at least seen a little part of the country and I managed to get one nice photo (the last one of this entry). The little we saw of Honduras looked quite peaceful (a lot of the violent activity tends to happen in and around the capital), although we did see a few references to Micheletti. (For those of you that don´t know what happened in Honduras at the end of June, the elected President Manuel Zelaya was forced out of the country and has still been unable to return as yet, and in his place, Roberto Micheletti is now the acting President, although no other country has recognised him as the rightful President and they are calling for Zelaya to be reinstated. The population of Honduras is of mixed opinion...who knows how and when it will end?) Once we had checked into a nearby hotel in San Salvador, we spent what was left of the afternoon watching yet another film at the cinema, called My Sister´s Keeper with Cameron Diaz. It´s a good film, but very very sad, and I think if we had known what it was about we might not have gone to see it, as it left us feeling a bit depressed, but it is worth seeing. It seems that to move around San Salvador you have to use a taxi the majority of the time, and they never charge less than $4 or $5! American dollars were introduced here in 2001 and have completely eradicated the need for the local currency, meaning that things are a lot more expensive here! We´re only planning on spending about a week here though, as we are eager to see Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, and we only have 3 months left!!! Time flies when you´re having fun :)

Bluefields del 24 al 27 de Agosto

Pasamos la noche del 23 en Managua. La ciudad es peligrosa y teniamos que ir en taxi cuando saliamos ($2 por una carrera) Nos atrevimos a ir andando desde el hostal hasta la estación de buses para ver billetes hacia El Salvador. Estaba a tan solo una manzana (cuadra como dicen aqui) y nos paró un muchaho (pandillero). Empezó a decirnos lo peligrosa que era la ciuadad, que no fueramos por aquella calle que nos robarían, que no fueramos por la otra que aunque no llevaramos dinero nos quitaban la ropa para llevarse algo, etc. Nos dijo que era mejor que alquilaramos un taxi por una hora para ver la ciudad porque nosotros (especialmente Lauren por ser tan blanca) eramos como símbolos de dólar para la gente de alli. Tambien nos dijo que no pensemos que la gente es mala en Managua solo que tienen hambre y tienen que sobrevivir. Le dejamos hablar para no enfadarle y siguio contando cosas de Managua, de un asesinato que vio la noche antes y que aqui nadie les ayuda como en Europa asi que tienen que pelear. Acabó diciendo que nunca sabes cuando vas a morir aqui en Managua y si nosotros sabiamos cuando ibamos a morir. Le dimos la razón en todo y le dimos 10 córdobas para que comprara unos nacatamales. Así pudimos llegar a la estación de bus. Al salir tomamos un taxi directos a un centro comercial donde pasamos la tarde.

De madrugada, el mismo taxista vino a recogernos para llevarnos a otra estacíon donde salen los buses para Bluefields. El bus salio a las 5am y llegamos al Rama a medido día. Allí tomamos una lancha rápida por el río Escondido que nos llevó, tras dos horas más, hasta Bluefields. Por el camino vimos algunas cabañas de indígenas a los lados del río (el río era muy ancho) como la de Sisi. Al parecer los habitantes de esta zona son de las tribus garífunas y miskitos. Es un viaje precioso. Lleno de vegetación y numerosas curvas me hizo pensar que John Grisham debio estar en un sitio como este cuando escribio "The Testament" un libro que transcurre en el Paraná de Brasil. Bluefields fue un protectorado inglés en la costa del Caribe de Nicaragua. No es muy bonito. Las tormentas son constantes como es habitual en la costa Caribe. La mitad de la población es negra, desdendientes de los esclavos que trajeron los ingleses. Estos hablan un ingles creole, difícil de entender. Otra parte de la población habla español, y una tercera parte habla miskito que era la lengua indígena existente antes de que llegaroan los españoles e ingleses.

Teníamos planeado ir a las islas del Maíz. Había un festival ese fin de seman llamado la fiesta del cangrejo! Cada 29 de Agosto celebran la abolición de la esclavitud en esta zona. Conocimos a dos chicas francesas muy simpáticas. Audrey y Sophie. Sophie es profesora de francés en Guayana Francesa y Audrey es enfermera y había estado trabajando en Bolivia y Perú. Ahora acaba de conseguir un trabajo con Médicos sin Fronteras y está a las espera de destino.

El miercoles hicimos cola desde las 6am para conseguir los billetes. A las 7:15 abrieron la oficina y vendieron muy pocos billetes porque ya estaban reservados. Nos dijeron que había un barco privado (de mercancías) que tambien salía a las 9am. Hablamos con el capitán y conseguimos billetes. Montamos a las 8am y esperamos. Y esperamos. Y esperamos. A las 12pm aparece el capitán y dice que se baje todo el mundo porque hay gente que no ha pagado y porque hay sobrecarga. Tambien porque no hay salvavidas para todos. Vinieron con más salvavidas y literalmente la gente se tiro a por ellos como animales. La gente me aplastó contra unos sacos de patatas y me subí en ellos para gritar a todos que se calmaran y escucharan al capitán. Mientras un hombre me cogio del brazo para que me bajara de sus patatas, el capitán me dio salvavidas para Lauren, Audrey, Sophie y para mi. Después un revisor, un hombre con camiseta de hombreras y cuerpo de jugador de NBA vino con un bate de beisbol en mano a revisar que los pasajeros llevábamos billetes. Los extranjeros que estábamos en el barco no podíamos creerlo. Era como estar en una película. Nos hicieron salir y entrar al barco tres o cuatro veces (sin abrir las puertas si quiera si no saltando por la borda) A las 15:30 decidimos que ya era suficiente y decidimos irnos. Hablé con el capitán para que nos devolviera el dinero porque no ibamos a navegar de noche en un barco mercante sobrecargado (íbamos en el suelo sentados y tumbados unos junto a otros, parecido a los barcos de senegaleses que llegan a España.) Por la noche salimos a cenar con Audrey y Sophie y los cuatro probamos el ron Flor de Caña tan famoso en Nicaragua.

Decidimos volver a Managua el Jueves 27. Llamamos al mismo taxista que conocíamos (ya que nos habían advertido que en Managua algunos taxistas se organizan con ladrones para robar a los turistas y dejarles tirados en cualquier sitio.) Este taxista fue de confianza y le llamamos cada vez que lo necesitábamos. Al día siguiente, a las 4am de la mañana salimos hacia San Salvador, El Salvador. En el viaje pasamos por el sur de Honduras, que nos parecio calmado y donde solo pudimos ver algunas pintadas a favor de Micheletti. Pasamos por control de aduanas y narcóticos. Llegamos sin problemas a El Salvador. De momento hemos decidido no permanecer en Honduras por la situación actual pero es probable que lo dejemos para el final del viaje (unos diez días quizás.)