93. Drive by shooting

Monday, 25 March 2019

Mexico City, Mexico

Open bedroom door to go down for breakfast. The young maid is standing outside just about to go into the room next door, which startles me. Again. We’d done the exact same thing last night as I was going out for dinner and she’d frightened the life out of me. This morning she gives a giggly little ‘Boo!’.

Hour’s drive north to the Teotihuacan Pyramids. Built in the Classic Period of 100BC to 900AD, the largest pyramid, the Temple of the Sun is 230ft high and compares in size to the Cheops Pyramid in Egypt.

The difference between the two is that the Teotihuacan, Mayan and Aztec pyramids are basically solid bases, with flat tops, upon which temples were built to be nearer to heaven.

You ain’t half learning stuff on this blog.

Given a brief explanation of the complex in the car whilst driving to the site. It’s only when we arrive, I understand why. There’s about a mile’s walk along the Avenue of the Dead between the Temple of Quetzalcoatl and the Temple of the Moon plus a lot of steps to climb. My elderly gent guide can’t walk it. Am on my own. Blessed relief for my ears.

Walking along the Avenue of the Dead isn’t particularly interesting. Just a lot of stones and it’s difficult to imagine what it would have looked like way back when.

The highlight is the climb to the top of the Temple of the Sun. 230ft up very steep stone steps. Many a tourist huffing and puffing. Including this one. Fortunately nearer the top the steps narrow and ends up in a single file queue of tourists. Which means slow going. Which means take a step and wait. Which means not getting out of breath. Not helped by altitude. Obviously.

Climb up is well worth it for the amazing view across the valley and it’s only from this vantage point that you can fully appreciate the pyramid complex and how long it is.

Return to the city centre and the main square of Zocalo. It’s not on the itinerary but he’s just doing it as a favour. A big tip in other words. As there’s no time to stop and wander about, it’s a drive around the main square taking photos out of the car window.

More a drive by shooting.

Of the photography kind.

Sorry. Did you read the blog title and think something exciting had happened? Don’t be silly.

Told that the whole square was closed for three weeks whilst they filmed James Bond’s Spectre film. Guide points out the rooftop where Bond walks along in the opening sequence. Upon further investigation, not sure that’s right, as most of it seems to have been CGI.

92. Tasty grasshopper

Sunday, 24 March 2019

Mexico City, Mexico

 

Meet the guide in hotel and instantly forget his name. Can remember a face. But not names. Dreadful in meetings when you meet a dozen new people at one go. Never remember. As we drive along think of a polite way to find out his name.

How do you spell your name, I enquire.

P-A-B-L-O. Is the reply. So much for that idea.

Half hour drive through the suburbs. Posh Palanco gives way to more lower working class areas and rather hoping we don’t break down. Never seen so many trees in a city. The stunning purple jacaranda trees are in full bloom. Awesome sight as they’re everywhere.

Heading south of the city centre to the old Aztec canals of Xochimilco. Mexico City was built on the site of an old Aztec city, which was removed by the Spanish to create the capital as it is now. The whole area is in a valley at about 7,000ft altitude and used to be a large lake. The Aztecs built their city on a man made island in the middle of this lake and ruled the area from about 1250 AD to the early 1500s, until Hernan Cortes rolled up from Spain in 1519 and took over. The canals that we’re to travel on are the remnants of the southern end of this Aztec city. The name Mexico is derived from the Aztec word ‘Metztlico’, which means ‘the place of the moon’. ‘Metztli’ being moon and ‘co’ being place.

You see. Once again. You learn with this blog. No need to thank me.

Bet the Aztecs didn’t have 2,500 brightly coloured boats to choose from. Fortunately, we’ve arrived very early this Sunday morning, so not that busy with locals and tourists. Still takes a while to push the boat through the jam packed morass of boats and squeeze our way through from the ‘boat park’ through to the main canal. No motors here. It’s all hand propelled with a pole. Bit like punting on the River Cam (in Cambridge, UK, for non UK readers). But with much bigger, brighter boats. Locals in smaller boats float about selling food, drinks and the usual tourist tat. Big family groups tie two or three boats together for their parties. Really peaceful on the way down but as we turn and head back its clearly getting busier and noisier with boats and their live music bands playing the local music. Bloody racket. Do have a look at the video below.

Once on dry land, shown a typical foodstuff eaten by the lower working class, on account of it being cheapo and full of protein.

Grasshoppers.

Yep. Deep fried piles of them to buy and eat. Farmed especially to eat. They will be appearing in Waitrose soon as the next new superfood.

Guide takes a few to show me and says that I must take the legs of before eating them as they have little barbs on. Have no idea why he’s telling me this as there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of me eating one! He and driver tuck in.

Yuk.

Coyoacan is a nice arty suburb nearby. The name is derived from the coyotes that once roamed the woodland before it was all developed by the Spanish. A fountain in the main square shows two coyotes to prove the point. Cortes’ old house borders the square. There’s a nice buzzy feel about the area and, like Polanco, feels very safe. Reminds me of parts of New York City. Stroll along the jacaranda lined streets to Frida Kahlo’s house.

I’d no idea who Frida Kahlo was until last year. Went to the V&A to see another exhibition and next door was a Frida Kahlo exhibition with long queues. That looks popular, I thought, so went in to have a look. Took me all of two minutes to walk through the exhibition. Not an arty person.

Am given 45 minutes to look around her home. 40 minutes too long. Not allowed to take photos unless you pay for a permit and display a big sticky label on your chest. As you should all know by now. Rules are for guidance. There are officious looking women in each room with earpieces and walkie talkies spotting illicit photography. It becomes a game. Keeps me amused. Hope you enjoy the free photographs below.

Frida Kahlo was part paralysed in a bus crash when she was 18 years old. A mirror was installed above her bed so she could paint self-portraits. Her husband, Diego Rivera, also an artist had many affairs and Frida herself apparently had an affair with the Russian, Leon Trotsky, who stayed with his wife at their home for a while. The things you learn with this blog. Her death mask lies on her bed and an urn on her dressing table contains her ashes.

Outside the Anthropological Museum, in the park, see a very tall pole with four men at the top sitting on a wooden frame. They’re each tied to a rope which is wound around the pole. They launch themselves and start going around like a merry-go-round and descending at the same time as the rope gets longer as it unwinds. See video below.

Impressive museum containing artefacts from 5,000 years BC to 1500 AD and the human sacrificing Aztecs. A very large round carved stone, about 1.5m deep, has a channel carved into the top surface from the centre to the outside. Believed to be used for human sacrifice and the channel used to drain the blood. Nice.

The most impressive artefact though is the Aztec Calendar or Stone of the Sun. About 2.5m in diameter, it was discovered in 1790 in what is now the main square of the city centre (more of which in tomorrow’s blog). Shows a pair of human hearts, snakes around the edge, a number of suns and iconography representing days. See the photo below to see how brightly coloured it was way back when.

Another colourful artefact is Montezuma’s feathered headdress. Made from the feathers of many birds including Quetzel and hummingbirds. Actually a replica. The original is, for some reason, in Vienna. Of all places.

Well, dear reader, the foregoing is a mere snippet of the amount of listening I’ve been subjected to today. My dear guide, an elderly gent, can’t half rattle on. It’s like being in a double-double-double-double-double-double History lesson at school.

And the same again tomorrow.

Going to give my ears a rest.

91. A little luxury

Saturday, 23 March 2019

Mexico City, Mexico

 

Told it will take 2hrs to drive to Guatemala City airport because of traffic so leave at 0730hrs for the 1130hrs flight to Mexico City.

Takes 50 minutes to airport.

3hr wait in Guatemala City airport.

Yay.

Exciting.

Not.

Flight on time and exit arrivals looking for my name on a board for the airport transfer to hotel.

No name.

Ring tour company.

Ooops.

They’ve forgotten the pick up.

Taxi instead.

Having spent a few weeks staying in basic 3 star hotels, nice to have a bit of 5 star luxury at the Las Alcobas hotel (https://www.lasalcobas.com/property) in Polanco, the posh suburb where all the embassies appear to be.

Ah yes. The Lesser Spotted Touring Taurean in its natural habitat.

This’ll do nicely.

90. More churches than you can shake a stick at

Friday, 22 March 2019

Antigua, Guatemala

 

Sitting having breakfast on the terrace watching the volcano erupting. It’s quite a sight spewing big black clouds of smoke out every few minutes. There was a major eruption last summer, killing about 200 people. The current eruption is even featured on the news bulletin.

Walking tour of the town. Used to be the old Spanish colonial capital until it relocated to Guatemala City because of the volcano. There’s a lot of churches. It’s not really a town tour, more a church tour. Churches. Everywhere.

Walking along the main road into town, see a bus driver tending a large cauldron of soup on a wood fire by the roadside. All the tourist bus drivers come here for lunch and share the soup. It’s bubbling away good and proper.

Outside one church are plenty of stalls selling different coloured candles. You buy a candle for 10 pence, light it and then pray for what you want. So, for example, if you need help with money, studies or business, you buy a blue candle. For love and relationships, a red candle. Each to their own but I’m a bit cynical about such things.

As with most towns in Central America, all the buildings are single storey and the roads are set out on a grid pattern. Most of them cobbled. Which is a pain to walk on.

In one of the squares is a public fountain bordered on one side by stone basins. This is the local laundry. Local women still come here to do the laundry. Small recesses in the basins act as place to hold soap. It’s the local Facebook page too where they all come to trade gossip. In the same square an old woman is fanning the charcoal grill to cook the sweetcorn. She’s 72 and having to work still as there’s no pension to fall back on.

Whilst Antigua is a really nice town, there’s not many interesting points of interest. Unless you like churches.

Quick visit to the market after lunch and told not to take photographs of Mayan children in the market. There’s an element that come to Guatemala who are either paedophiles or child snatchers. It’s been known for Mayan kids to be taken and sold on in the US. Told a story of a tour group in Nicaragua. A married couple were on the tour. One day the husband said he’d pass on that day’s excursion as he said he was feeling ill. Wife returned to bedroom after the day trip to find him with an 11 year old boy.

Adjacent the market is the ‘chicken bus’ station. Brightly decorated former US school buses. They have different colours to denote different destinations. Many people can’t read or write, especially in the indigenous Mayan population, and so they can only tell the destination of the bus from the colour.

Excellent dinner at Hector’s Bistro. The best meal we’ve had on this trip. Off to the airport first thing in the morning so we all say our goodbyes. There’s been a frisson of niggle between the two women and one remarked, “They’re too left wing, even for me.” So must be bad. It’s not been the best group I’ve travelled with, I have to say.

 

Tell them not to start the revolution until I get back to the UK.

Fortunately. They laugh.

89. Erupting volcano

Thursday, 21 March 2019

Antigua, Guatemala

 

7hr drive to Antigua in Guatemala. Border formalities crossing from Honduras to Guatemala are none existent. Just drive through the border without stopping.

Long journey sitting in a mini-bus. Slow going around the outskirts of Guatemala City. It looks a dump. Most shops and restaurants we pass have an armed guard on the doorway.

Arrive Antigua. The old colonial capital city.

They’ve saved the best until last.

This is nice. This is upmarket.

Check into the Hotel Villa Colonial (https://villasdeguatemala.com/esp/villa-colonial). Volcanoes to the left, right and front of us. An amazing sight.

Volcano to the west is smoking. Big black plumes of smoke puff out every so often.

As it gets dark, see the glowing red lava spewing out of the top every so often. Never seen a volcano erupting before.

It’s got the wow factor.

88. Flying rainbows

Wednesday, 20 March 2019

Copan, Honduras

 

Short tuk-tuk ride to the Mayan Ruins of Copan, the most southerly point of the Mayan empire. Amazed by the sight of lots of brightly coloured macaws flying about. It’s like they’re wearing the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Never seen a macaw before and it really is startling how colourful they are. They fly in formation between the trees like a scene out of a Disney cartoon.

They’re like flying rainbows.

The Mayans built temples here in the 8th century AD. The pyramids are solid bases upon which temples were built at the top to be nearer the sky and the Gods. The highest pyramid has a Hieroglyphic Stairway. If you were a peasant looking up at the king/priest in his temple you’d certainly be in awe. The complex has number of pyramids in addition to a residential quarters for the king/priest plus a large open space for the people. Listened for 4hrs to a guide telling us all about it. But you’ll have to Google the rest as it went in one ear and out the other. Just like at school. Very difficult to take it all in.

There. Some homework for you. And when you’ve found out, please do let me know.

You can tell the indigenous Mayan people as you walk about town. Quite small people and dark skinned. The women wear brightly coloured clothes.

As you can perhaps tell, am racing through these blogs desperately trying to catch up as a week behind!

87. The one with the Catholic priest and a firework

Tuesday, 19 March 2019

Copan, Honduras

 

Breakfast in El Salvador.

Lunch in Guatemala.

Dinner in Honduras.

Three countries.

Two border crossings.

One day.

Hard life innit.

5hr drive to Copan. First border crossing El Salvador/Guatemala is a quick passport stamp on both sides of the border. Takes minutes.

Second border crossing Guatemala/Honduras is even quicker. Guide takes passports into immigration and shortly returns with a bit of paper which has been stamped. It’s a 72hr pass to enter Honduras without any immigration and customs declaration. Can you remember something similar when visiting France for a day trip in the 1980s?

Many money men at the border wandering about touting for business with huge wads of local cash in exchange for US Dollars.

Only a 15 minute drive into Honduras for a couple of nights at the Hotel Casa de Café (http://www.casadecafecopan.com/) in the small town of Copas Ruinas. The site of a Mayan complex. You can look forward to a bit of Mayan history in tomorrow’s blog.

As it’s the town’s patron saint’s day, there’s yet another church procession. Treated to a small bunch of musicians playing in the main square to the people perambulating. How Banana Republic is this, I think to myself. They’re a rag tag bunch and many men wearing cowboy hats. A young lad soon joins them and starts singing which draws a crowd cooing at his angelic singing.

Just before the procession of Jesus through the streets, a few fireworks can be heard. Upon closer investigation it’s the Catholic priest setting them off. He’s assisted by a local who is putting homemade rockets (rolled up newspaper stuck to a stick holds the gunpowder) in a litre sized plastic bottle and launching them from the bottle in his hand. The first few captured on video below go off and whoosh up into the sky and explode over the church roof. As intended.

Don’t video the next bit as it’ll be more of the same.

Or.

So. I. Thought.

Priest puts rocket in plastic bottle held by bloke and lights the fuse.

Bloke points the bottle upwards but not vertically upwards. Stupidly.

The rocket goes off with a whoosh.

Hits the church wall a few feet above them.

Rocket now has momentum and ricochets off church wall to the other wall across the driveway.

Simultaneously, bloke and Catholic priest immediately duck for cover and scarper away from the wayward rocket.

Which is going off on one ricocheting off walls.

It eventually flies into the open terrace of the first floor restaurant next to the church. Priest is no doubt praying.

Fortunately, rocket veers right into an empty room and not left into the diners. As soon as it enters the room it explodes. We’re all wetting ourselves laughing at the running priest and the rocket whizzing about an enclosed space. Fortunately, no one is hurt.

Priest disappears and starts the procession whilst the bloke moves on down the road with his two sons holding the batch of homemade rockets and setting them alight  once they’re in more open space.

So funny. I’m told that later on that evening they set off a load of Chinese lanterns but these all burned up as they rose into the air and landed setting fire to stalls, small bushes and the electrical equipment of the concert in the square.

Excellent dinner at Carnitas Tia Lola restaurant. The waitresses serve up nachos and beer balancing plates and bottles on their heads.

86. Guerrillas in the midst

Monday, 18 March 2019

Suchitoto, El Salvador

 

Afternoon drive to Cinquera for a mile’s hike up a mountain to a viewing platform. In 35C heat.

Mad dogs and Englishmen.

The mountains around Cinquera were full of left wing guerrillas during the civil war. Dense forest ideal to hide in and soon come across a 19th century indigo processing bath. Before the forest, the whole area was given to indigo plants which were processed on the mountainside. The whole indigo industry being decimated when the German chemist, Bayer, discovered how to make indigo blue dye from chemicals. Which is when coffee became the main crop in El Salvador.

You see. You learn stuff with this blog.

Further up the mountain, find an old guerrilla trench used to protect the top of the mountain from below. Further up is what’s known as the Vietnamese Kitchen. The Viet Cong provided the guerrillas with advice during the civil war and showed them how to set up kitchens with a system for eradicating smoke from the wood fires. Basically a 50m small diameter tunnel that runs up the hillside with small holes in it to percolate the smoke away from the source to prevent detection by government forces. The kitchen is located adjacent to a natural spring but to further protect the guerrillas, a few hundred metres away from the camp. Here, in the camp that we see, were about 40 people. Women, children, civilians and fighting guerrillas. Plenty more dotted around the mountainside. A table has been built using bamboo slats. This was apparently the hospital operating table for injured guerrillas. A rusting metal wire hangs from a bamboo pole running above the table on one side. The wire was used to hang IV drips. We’re told that they used coconut water as the liquid in the drips. Any medical people reading this, is this possible?

Continue climbing in the mid afternoon heat up the trail. Huffing and puffing. The view from the top of the viewing platform is well worth it though. Spectacular scenery.

Back in Cinquera, meet with a former guerrilla. Rafael is 57 years old, has a wicked smile and cheeky glint in his eye. Fantastic set of teeth, which we later find out are false. He now runs a small kiosk in the main square, notable for the remnants of the fuselage of a Huey helicopter that was shot down by the guerrillas. The fence surrounding it has pairs of rifles bolted to it. Each rifle has been chopped in half and rendered useless by the UN, as part of the Peace Accord. The guerrillas were given special training to shoot down helicopters and were under orders to shoot at every helicopter that flew by. Just in case they got lucky. This helicopter was shot down in the mountain behind us and now on display.

Guerrilla Rafael was born into a middle class right wing family who ran a farm. As a young boy, he became aware of the social inequality around him and by the time he was sixteen, moved to the capital San Salvador, against his father’s wishes. Whilst in San Salvador he became more involved with the left wing FMLN party and engaged in protests. When the civil war kicked off, he returned to Cinquera and his father asked him if he’d been involved with FMLN. Having avoided the subject for years with his father, he finally admitted to his Dad that he had joined FMLN and left the family home to go and fight in the mountains nearby. He became a guerrilla commander and has killed a number of the armed forces. His family don’t allow him to speak or see his father, even now. At the end of the civil war, he returned to live in the town again and says that he’s never had any repercussions for being a guerrilla, apart from one man in the town, a former military person, who shouts abuse at him if they pass in the street. He’s now something of a local celebrity as he acts as a storyteller to tourists and locals about being a guerrilla.

As a result of the civil war, there’s now a minimum wage of US$350 per month. A call centre worker will earn US$600 per month on dayshift and US$950 per month on nightshift. Our local guide used to be a call centre worker, where they acted for Visa, so he regularly spoke with people in the UK. Next time you ring a call centre, ask where they are. You might get a surprise.

Local guide is from a right wing relatively wealthy family as he was privately educated at the same school as the current young El Salvadoran President. President used to date a female friend of his and we’re told that President is from a very wealthy family and has never had to do a day’s work in his life.

Well, dear reader, someone has been missing my blogs at least. Younger sister of an old friend has been concerned by the lack of blog posts for the past 6 days. At least someone was worried about me. Elder sister hadn’t noticed. Think I need to trade her in for the younger model.

Thank you Bloss. Nice to know you’re thinking of me. Unlike big sis.

85. The cigar maker

Sunday, 17 March 2019

Suchitoto, El Salvador

 

Marvellous view overlooking the lake for breakfast on the terrace. Reminds me of being in Arba Minch, in the Rift Valley of southern Ethiopia. Amusing soundtrack for breakfast as there are a few large cages with four parrots perched. One is constantly shrieking, “Roberto”, in a very clear and commanding voice. Roberto is the owner’s son and can imagine the parrot is mimicking mother calling her son. The parrot never stops. The only other time I’ve heard a parrot speak was when working in Cologne. Used to stay in a guest house run by an elderly couple. He a large beer bellied German with a black leather waistcoat. She a petite little thing. He used to call her “Moppel” (an old colloquial name for ‘woman’ I am told) quickly followed by the parrot shrieking, “Moppel”.

Today’s transport is a Toyota Hilux. You can either go western and sit in the cab. Or go local and stand in the pick up section. Jump at the chance to stand up in the pick up section at the back. Great fun. Never be allowed to do that in Europe. Trundle along the cobbles surfing in the back grabbing onto the safety rails. Given my height, hanging tree branches are a major hazard.

After 10 minutes driving out of town arrive at Cascada Los Tercios. A dried up waterfall (as not the rainy season) reached by climbing down a near vertical cliff face comprising hexagonal stones caused by volcanic action. Well worth the climb down to look up at the rock face. El Salvador’s answer to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Tall vertical hexagonal rock sections tower over us.

What goes down must come up and it’s a steep scramble up the rocks to the top again and a panoramic view overlooking Lake Suchitlan. Man made in the 1970s to create a reservoir for the hydro electric power station, it flooded a valley and displaced about 14,000 people. Used to be a 15 minute drive across the valley to the other side but now takes 2hrs by road. Or there’s a rickety ferry.

Back in town meet one of the last surviving cigar makers. A 76 year old woman who has been rolling cigars since she was 7 years old, way back in 1951. Back in the old days, there were lots of women rolling cigars to meet the local supply. Gradually, the industry died out and now, it’s just her demonstrating for the tourists and selling to the odd local. In the good old days she used to earn 2 colons per day. The equivalent of 22 US cents PER DAY. And hand rolled 1,000 cigars each day.

That’s all she’s done for most of her life. Sit in her shop and roll cigars.

Just think about that for a moment.

Given a demonstration on how to roll a cigar. Having been to Cuba and seen how proper quality cigars are rolled, it’s clear that these are cheap and nasty cigars. Smell like it as well. Vile. Not that I’m a connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination but I do enjoy a Cuban Cohiba Siglo 6 cigar once a year in my favourite cigar bar in Berlin. I know what a good cigar smells and tastes like. For the cigars she’s making, the fill is full of offcuts and other crappy bits of leaf. Cuban cigars have a complete leaf as fill with a quality wrapper. She uses any old leaf as the wrapper which is pockmarked. And as with most things, you get what you pay for. She sells a single cigar for US$1. A quality Cuban cigar can retail in the UK for US$30-50.

That’s the difference.

Now that she’s given a demonstration, we’re let loose to roll our own. The guide tells me that she’s impressed with my cigar and she gives me a wry smile with a glint in her eye. I think I’ve pulled.

Nearby is a women’s charity ‘Women against violence’ who specialise in making clothes with indigo. Indigo used to be one of El Salvador’s main crops until the arrival of coffee. They specialise in that 1970s staple…tie-dye clothing.

As I’m not a hippy or a loony leftie, forego the opportunity of buying such garments.

Across the road is the local theatre. During the civil war one of the directors was friendly with a military person. One day he was tipped off to vacate the town as they were going to bomb the area because of all the left wing guerrillas in the vicinity. In order to protect his theatre, he invited the US Ambassador to a gala performance he hastily arranged for the night of the bombing. He then invited the Canadian Ambassador and said the US Ambassador had been invited. Likewise, the Mexican Ambassador and other dignitaries. He then rang his friend back in the military and told him that on the night of the bombing all these ambassadors would be attending a gala performance in the town. The bombing was called off, his theatre was saved and he became something of a local hero.

Given a brief overview of the El Salvadoran Civil War. In a nutshell. The lower working classes were fed up working for low pay and poor working conditions. Over a number of years they assembled themselves under the umbrella of FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) and started uprising and protesting trying to win a better deal, which led to the right wing government suppressing them through death squads, which led to guerrilla warfare, until the Peace Accord in 1992.

Afternoon boat trip on the lake. To see the birds. But. Once you’ve seen one egret and one cormorant. You’ve seen them all. Nevertheless, the highlight is a stop at San Francisco Lempa. To see the sunset. Across the lake.

A rather pleasant end to yet another interesting and fun day.

El Salvador.

The gift that keeps on giving.

Put it on your bucket list.

It’s been a highlight of the trip.

84. Loving El Salvador

Saturday, 16 March 2019

Suchitoto, El Salvador

Awesome start to the day having breakfast on the roof terrace overlooking Ataco. We’re all loving El Salvador.

And it’s not over yet.

At Joya de Ceren, are the remains of a Mayan village that was covered in volcanic ash in about 650AD. It’s El Salvador’s Pompeii.

Only discovered in 1972 when workers were excavating for foundations to build a new development. Such was the archaeological interest in the site that NASA were involved in scanning the ground to determine where best to start investigations. The volcanic ash petrified the small village and you can even see the stalks of maize still popping out of the ground that were petrified. The huts are so well preserved by petrification that they look like they have recently been built, yet they’re 1400 years old. There’s a shaman hut, sauna, storage and living hut.

A cashew tree stands in the gardens surrounding the site. Now. Have you ever wondered where a cashew nut comes from. Having never thought about it and never seen a cashew tree it’s quite surprising to see. A large orange fleshy fruit with a greeny/grey kidney shaped thing at the end, which contains the cashew nut. Cutting open the orange fleshy piece reveals a mango like texture which can be eaten (see photos below).

Flying about the rafters of the roof protecting the buildings are motmot birds. The national bird of El Salvador. Brightly coloured with a long tail. Called the motmot because of the noise it makes.

As we drive along the valley at the base of the Boqueron volcano see a vast black lava field following its eruption in 1917. Not being able to be cultivated it remains a sea of black in an otherwise lush green valley. Steep drive up the side of the volcano followed by a steep walk up to the rim through the woods. Once at the rim, it’s an impressive sight looking down into the caldera. Prior to the 1917 eruption the original caldera was a large lake. Now, it contains a secondary crater and the whole area is dry.

Arrive at Posada Suchitlan (http://www.laposada.com.sv/) on the outskirts of the town. Basic hotel set in a courtyard but with amazing views over the lake.