Central America

Well I’ve been a very slack blogger this trip. Let’s see if I can give a quick summary. I’m back in Guatemala again now, due to return to El Salvador on Monday. At this stage I hope to be home on the morning of Saturday 12th November. Key points on Central America:

* The landscape is absolutely beautiful here. It’s lush and green with incredible mountains, forests and chains of beautiful perfect volcanoes. There are bright flowers everywhere. It’s just divine.
* The people are incredibly affectionate and lovely. Everyone from the little grandmother in the village to cute young boys come and give you kisses and hugs all the time.
* One thing I like in particular is that the women here are all sorts of funny, short, round shapes- it makes me feel at home!
* The colours are great. Finally some people who have the same taste in paint colours as me! All the houses are painted bright blues and purples and greens.
* The worst thing is the food. Tragically, most of the every day meals I can’t stand. Breakfast of frijoles (beans) and eggs every morning, the frijoles I can’t deal with much, tortillas (the real thing) have an incredibly strong flavour which doesn’t sit well with me, and I was invited to this very special family feast where they ate this traditional meal called fiambre and it was so awful! Beyond that, everyone eats McDonalds and Pizza Hut all the time… El Salvador is the saving grace because they have great seafood including a thing called cerviche (of prawns).
* The other bad thing is of course the reason I am here- the disasters… there was a Hurricane which caused hundreds of landslides all over the country, which killed nearly 2000 people (half are confirmed dead, the other half “missing” buried under the mud. In one mountainous area we went to there were so many landslides the people say it looks like a giant lion came and scratched its claws down the sides of the mountains. Then there is the volcanic eruption and tremors which kept me shaking in my bed the night before I left El Salvador last.