Horses, bullets, kids and drunks

On Saturday I arranged a horseriding tour around Suchitoto where my guide would take me to some sites from the war, through the jungle and up to a beautiful mirador up on the mountain.

I was picked up in town in the morning by Nelson who took me to his house where we met my guide and the horses. My guide, Jorge, was a 70 year old Salvadoran. Our three hour tour turned into six hours but I wasn’t complaining. On the way we popped in to see family, his wife (who insisted I borrow her sombrero) and to another man’s house to recharge his mobile phone.

Much of the area we travelled through was Jorge’s land but it saw some intense fighting during the war. We saw bomb craters from the aerial raids, trenches, tatus (the dugouts used to hide people, food and ammunitions during the air raids) and cemeteries. Jorge showed me where his house was before the war and told me that it was used as the kitchen/restaurant during the war. Much of the land is thick jungle but he also uses a bit of it to grow coffee, although even that looks more like jungle than an organised plantation.

During the war Jorge was working for the political party of democracy and peace and was based in Mexico. His family were mostly in Costa Rica except for two sons who stayed to fight. Now, out of his ten children, nine are living in Australia, Canada and the United States, with only one in Suchitoto. Many of the locals I spoke to have family in Australia who moved there during or shortly after the war.

Once we returned to Nelson’s house a family friend insisted I try some of the Gallina India, a wild hen soup, which is a specialty in El Salvador that is cooked on weekends. Since it had just started to rain and by now it was after 3pm it went down perfectly.

Back in town I popped down to a restaurant which was said to have good views of the lake. They weren’t wrong, it was perhaps one of the most stunning vistas I’ve seen – I think the photos speak for themselves.

On the walk back I stopped to take some photos of a house with a façade peppered with bullet holes. Not a particularly uncommon sight but this was a good example and worth a photo. In the late afternoon many of the locals sit outside their houses, chatting and watch the children playing in the street. Some of the kids saw me with the camera and wanted me to take their picture. This turned into a bit of fun for about half an hour where they were posing and playing and their mum was encouraging them to have their photo taken. Eventually she called her husband who came out to take a photo of me with the kids, all but one who was pretending she was too shy.

Once back in the centre of town I stopped at a cafe to use the internet and as I was talking to Mum and Dad on Skype I roused the curiosity of a few of the locals. Not least the drunk guy who insisted on sitting on the floor next to me and rambling for the entire time, occasionally hitting my leg to get my attention. I’m pretty sure he thought I was watching a film so kept insisting he see Mum on the screen.

Eventually I headed back to the hotel where the two brothers and some of their muchachos were sitting around, playing guitar and having a sing along. The two brothers were painting, one occasionally using his paint brushes as percussion and they sang songs from local folk songs to Spanish versions of songs from the ‘70s – a bit of the Beatles, Creedence, Doobie Brothers, etc.

My goodness it was a long day but loads of fun and some really good experiences with the locals.