As Steve mentioned in his last entry, I am going to be guest blogging about our trip through Central America. We will alternate who writes each entry, and I’m up first! So, hello to all of Steve’s faithful readers out there, and without further ado, here is what we’ve been up to for the past week:
Since you last heard from Steve, we have been to three different countries, one of them twice. After we rang the bell last Monday at 4 p.m., we headed to Chinandega, Nicaragua to spend the night. We stayed with our friends Meg, Alex, and Alex’s new Nica husband also named Alex. We were lucky to spend the night at Alex’s aunt’s house, so we were able to easily and quickly get to the Honduran border the following morning. Once we crossed the border, after a ridiculous situation with some bandido bicycle taxistas, we hopped on a bus to cut across Honduras to the much, much, much more tranquilo Salvadorian border. There, we were greeted by Serafin, an ex-guerrilla and friend of Meg, who runs Perquín Tours, a group run by former guerrilla fighters from El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980’s. After an intense yet very interesting two days learning about the war in Morazán, the north eastern province most affected by the war, we headed to La Palma, a vibrant town, painted from top to bottom. In La Palma, we said goodbye to Meg, Alex, and Alex and lingered for an extra day on our own. The following morning, we grudgingly left beautiful El Salvador and crossed back into Honduras to head to the Copán Ruins, one of the most famous Mayan ruins in Central America. After seeing the impressive ruins, we headed to Antigua, Guatemala, which is where we are writing you from now.
El Salvador
Our time in El Salvador was short, but turned out to be an emotional rollercoaster. The first two days were spent bouncing between taking in beautiful mountain scenery:
and a waterfall:
(pay no attention to the man climbing in his underwear...)
and visiting scarred battle sites:
from the civil war that took place quite recently (1979-1991).
The most difficult part of our visit was going to El Mozote, a town whose innocent people were massacred by the Salvadorian National Guard in December of 1981. At least 800 people were killed, over 400 of them being children under the age of 12. There were only two survivors out of the entire town. One of the survivors was a woman named Rufina, who lived only because she was able to duck behind a tree when the soldiers looked away for a moment. Although she survived, she had to endure so much, listening to the rest of the women and children being executed around her. Serafin took us to the tree Rufina hid behind and showed us how the women were lined up from the tree to an old house and executed one-by-one. A monument:
was constructed in the central park in 1991. All of the bodies that could be found were buried underneath the monument which lists all of the known names of the victims. The plaque in front of the monument reads: “They are not dead, they are with us, with you, and with all of humanity.” Rufina passed away a few years ago, and her gravesite now lies next to the monument. Behind the church in the Central Park, there is also a garden:
dedicated to the memory of the children who died there at that very spot during the massacre. The beautiful garden is overlooked by a colorful mural that lists all of the known children’s names and their ages underneath.
Although difficult to see and learn about, our visit to Morazán was a great experience. It is so hard to believe that all of this horror happened within the last thirty years. The fighting is long over, but the scars of the war are still very apparent. Bullet holes are still visible on many of the buildings as well as bomb damage that has often purposely been left as a remembrance of the war. Huge craters, created by dropped bombs, are scattered throughout the war region. Sadly, despite the visible remembrances and the efforts of Perquín Tours, the war is already being forgotten. Children in public schools are not taught about the war and the ministry of tourism focuses almost exclusively on the country’s beaches. And honestly, if it were not for Meg telling us about her previous trip with Perquín Tours, our experience in El Salvador would probably have been much different. I understand that most people probably don’t want to learn about war on their vacation, but it is something that is worth learning about and seeing firsthand. Steve and I both hope to be able to go back one day to go on the full tour as our time was very limited this time around with only a couple days to spare. If you're thinking about going to El Salvador and would like to learn about their civil war, you can email Serafin at perkintour1809@hotmail.com .
On our third and final day in El Salvador, we headed out of Morazán and over to La Palma, which marked a nice upbeat change from the heavier tours of the previous days. La Palma is a colorful city, covered in murals in the estilo infantil, or “child-like style,” an art movement introduced by Fernando Llort in the 1970’s. I can go on and on trying to describe the city to you, but I think it is best to show it to you in pictures:
(The doorway leading to the bathroom in our hotel room)
(Outside a little restaurant)
(Even the lampposts were painted!)
Honduras
From La Palma, Steve and I hopped on a bus for a short 20 minute ride to the border, so we could re-enter Honduras to go see Copán. It was a breeze getting across the border, but the bus ride to Copán on the other side turned out to be long and hectic. However, thanks to the kindness of strangers, specifically a nice Honduran man named Mario, we were able to catch the last bus of the day. We made it to Copán around dinnertime and found ourselves a nice hostel and some delicious food. The following morning we went to see the ruins, which next to Machu Picchu (the king of all ruins) are the coolest ruins we have seen so far! A big part of the ruins have been restored and many parts still have original carvings and colors intact. We started roaming around on our own initially, but then decided to go back and hire a guide, a decision which we were very happy with in the end. Our guide Oscar was very knowledgeable, and through the following pictures, we’d like to share with you a little bit of what we learned:
(There were no cemeteries in Copán because families buried their dead around their houses. They marked the grave sites with skeleton headstones like the one above)
(Archeologists think that the spot in the center of this stone ball was where the Mayans placed the heart of either the winning or losing captain of their famous ball game)
(After the ruins, we headed to the sculpture museum, where we saw this bat, who supposedly is the guardian of the Mayan underworld)
(A replica of a Mayan temple found deep underneath the ruins you see above ground. The Mayans traditionally built whole new temples on top of previous ones when their leadership changed)
Yesterday, we arrived to Antigua, Guatemala around lunchtime. Antigua is a beautiful colonial city surrounded by three volcanoes. We were able to meet back up with Meg, Alex, and Alex briefly for dinner before they left for the Tikal Ruins. We’ll be spending a few days here and then heading up to Lake Atitlan at the end of the week. More to come in our next entry! If you want to see all our photos, here are the facebook links:
El Salvador - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.612757197832.2090253.33102005&type=1&l=ec7e903867
Honduras - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101368122149064.3374766.2301314&type=1&l=b6bff2afed
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