Augusto Cesar Sandino

One of the first images that strikes you in Nicaragua, is that of Augusto Sandino. On murals, on posters, and as in the photo above, silhoutted against the sky on the highest point in the city of Managua. This silhouette actually marks the spot where Sandino was assassinated by Somoza's national guard, allowing Somoza to establish himself (and later his sons) as corrupt dictator extraordinaire for the next 40 years.

Sandino was a revolutionary in the mold of Che Guevara or Fidel Castro...and like them, had a certain flair for oration. I found this (fairly emotive!) quote addressed to US troops in Nicaragua:

"Come on you pack of drug fiends, come on and murder us on our own land. I am waiting for you on my feet at the head of my patriotic soldiers, and I don't care how many of you there are. You should know that when this happens, the destruction of your mighty power will make the Capitol shake in Washington, and your blood will redden the white dome that crowns the famous White House where you plot your crimes."

No guns please

This is a respectable establishment, please leave all weapons at home...

Interesting rock formation and a police escort

Near Suchitoto is a waterfall called Los Tercios. Unfortunately at the moment, there is no waterfall, but it does mean you can see the rocks underneath more clearly.

Due to 'volcanic activity' - we couldn't get a better explanation than this - the waterfall is formed by hundreds of hexagonal stone spires. From the top they look like man-made paving stones forming the river bed, from the side they look like this:

The waterfalls are only about a mile outside of town, but there have been several robberies on the way out there lately. Some nice policemen offered to walk out there with use to make sure we were ok (and avoid the paperwork that is necessary if a tourist is a victim of crime!).

Despite stern appearances, they were very friendly and interesting (in Spanish only, so good for learning geological vocab!) Though when i asked if they were glad that the FMLN had won the local elections, received a stern lecture about the impartiality of the police force in El Salvador.....

Local elections

The Salvadorean local elections took place last weekend. For the week prior, you couldn't walk down the street without a jeep full of either Arena or FMLN supporters haring past shouting unintelligible slogans through a megaphone.

The main consequence for Derek and I was that no alcohol is served for 2 days before and 2 days after any local or national elections. Apparently this is to ensure rash voting decisions are not made whilst drunk.

If this happened in the UK, a) national rioting would take place and b) plastic bottles would be stockpiled and cunningly filled with straight vodka/gin. We didn't see any riots in El Salvador, but we did see a surprising number of locals touting bottles of mineral water....

Beach Life

Sharj & Derek going for a stroll on the beach in El Zonte. Did some more surf practice....it's just so difficult though!!!

A little souvenir...

So far i've managed to withstand the lure of tacky souvenirs and the immense range of branded fakery on offer. However, since hearing about Salvadorean 'sopresas', I have been determined....

A Sopresa, 'surprise' in English, is a small ornament (traditionally an egg) that contains a heartwarming minature scene of traditional life in El Salvador. However, some scally decided that such innocent looking treasures would be a nice way to conceal something a little less errr....heartwarming.

If you request a 'special surprise', some rummaging under the counter ensues, and an ornament is furtively opened to reveal a couple enjoying themselves in one of several creative positions.

I've put a picture of my contraband below, but as my 10 year old sister reads this blog, photos of the interior will be made available only on request ;)

Cool Church

It was nice to come across a church with a modern, rather than colonial design in San Salvador.

From the outside, it's a concrete dome (Southbankalike), with windows that look almost blacked out.

From the inside, it is cool! The glass of the dome changes colour gradually, and casts everything inside with a rainbow effect.

Copan Ruinas

The building style at Copan was a little different to other Mayan ruins i've sen in the region.

Apparently King 18 Rabbit was quite the artist and "pioneered" (not sure if this is strictly true) a style of sculpture on the various stelae that was much more lifelike than previously. The figures are carved to stand out from the background stone, while the back of the stelae is covered with Mayan hieroglyphics to describe the purpose of the monument.

Here are a couple of photos of one of the stale, and a completely unposed picture of Sandy strolling around the ruins.

PS. The kingdom was called 'Xukpi' from the 5th to the 9th century, which means 'Corner Bundle'. I thought that was nice :)

New Year snorkelling (return of the blue glove)

Following a close brush with blue-glove loss, Sandy refused to take it off. Had to go snorkelling to avoid drawing attention to ourselves....

Clock strikes 12....

New Year Karaoke

As it was the start of a new year, and we were spending it on an exotic beach island off the coast of Honduras, we decided that only a very sophisticated evening would be appropriate under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, as my mum would say, you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.....and you can't talk people out of Sweet Child O Mine if they're really determined...



Or Elton John classics for that matter...here is video evidence of Sharj and I murdering Your Song (me more so than Sharj - luckily Sandy didn't catch the full horror of my contribution, by this point in the song i was going for low volume, and increasing distance from the microphone :)...



Ps. Please watch this video, it just took me about 2 million years to upload! Argh!

Livingston Sucks

I hated Livingston. I thought it was a dirty, nasty place with a bad atmosphere and unfriendly people. We were also poisoned by dodgy fish soup.

We had to drink beer to make ourselves feel better.

Sandy in Hot Water...

No, not with me. He was in some waterfalls that had been very kindly warmed up by some uber-hot thermal power.

The extra nice bit is that the waterfall is hot, and the river it flows into is cold, so you get lots of different pools ranging from Burnyourarse Hot, to Reallyquite Cold.

It also gave Sandy a chance to try out his rather fetching waterproof blue glove. Ah, the many happy hours spent vacuum packing a broken wrist....

Ooooh Magma!

We saw real, live lava flowing out of the ground!!! But we decided to call it Magma, cos it sounds cooler.

Here are some pictures, but Sandy has some ace video footage of the lava ooze that i'll put up soon...


Highlight of the trip was being narrowly missed by a big chunk of semi-molten rock that broke off and fell about 200m down the volcano....i was quite keen to leave after that!

Yay! Sandy visits for Christmas!

Despite a broken arm, an operation to attach a metal plate to the joint, 20 metal staples and a 300 hour flight, Sandy still came to visit!!

Little did he know that Christmas Eve would be spent watching a drunken Santa fight with a Cowboy, while being attacked from all angles by under-5's playing with fireworks! Heehee :)

Volcano Climbing = Hard 2

Getting up at 5am for sunrise (have about 42 other shots of this if you're interested...!):


Clothing worn: long thermals, 2 pairs socks, vest, t-shirt, fleece, hoodie, jacket, 2 scarves, hat, 2 sleeping bags and headtorch. It was quite cold.

Eruption next door:



Breakfast (oats and water):



Putting off the inevitable walk back down:

Volcano Climbing = Hard

It seems that wherever there are mountains, there are people unable to fight the urge to stagger up them.

It's funny, when you look at a big mountain from a distance, it looks IMPOSSIBLE to climb. You even wonder what kind of crazy fool might attempt to do such a thing. Then before you know it, you're gazing misty-eyed at your hiking boots and selection of torches, dreaming of all the pretty pictures you might take from the top.

That is kind of how me and Derek ended up climbing one of the highest volcanos in Central America. One minute it was a silly idea, and then suddenly...

The view from the top was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. I do like clouds a lot (possibly not as much as Sian!), so it was bound to wow me, but take a look at the photos, bear in mind the limitations of StephPhotographyInc, and say it wasn't worth the effort...

View when we arrived at the top:



Nice place to camp:



Sunset:



Me toasting marshmallows on the fire (not a very good idea to stray too far from the fire - very cold!):

Summary

Ok, in the name of moving along quickly, here are some summaries:

Lanquin & Semuc Champey in Guatemala
Very pretty, waterfalls, natural bridge, caves, pools to swim in (see pictures)



San Pedro de la Laguna in Guatemala
Three volcanos by a big crater lake (nice reflections), lots of hippies (shampoo shortage, dreadlock excess), walking up hills, canoeing, playing cards in bars, eating nice food, sitting in hammocks & enrolling in Spanish School.

Argh!

I'm getting very, very behind in my blog....and i started so well!! I am very disappointed in myself and will reprimand myself severly for this display of tardiness.

In order to rectify the situation, am going to have to:

a) Summarise interesting and lovely places into entries of 10 words or less
b) Have a blogging frenzy this afternoon in order to catch up the last month of fun activities
c) Make a New Year's resolution (belated, ironically) to behave better in future.

Ok....let the blogging frenzy commence!