Ok, week 5: last week in a different country, then I promise to return to entries relevant to Austin.  This week is the reason why these entries are titled "other americas" and not just "South America" because this week was in El Salvador (that's Central America for the geographically-handicapped).  The main reason why I chose this country, known as one of the most violent in all of Latin America and which had been recently hit by a major hurricane, is because all of my layovers heading home went through San Salvador (the capitol) and so I figured I might as well check it out.  I used tripadvisor to find a resort on the Pacific that was, in my head, going to be a vacation from the vacation.  I decided on La Cocotera, a resort in La Barra de Santiago which on one side was the Pacific ocean, and on the other, a lagoon.

Now that the basis of this week is laid out for you, let's head back to Lima, where I woke up, completely hungover from the previous night's pisco sour and guinea pig binge and I still had to pack all of my stuff.  I was pretty much a wreck the whole morning until I finally made it to the cabbie who drove me all the way to about a half mile from the entrance of the airport where he was stopped by the local police (awww so close).  Luckily I had left with plenty of time because I was well aware of the mandatory travel delay in these countries.  This one involved a very heartfelt, tear-laden plea from my cabbie to the police officer to let him off just this once for his apparently expired credentials.  After about 30 minutes of this, and calls back to the cabbie's employer, we finally were let go and I was able to make it to the airport and to my gate with plenty of time.  I even was able to change my flight so I could get in to El Salvador earlier.  This seemed like a great idea at first, but since I was being picked up by a member of the resort staff at 6pm, and my flight was now coming in at noon, I realized that I would still have to wait, but just in a different airport.  So, I rushed around the terminal to find precious wifi so I could e-mail the resort which resulted in non-chalauntly sidling up near VIP rooms and coffee shops until I finally found a signal.  When I finally connected, it was only moments before I had to board and so I got to my seat not knowing if anyone would be there on the other side.

The flight was uneventful except for the fact that this was basically my 7th time getting an emergency row, or some other random row with a lot more leg room than normal.  It was as if the airport attendants sympathized with my traveling woes in actually getting to the airport and decided to hook me up on the plane every time.

When I arrived in San Salvador, I headed through customs which involved some flirty girls forcing me to use Spanish even though they knew English very well, and asked me if I was coming for surfing (this being the main draw for American tourists).  I decided to take the high road and told them that I was indeed coming for surfing and that I was a badass...why do I do this?  I will never see them again, yet there seems to be this innate compulsion to make myself seem more interesting to complete strangers.

Anyway, afterwards I make it out where there were a huge group of shuttle drivers with signs to take tourists to their hotels and so I walk up to the them and say "La Cocotera?" which got a response from one of them of "oooohh lala", a finger rub to signal that it was expensive and most useful to me, a point to the other side where the guy would probably be.  As I make it over there, a guy with my name actually printed out (no synonym with garbage here Trash Law), and he somehow knows I'm his guy and heads towards me and grabs my stuff.  We head out to his car and start our 1.5 hour journey to the resort which involved us silently listening to 80's American tunes since we were both uni-langual...it was awkward.  We went through some fairly sketchy areas and down a dirt road that eventually made it to the beach, which he also had to drive on to make it to the place.  When I got there, it was amazing, it was basically six small bungalows, an amazing pool with coconut tree centerpieces, and even a baby turtle aquarium of sorts.  I was given a tour by the manager (and also head chef) Enrique, who spoke relatively good English, and whose brother actually lived in Austin, about a block or two away from me.

After the tour, I got cleaned up and and read a little of my book, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins which I was pleasantly surprised to be more of a vacation book then I was originally expecting since I wasn't really in the mood to do any deep soul searching while relaxing by a pool and hanging out with baby turtles.  When it came time for dinner, I made it down to the eating area which was occupied by a young couple and another guy, both American looking, and we each had our own tables that were candlelit and set with a basket of bread.  I was greeted by Melba, my waitress, who offered me any alcoholic drink which I quickly declined due to my stomach which was still a mess after the previous night, and most likely the cheecha in Peru.  The meal was a delicious chicken cooked to perfection and covered in a blackberry glaze.  It was a little awkward at first eating alone and having other people eating around me and also not talking (even the couple who I garnered were fighting about something at the time) until some large bats decided to spice up the evening by flying right by my head and scaring the living shit out of me.  After dinner I decided to call it a night and easily fell asleep on my king sized bed while the ocean's waves rhythmically crashed into the beach.

The next day I did what I was basically going to do for the next five days, sit, swim, read, eat, repeat.  I started the day with a fairly basic but tasty breakfast of fruit, bread and delicious coffee before I decided to spend the rest of the day by the pool.  I even gave it the clever name of "Pool Day" and planned for my next day which I had pre-dubbed "Beach Day".  Before lunch, I decided I should also create some sort of "Adventure Day" so I asked Enrique about possible day trips and he told me about a hike up a volcano that I could go on but that would last all day and so I would miss all of the free food I had already paid for.  I told him, that I would think about it and tell him later.

After spending a lot of time by the pool, I decided to go out to a hammock near the beach entrance where I saw two kids pointing at something near a log and yelling to me something in spanish.  I responded with the universal language of hands in the air and a questioned look on my face to tell them I had no idea what they meant.  Soon, another kid joined them to help them point at whatever it was they were pointing at.  It was obvious that something was up, so I did my best to not draw my attention to myself until they eventually left, which was my cue to make my move and check out what all the hub-bub was about.  I looked all over the log but couldn't find out what they might have been looking at, so slightly disappointed, I made my way back to my bungalow to await Enrique who would be coming to give me my dinner options.

I was sitting outside on my balcony that overlooked the ocean when I noticed Enrique approaching, but now with a fellow employee as well as the other single guy staying at the resort.  They went right past my place and straight to the magic log where they did some more pointing and discussing; Pool Day was becoming more interesting indeed.  As they started to head back to the resort office, I decided to stop them and ask what was going on.  It turned out that the single guy had put his sandals by the log to go walk the beach and they had been stolen by unknown thieves.  So I informed them of what I saw and gave them my best description of the most likely culprits to aide in their investigation.  I then told Enrique I wanted fish for dinner.

When dinner came, I made my way out to the dining area and this time it was just me and the sandal-less guy now as the couple had left hopefully to work out their issues.  I asked the guy what had happened, and it turned out that they had recovered the sandals thanks to my killer description.  He then invited me to join him for dinner so it would be a little less awkward than sitting at two tables and one of us getting attacked by giant bats.

I sat and chatted to Ebby, who was a really friendly surgeon (specializing in the eyes) from Manhattan who was doing research for a charity to see if El Salvador was in need a doctors and better health care in certain areas (they are).  We discussed travel, jobs, electrical engineering, cadavers and various other appropriate dinner topics.  Melba again offered me a drink, but my stomach still wasn't having it, and after talking to Tracy via IM earlier that day, I found out I wasn't the only member of the Poo Crew dealing with this affliction.  The dinner was again amazing and Enrique explained that the fish (which was presented whole) was freshly caught that morning and he bought it from the fisherman that afternoon.  After saying my goodnight to Ebby, who would be leaving the next day and also leaving me to rule the roost (a term even more appropriate since the place was constantly visited by chickens and roosters) I made my way back to the bungalow for the night.

Beach Day began with breakfast with Ebby before he took off and way more coffee than necessary for someone on a relaxing vacation.  Then I went for a walk down the beach which was comprised of a darker volcanic sand that was really soft but was crawling with all forms of wildlife including tons of tiny snails.  The one form of animal not present was other humans as the beach was pretty much empty (except randomly for an occasional four-wheeler that would race down the beach).  Every time I took a step, something else moved under my foot, which was cool, but also slightly unnerving since I didn't want to step on something poisonous and then not get discovered until an fourwheeler ran over my corpse.  I walked until the beach came to an end at the entrance to the lagoon which provided a 500 foot obstacle to get to the other side...which was just more beach.  I swam across to the other side and realized that it was pretty unnecessary because the scenery didn't really change so after walking a bit more, I decided to run back.  As I ran, I tried to decide if I was going to go surfing in the treturous ocean whose small waves made Rio's bigger waves look like cute ripples in comparison.

I took a small break in the pool and then had a delicious seafood pasta dish for lunch which basically included everything that could be found in the ocean including tiny octo's that looked a lot like the sentinels from the matrix.  Afterwards, I decided to take the sea kayak out on the lagoon which basically mirrored what I had walked earlier that morning, only this time I was on the other side of the beach.  It was quite a work-out but for some reason built my nerve up enough to head to the ocean with the resort's boogie board to do some wave riding as the sun set over the water's horizon.  The waves were insane and half the time I spent my time laughing at the enormous waves coming at me before I dived into them as they crashed just past me.  I stupidly took a couple of the huge ones which lead to me holding on to the board for dear life and letting the ocean have its way with me.

After my ride, I cleaned up, had another tasty dinner prepared by Enrique and actually enjoyed the solitude which I have rarely experienced in my life.  I wasn't completely alone though, since Melba kept bringing me more and more food since every dinner included an appetizer, a meal and a dessert.  I actually noticed this time that Melba was kind of disappointed that I didn't order a drink, obviously since they would make more money, but unfortunately whatever attacked my stomach in Peru was still going full force and I wasn't about to test those waters.  After dinner, I walked back to my bungalow for bed and for the first time noticed the intense amount of stars in the night sky.

Day three was going to be my Adventure Day, but first I wanted to sit by the pool and write some of my blog before I told Enrique that I wanted to climb the volcano, since Ebby had told me that it was a great experience and completely worth leaving the resort.  As I was sitting there, peacefully tapping away at my iPod, I started to hear a large rumble that sounded like a huge piece of machinery was moving nearby, but was followed by the ground and everything around me starting to shake.  I stood up and looked around because I had no idea what to do in an earthquake and I was a little freaked out since the major earthquake in Haiti had just occurred.  Fearing the worst, I finally decided that I was going to make a run for the beach, but as soon as I came up with this idea, the earthquake stopped.  Soon after, I had lunch and talked to Melba about it and decided to have a beer to calm my nerves and as she went off to fulfill my order, I felt a small aftershock.  When Melba arrived with my El Salvadorian beer called Suprema, I told her that she needed to keep em comin.  This also ended any plans for a trip to the volcano, since I'm pretty sure that's the last place you want to be during an earthquake (the best being of course a seat on John Cusack's plane).  So I turned Adventure Day into Drinking Day, which was probably better anyway since I had already done a whole week of adventures and I had already decided that I was coming back to El Salvador and could climb a volcano then.  So after trying the whole list of beers on the menu, I had dinner and then went to bed happy that the ground seemed fairly stable.

Day four was Dia de la Tortuga (Day of the Turtle) since after spending another morning by the pool and on the beach, I decided to take advantage of one of the amazing features of this eco-resort, which was releasing a baby turtle into the wild.  Basically the resort rescues baby turtles from their probable death during the hatching season and then keep them in a large holding tank until a guest decides to release them into the wild.  When I told Melba that I wanted to release the turtle she jumped about a mile in excitement and then ran around to get some others to help out in this apparently rare event.  She let me pick out my turtle which she quickly named Jason the Turtle (Melba, you creative genius).  

I asked her take a picture of me with Jason the Turtle which took about 20 takes because she was so excited that she was shaking and could barely operate the camera.  As Jason, Melba, myself and another member of the resort staff headed towards the beach, Jason started to move with his flippers in the direction of the ocean, so much so that I had to constantly move my hands to give him a palm treadmill of sorts.

When we got to the beach, I sat him down, a little too far away from the water.  I wasn't trying to make him work for it, I just really had no idea what I was doing and thought he needed more time to ease into the idea.  After Jason took his 4th or 5th break from flippering towards the ocean, I decided to pick him up and move him a little closer to the water.  The waves weren't kind to Jason though, and every time he seemed to get a good distance into the sea, a wave would come and push him right back again.  Finally though he seemed to get a good push underwater so he could swim his way into the murky deep.  Melba told me I would need to come back in two years, which is apparently when Jason would come back to the beach to breed.  I'm 100% sure he will not be eaten before then.

I left El Salvador the next morning and was driven by another guy who spoke zero English.  Luckily we were able to get along a little better than the first guy because I just winged my Spanish a little more and we seemed to understand each other's questions.  When we got to the airport, I was both upset and truly shocked that it was really coming to the end.    

What an incredible trip.  It not only got me closer to some good friends, but also allowed me to experience more cultures that once again proves that even though some people in the world spend more time on beaches, party until 7am, drink more wine than normal, eat small rodents, and save baby turtles, they are all after the same thing...my money.   Oh wait, no...I mean, love, or adventures, or something.  I don't know...people are pretty much the same everywhere though and traveling is truly one of the best investments a person can make to teach them this important but often overlooked fact.

So, goodbye other Americas, I will be back for another vacation, but for now I am back here in Austin, looking forward to the ever-present vacations from normal.