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- A Gringa
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- "La Gringa en Honduras" has become "A Gringa No Brasil". All of my posts about Peace Corps and Central America are still here, but I've changed the name and design for my new locale - Rio de Janeiro!
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Monday, April 25, 2011
Semana Santa (Holy Week) is Spring Break for Central America. Half of the week is a national holiday in Honduras, and many Hondurans take off on vacations for the entire week. Since it's the hottest time of year, most people escape to the beach, or if they don't have time/money to make it there, at least a river or pool nearby. Last year I stayed in country and traveled up to the Utila, one of the Bay Islands, for some scuba diving. This year I decided to branch out a bit and get to know El Salvador despite the protests of many Hondurans that beaches here are much more beautiful.
I spent the first half of the week in and around the capital - San Salvador. It was a definite step up from Tegucigalpa. Since it's not built in a valley/mountainside, San Sal was nicely spread out, making it much less claustrophobic - wider streets and sidewalks - and it seemed cleaner too. The public transportation was easier to figure out since all of the busses had route numbers. The only thing I didn't like was switching over to US dollars, which is the currency they use in El Salvador. Fifty cents might not seem like much in the States, but in Honduras that's 10 lempiras! My natural tendency with coins is to spend it without thinking since it doesn't usually add up to much, but I had to keep checking myself and converting to lempiras to stay on budget. I also seemed to have forgotten what US coins are worth since I got to Honduras. I tried giving a cashier two quarters (which are the size/color of Honduran 50 cent coins) when I owed her a dollar. Oops.
I got into San Sal on Monday afternoon. After checking into the hostel and meeting up with another Peace Corps Volunteer, we headed downtown to walk around and check it out. Again, it was much more welcoming than downtown Teguz, with more parks, plazas, and open spaces. The next day we went to Suchitoto, a quaint colonial town about an hour and a half outside of the capital. We met another volunteer there and spent the day shopping, eating, and catching up on Peace Corps gossip. One of the volunteers I was with lives near the Honduras/El Salvador border and has a few friends in San Salvador. They dropped by our hostel in the evening and took us out to one of their favorite pupusa restaurants. Pupusas are one of El Salvador's most popular traditional dishes. It's like a stuffed tortilla - usually they have beans and cheese inside, but can also be filled with pork rinds, chicken, or loroco (an edible flower) among other things. In Honduras, pupusas are made with corn flour, which is also used in El Salvador, but their best pupusas are made with rice flower. Yummy!
On Wednesday, we visited the San Salvador Volcano. It was a much more laid back visit compared to the volcano hike I did in Guatemala. We drove up to Boquerón National Park, and it was only about 100 meters walk from the parking lot to the rim of volano's crater. We hung out there for an hour or two, visiting the different lookout points along the mouth of the crater. Too bad the view was a little hazy. For the more daring people that were willing to spend a little more money, they had the option to hike/repell down into the crater. I decided to skip over that part of the tour since I was in jeans and flip flops. After leaving the park, we headed to Chili's (that's right, the chain exists in Central America too) to meet up with the same El Salvadoran friends from the previous night to see the Madrid vs. Barcelona soccer game. Neka Allen (college roomie) arrived that evening (yay!), and the next morning we were all off to the beach!
Thursday morning we sat in traffic for awhile, but finally made it to El Tunco, a small surf town on the Bálsamo Coast just south of San Salvador. We dropped our stuff at our new hostel and went to get some lunch before heading to the beach. Unfortunately, by the time we finished eating, the tide had come in, and there was no more dry sand to hang out (read: work on my tan) on. We settled for hanging out at the hostel with a bunch of other volunteers and friends that had gotten there ahead of us. Altogether there were 15 Honduras Peace Corps Volunteers and assorted friends from the States in El Tunco for Easter Weekend.
On Friday and Saturday we made day trips to nearby beaches - Zunzal and El Zonte. They were a short bus ride away, and much less crowded than Tunco. They're both black sand beaches like Tunco. Unfortunately, it was cloudy most of the time we were there so it wasn't ideal beach weather. Also, I think there was a storm brewing; I went for a swim and was legitimately scared by how strong the waves were. I tried to get past the breaking point, but the current was too strong. Instead of a leisurely swim, I got an intense workout. After being smacked around by a few waves, I called it quits and headed back to shore.
Considering that Tunco is such a small town, the night life there was insane. There were so many people, especially residents of San Salvador since it's such an easy drive from the capital. Bars were packed, and every night there was a samba drum circle and bonfire on the beach. Humidity plus dancing plus crowdedness meant that we collapsed in bed every night nice and sweaty haha.
On Sunday, Neka headed back to the airport, and I headed back to San Salvador to catch a bus to Tegucigalpa :( I'm still working on getting out of vacation mode and back into work mode...
Pictures! Semana Santa 2011
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