Hello hello! On my left we have a wonderful tree in the mountain town of Panchimalco (maybe on my expert map) above San Salvador. The tree was massive and beautiful. It´s great here at about 5.30, 6 when the sun goes down (it stays around 30C here in the day year round), as depicted, as it gets all cool and still. Panchilmalco is one of the few places with an indigenous community left in El Salvador. Baltasar (Amber´s beau) got a haircut up there. i reckon this guy could give Hamilton a run for his money Ian. Pictures below at various stages of haircut, sensing it wasn´t quite going to plan, and realsing that the clippers only have one setting.
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Thanks for your comments and suggestions for the blog - I have added some pics to the first ever post, New York, which is a good representation of the amount of time i spent eating. In an effort to rearrange I seem to have lost the pic of the church with the stained glass and weaponry on the wall so I hope you got a good look at that.
So, now for you some things I have seen and learnt about El Salvador while I´ve been here
There are many many buses, mainly repainted US school buses. Nearly all have religious slogans laminated on, such as "In God we Trust", or other such things like inspirational quotes "It is better to live your life standing up than on your knees" (can you see it on the London buses?), and also quite often support for Barcelona (footie club). Barca and Real Madrid are big here and often get more support than the national side. The buses seem to operate with a guy hanging out the door pulling people up and on to the bus, whether it´s the right route or not, which he then makes money out of. smart. I expect I would probably end up in Mexico if I took too many.
There are many bejwelled and done up mature ladies or "doñas". Impressive characters. One of whom was working in the jewellery shop we picked up Amber´s engagement ring from. probably in her 70s, she had peroxide hair, shocks of rouge on the cheeks and looked like she was made of strong stuff. As Amber admired the ring, the lady, looking me up and down, asked Amber; "¿Esta casada?" (Is she married?). When Amber replied no, she looked puzzled and said "No es fea...es bonita" (She´s not ugly..she´s pretty). Well thank f for that i thought! Whew! And there I was thinking I was not going to get married due to my ugly mug. In the car on the way home, I saw Amber was bleeding from her ear. This turned out to be the rouge effect rubbing off on her though so all was well. The culture you could say is still macho, Amber was telling me how it´s normal for there to be an efeminate man in lots of towns that the tough guys will have sex with to prove their manliness. I wonder if it works?
There are many many malls here. Lots of empty shops at the moment. We went last night to one for cinema purposes to see Benjamin Button. It gets very quiet at night here generally and no one is out on the streets really when it´s dark. In the day the informal sector is crazy, shopwize. In downtown San Salvador the street vendors eclipse the actual shops that are paying the rent for the shop space, which adds to the squeezed feeling in bits of the city
Globalisation is alive and well, whether it is in support for Real or Barca, the music on the radio, much of which is the same as home, or in the gossip section of the papers- while Ive been here I´ve been cheered to see the exportation of Great British culture in the paper here- pictures of WAG Abby Clancy, an admission by Victoria Beckham that she ´likes women but is not a lesbian´and news of Robbie Wiliam´s return to Take That. NUTS.
On a positive note, because Salvador is so dinky, you can get around it and see lots of different things quite easily. It´s not far from the beach (where you can search out pretty empty ones, Ive only seen a handful of tourists so far) or from the mountains and hill towns like Panchimalco or Boqueron. We went up to a coffee plantation in one of these which was beautiful and a bit wild and nice and high up to see everything and see the city down below.
Below are some pictures of A & B, and me here. love to you all xx
Note for Pippa- films Ive seen while I´ve been here-
Zohan, Australia and Benjamin Button. Have you seen them? Hugh Jackman is in Australia! I am retrospectively excited that I saw him now.
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