Shell on 2 wheels

Wednesday, 19 April 2017

Honduras

This picture appeared in the Irish Times. Taken by Jordi with his camera at road level.
'Tis hot. 'Tis very hot.

Meeting Jordi (Catalunya) and Alexandra (France)
I bumped into Jordi and Alexandra on my last day in El Salvador at a Warm Showers house. I hadn't met any cyclists for ages so was delighted with the company. They were good fun. I spoke Spanish to Jordi, Jordi spoke Catalan to Alexandra, Alex spoke English to me. We had all 3 languages on the go at all times. I taught them about the Bomberos. They taught me about an App made in Girona called Wikiloc. It was so nice for my ears to hear Spanish spoken with a Catalan accent. It took me back to living in Barcelona in 1993.

Crossing into Honduras with Jordi and Alexandra.

Jordi is a voluntary Bombero himself at home. And he's a bit of a chatter box.
As a native Spanish speaker you can imagine how much fun he had when we stayed with the Bomberos.

This was one truck. One truck with 2 huge trailers. Designed for carrying sugar cane.
It was turning from the main road down a tiny dirt track. Unbelievable.

Myself and Alexandra eating a plate of whatever the street stall was selling.
3L of orange drink was gobbled in about 10 minutes. Temp about 38 degrees C!

The capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa
Jordi and Alexandra were heading quickly through Honduras. Most cyclists do this and cross through in 2 days. I had time and wanted to go exploring. Who knows if I'll ever get to Honduras again.

Cathedral on the main square in Tegucigalpa.

Shoe shine men in Tegucigalpa.

In Honduras oranges are semi peeled at the roadside stalls.

Downtown Tegucigalpa. It's a little edgy. Bit dirty, bit dreary but kind of nice.

No tourists seem to wander around Tegucigalpa. They feel it's too dangerous.
But sure 'twas grand.

Tapas in Tegucigalpa included slices of boiled spuds

Hostel in Tegucigalpa - meeting Carlos and the Argentinians

Sweeny Green on the left. My 2 Argentinian neighbours and Carlos in the hammock.

Now this may look like a very uninteresting scene. It was the terasse of a hostel I stayed at in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. 5 usd per night was good value. My tent is on the left. The other 2 tents belong to the Argentinians. Carlos from the US is dozing in the hammock with headphones. I stayed in this hostel for 5 nights and so got to know my neighbours quite well.

The Argentinians woke at sunrise and headed off each day to the busiest traffic lights in the capital where they juggled batons while riding a unicycle or played the guitar or a little accordion and sang. They came back to the hostel at about 9am every morning when rush-hour was over and counted up their wads of 1 limpira bills. They made roughly 10 usd per day each. We had breakfast together. Each morning I cooked them porridge (I'm slowly converting the world) and they made me coffee. We talked about travel and my plans and their plans. At 4pm in the afternoon they headed off again for 2-3 hours of the same, coming back when rush hour was over, counting their money, paying for their accommodation for that night. And so they travelled.

Carlos on the other hand was a trader. He set up his various computers and tablets at 9am, bought and sold shares online on the 'penny stock market' I think he called it. Often he was finished by 9.30am having made between 3,000-5,000 usd. And so the world turns. Everyone getting by. The Argentinians making enough to pay for their accommodation and some grub. The American making enough to buy and sell a few houses every year. The Irish cyclist looking on, taking it all in and thinking what an interesting world it is we live in.

Going to the theatre with Carlos in Tegucigalpa. He had never been to the theatre. Imagine.
He was also too scared to walk through Tegucigalpa. He only took taxis. So we walked together
to the theatre.

The mountains of Honduras
Based on my friend Julian's advice, I headed into the mountains in Honduras. Cycle tourers can actually cycle through Honduras along the Pacific coast in 2 days. But in order to take the road less travelled I diverted up to the capital and onwards into the mountains. I had time and wanted to explore. It was also 42 degrees the morning I left the bomberos (fire station) in the town of Nacaome on the coast. I needed to go high.

Tegucigalpa is 70km uphill inland. My rule about hitching lifts is that as long as I'm not travelling directly along my route i.e. north to south, then hitching is an option. Tegucigalpa was north east of where I was which meant I allowed myself to throw Sherpa into the back of a pick-up for the 70km climb.

Valle de Angeles, Honduras. Beautiful old colonial town where time stands still.

On the street in Valle de Angeles a man peels and then sells his supermarket
trolley full of oranges.

Almost my first WorkAway - at Rauls

I had been wanting to try the WorkAway.info website for ages. I have spent years listening to how friends had travelled the world working a few hours each day in return for food and board and now at last I had time to try it out. I also wanted to get away from the heat of the coast so picked a guesthouse in Valle de Angeles in the central Honduran mountains to contact. Below is my very first reply from a WorkAway host.

Hi Michelle, thank you for contacting me!.. there's a workaweyer who signed up with me already for the next three months, so you don't need to do any work, but you're very welcome to come over. I definitely would love to hear your stories... I do have room for you for about 4 or 5 days. You can just come and relax and enjoy your stay in here, I'm just starting this guesthouse project so ideas are very important for me now... I'll be glad to have you in here, you will enjoy the weather and the mountain views. You can make use of my kitchen to prepare your own food...

Sure how could I refuse. Off I went to Raul's guesthouse and stayed for a week. In return for food and board I did build him an AirBnB profile. There were high fives around the breakfast table the next morning when we got our first booking.

Lovely Raul runs a guesthouse, some log cabins and a dune buggy rental business.
One of his customers gave him a present of this mug while I was there. A mini Raul making dollars.

Raul rented All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) as a side business. He took me up to some
spectacular viewpoints along the mountain trails.

To the right is my John Boyne rocking chair. On this chair I read 2 John Boyne books.

Raul was just a gas man. One day we headed into his local village, he produced a pack of cards at a restaurant table
and soon all the street children flocked over to our table for a game. He knew them all by name.

From Valle de Angeles to Guimaca, Central Honduras.

Cool temperatures, quiet roads, lovely scenery. Perfect cycling conditions.

Honduran mountains, great on the bike.

Road conditions were sometimes a little iffy.

Message from a Warm Showers host in Guimaca, Honduras
Time off the bike at Raul's guesthouse was so lovely that I thought I'd try a Honduran Warm Showers host to see if I could wing any more time off the bike. I wanted to give you a taste of just how wonderful this community is. Here is a reply from a host in Guimaca. My intro email said something like 'Hi, I'm Michelle, from Ireland, I'm nearby and would love a bed or a grassy patch out the back garden, any chance you guys are home'?

Hi Michelle, You are my first contact from WarmShowers!
You are more than welcome to spend time at my place in Guaimaca.
I was a volunteer in Honduras in 1979 and returned with my wife and daughter in 1996.
We spent 13 years in Guaimaca.

I will make some contacts but if you go to the building, the family next door will be able to get you in. Franklin helps me out when I am not there and his mom Glenda will be very helpful.
Fatima will have the key to the upstairs apartment.
Actually I left a set of keys just outside the apartment door.
As you reach the top of the stairs, look at the wall in front of you, up high you will see a set of keys on a leather string will have the key to the apartment.
Franklin will have the keys to get you into the property and the building. I hope you have a great visit!
My number in the States is xxx if you have any questions or I will
be watching my e-mails. I am excited to have my first warmshowers visit.
Please feel like our home is your home. Stay as long as you like.
Eddie

Eddie's humble apartment. It was above a piano school he had set up 13 years ago.
Needless to say I spent that evening tinkling on the keys. I met Fatima and Franklin and Fatima
and just like the email said, they let me in and made me very welcome.

Bingo under the tree
I arrived into Nacaome, Honduras on a Sunday evening and bumped into bingo night. People had brought their own plastic chairs. I was immediately invited to join in. A lovely simple community gathering.

Young and old took part in the weekly bingo under the tree.

These teenagers are using corn/maiz to mark their cards.

2 gorgeous kids at bingo.

I loved this scene. A young lady breastfeeds her baby while playing 2 cards of bingo
using corn/maiz as markers.

Friday, 10 March 2017

El Salvador

A big map of El Salvador at the border. Phew.

A Few Stats

Size: El Salvador is 4 times smaller than Ireland (21,000 km² vs 84,000 km²)

Population: 6.3 million (an additional 3 million live in the USA)
Average Temperature on the coast: 32 degrees
Rate of death from kidney disease: 4th highest in the world (A random statistic, I'll explain later)
Main export market: USA (50% of what El Salvador exports unsurprisingly goes to the US)
Main exports: Textiles, Coffee, Sugar
Human Development Index Ranking: 116 out of 188 countries
Most dangerous country in the world ranking: 8

I fell in love with El Salvador right after riding over the border. I knew nothing at all about the country. I had heard the usual cries of 'It's too dangerous for a solo female cyclist'. But I've heard those cries since arriving into Mexico at the Tijuana border. That was three months ago and since then I've met only lovely people, been offered food and showers and beds in daily random acts of kindness by strangers. So I thought I'd just go for it, cross the border ask for a map and then let the Salvadorians take me through their country. And what a lovely 2 weeks I had.

My 2 weeks in El Salvador were so special because of 3 people. People from El Salvador are called Salvadorians. So I should say because of 3 Salvadorians, Anna, Julio and Jose.

Typical Salvadorian breakfast. Beans with cream, fried bananas
and of course tortillas.

Meeting Anna
My first night in El Salvador was one of those total gems. I crossed the border in the early afternoon so was only a few kilometres into the country when at 4pm ish I started looking for somewhere to pitch the tent. The main coastal road was busy so I had my eyes peeled for somewhere a few hundred metres back. I noticed that a street stall selling watermelons seemed to have a farm behind it. Bobs-your-uncle I thought. Just to put you in the picture it was over 30 degrees every day. I'm saying this right from the start because it impacts everything. When you get up, how far you ride, what you eat, where you sleep, how you sleep, how much water you need to drink, how often you stop to look for shade, your mood.

Sweeny Green's first night in El Salvador. In a lane behind Anna's house.

Anna has been selling watermelons on the roadside for years. The round pale
watermelons are imported from Guatemala. The long dark green ones are local.
Both are delicious.

Anna ran a watermelon stand at the side of the road. I asked if I could pitch my tent behind her house and she said no problem, that I would be safe. Within 5 minutes of pitching the tent another neighbour offered me a bed. I said I was fine, but thanks. 5 minutes later another neighbour knocked on my tent asking if I wanted a shower. Of course I said yes to that.

It was an outdoor shower. The neighbour asked her son to haul me up a big bucket of the coldest water and I relished every drop I poured over my head with an old mayonnaise tub. I pulled the piece of plywood that's lying against the well in the photo below, across as a door. Anna was none too please with me going to the neighbour's house for a shower. Anna said that unlike her neighbour she had a shower INSIDE her house and if I wanted a shower before I left the following morning I should use HER shower. She was very keen to show me her INSIDE house shower. Hilarious.

Anna's neighbour offered me a cold shower (little white walls behind) with water
hauled up from the well by her son. A bucket and a bar of soap. Glorious.

Anna had sold watermelons for years. But now that her husband was on kidney dialysis and couldn't work she had to be creative so she opened a little restaurant beside her watermelons. She and 3 girls from the village worked from 7am-7pm 7 days per week. It was doing a flying business. I mention the kidney dialysis just because in the 2 weeks I spent in El Salvador I met 3 families who had members on dialysis. I thought that a little strange. At home I have one friend who has had a kidney transplant, I know no one personally who is on dialysis. Locals here said it's due to the pesticides sprayed by aeroplane on the corn and sugar crops. Hence my quest to see where El Salvador lies in the 'rate of kidney disease' world ranking.

Anna's 4 month old restaurant.

I ordered grilled shrimp with garlic for dinner. Normally I never buy any food in restaurants but street food from a roadside cafe is fine. I usually ask in advance what the price is as I want to be sure I'm not being ripped off as a gringo (white American tourist), but this time it didn't seem appropriate. I was happy to pay whatever she charged as she was giving me somewhere safe to sleep. As I eat the most delicious plate full of scrummy shrimp, salad and rice I told Anna she belongs in a Michelin star restaurant in London and not a roadside stall in El Salvador. She laughed, we laughed and she told many of her customers who came to her stand for the rest of the night what I had said.

Anna's husband had had a leg amputated a few years ago because of a traffic accident. Recently he has developed kidney disease and requires dialysis twice per week. It costs 125 usd per 4 hour session. His family and her family take it in turns every week to drive him 2 hours to the hospital. Everyone chips in to pay. She works 7 days a week to pay the medical bills, she hardly sat down for the 24 hours I was there.

Another lovely moment after dinner was when Chris de Burg's 'Lady in Red' came on the radio. Anna started to sing along not knowing what any of the words meant. I did a little quick simultaneous translation as I sang and again we both laughed. She was a great character, fully of life and energy and get up and go, such a lovely welcome to a new country.

Anna and her husband resting in their hammocks on the roadside.

Meeting Julio

Julio showing me his Salvadorian flag on his bicycle top.

Meeting Julio couldn't have been more different. There I was merrily cycling along the road a couple of days later, probably feeling a bit grumpy in the heat and with sweat dripping down my back and into my eyes, when a pick up truck pulled in in front of me. Julio is a member of a cycling club from Santa Tecla. He and his team mates (4 guys in lycra pilled into the back of the pick up with their bikes) were on their way home after a mountain bike race. Julio invited me to join them in a bar a few miles down the road for a beer. And so off I went.

The family dog King thought that me doing yoga on my pink mat was a game.

Julio and his wife kindly invited me to stay with them in San Salvador, El Salvador's capital. It wasn't on my route but sure I wasn't in any hurry so thought I'd take them up on the offer. I would climb from sea level to about 1200m. So I knew it would be cooler. Sapo, one of the team members was a bike mechanic and offered to service and clean my bike for me. And they all invited me out on their weekly Thursday night city bike ride with their club, CTU.

Sapo is a kind and gentle soul. He spent 4 hours working on my bike.
He changed all my cables, gave me some new bearings (I'm not quite sure where).
It shone when I picked it up.

Me giving a short presentation about my trip to the mountain bikers before
the night ride.

The CTU Thursday night city bike ride. About 80 people showed up. El Salvador del Mundo
is the national monument equivalent to our Spire I guess, but much more loved.

Cycling around San Salvador on a Thursday evening as you do. That's me in the middle.

Along with the Thursday night bike ride, the comfy bed, ESPN3 to watch Ireland beat France, the 3 yummy meals per day cooked by Blanca the lovely maid and the day trip to see the local volcanos; Julio's invite also extended to taking part in my first ever mountain bike ride that Sunday morning. To avoid the heat Salvadorians get up at crazy o'clock in the morning so at 5am I was up and dressed and heading for the hills.

About to set off for my first mountain bike ride with CTU, Santa
Tecla bike club.

Julio's wife Maria Eugenia a keen mountain biker, stayed with me towards the back of the pack for the whole ride as I was a bit nervous on the stoney sandy mountain dirt roads. Sapo (the bike mechanic) had arranged for me to have a mountain bike from his shop. He also presented me with my first ever cycling jersey with pockets at the back and a flag of El Salvador on the sleeve. It was the first time really that I had ridden a bike with knobbly 2 inch tyres. I couldn't believe how un-slippy it was on the dirt. And although I had to work really hard and was pretty knackered at the end. I quite enjoyed my new adventure. You can whizz so fast on a light bike with no luggage!

That's me riding over a bridge over a river. It's about 7am and
I'm somewhere in the middle of the Salvadorian mountains.

Me and Julio's wife, Maria Eugenia enjoying the dirt road.

Meeting Jose

Jose is almost the one and only Warm Showers host in El Salvador so everyone ends up staying with him whether they are traveling south to Nicaragua or north to Guatemala. So it's just as well he owns the largest house in the whole of the country. It may be a construction site but it fitted his whole extended family plus 5 hungry dirty cyclists just fine.

I came for 1 night and stayed for 3.

And then we were 5 cyclists.

The morning after I arrived, Jose asked if I wanted to join him on a shopping trip to San Miguel. Jose had lived in Montreal, Canada for 20 years working as a cleaner. But he always wanted to come home. So here he is, married to Marie with 2 young children and the owner of 2 shops. He lives like a king, by local standards.

Every 2nd day he drives his truck into San Miguel, the 2nd largest city in El Salvador and goes shopping. I'm googling 'weather San Miguel El Savador' as I type just to put this shopping trip in context and today it's a balmy 37 degrees at 13.00. We must have gone to at least 50 different shops, each one because it sold cheaper toothpaste or flip flops, washing detergent or talcum powder than its neighbour.

His two shops are located in very rural areas so stock a little bit of absolutely everything. We left home at 6am and 14 hours later returned having delivered a tuck load of 'stuff' to his 2 shops, we arrived home exhausted. I hadn't worked so hard in a long time.

I also have to confess that I only managed about 3 shops at a time before having to duck into the air conditioned Pollo Campestre (the local equivalent of McDonalds). It was just so so hot. Julio would leave me there for about 20 minutes and then collect me again, to continue shopping. We bought beans, potatoes, tomatoes, vegetable oil, toilet paper, washing detergent, oh and some sombreros. At home the likes of Julio would just head to Musgraves and load up a few trolleys. Not in El Salvador.

Jose examines the spuds. He buys 2 * 50kgs bags.

We buy 2 crates of tomatoes.

Jose hires a man with a van for 1 usd, to carry all the veg back to our parked truck.

Some delights along the road in El Salvador

A lady sells glasses of coke and fanta from a big bottle. Way cheaper than buying a can.

A little girl sells green birds. 15 usd each.

Grilled tamales are delicious and super cheap.
Potato and corn inside a banana leaf.

I love this clever use of pallets. Note the round pale watermelons are from
Guatemala, those long green stripy ones are local.

This lovely lady takes a coconut out of the ice box at her roadside stall.
I drink the water and then she chops up the flesh inside for me too.

Denis O'Brien flying the Irish flag all over Central America. This is honey.

Cycling between petrol stations from one fire station to the next

El Salvador is so hot that you really have to laugh at the situation most of the time. I greet every single person by saying 'que calor'. No one else seems to even notice. On the days I didn't stay with Anna, Julio or Jose I found myself cycling between petrol stations and staying at the multiple fire stations I found on my route. Whether the petrol stations were 2kms or 20kms apart it didn't matter. I was so hot and sweaty and sticky and dirty and going crazy with the heat that I left my bike outside and dashed in to the air con. I bought whatever was the cheapest drink in the shop and sat, often for a couple of hours, reading. Luckily every shop in El Salvador has armed security at the door. Very for looking after my bike.