TIENDAS EN LA CALLE

As a way of making a little extra income, local households convert their front room into a small shop and sell various items form here.
Some tiendas stock the usual sweets, crisps and snack foods, and essential household items. Here you can buy 1 tomoato, or 1 egg, or 1 roll of toilet paper.
They might also specialise in phone cards for topup, or lottery tickets.
Other tiendas sell cooked food such as the pupusa's, barbequed chicken or taco's.

This tienda is near our 'after school on Friday' pub, the Heradura (horseshoe)
Their iceblocks on sticks are made from freshfruits and juices, and yoghurt. They don't sell the usual icecreams that we know, made from milk and cream, but these are refreshing and delicious for $1.25 each - quite expensive, considering a magnum (Salvador copy brand) can be bought for less than a dollar.

So this is how I came to be at this tienda last Friday.

Dulce de leche, Mango chili, Yoghut &fig, Strawbery and orange

Red Hot Chili Peppers in Guatemala

TIGOFEST it was called.


But so much more than that -  a lineup of contemporary music bands from Latin America, and headlining were the RHCP (which was what attracted us in the first place!). I didn't realise what a treat of music it was going to be.

A very plain ticket for a very exciting music festival

Once we had figured out the seating arrangement, we chose to have seats rather than stand in the moshpit. We joined a tour group leaving San Salvador at 0700 on Sat and returning Sun at 630pm. A hotel room, breakfast, all bus transfers to the show, and bus return on Sunday via Antigua in Guatemala for lunch were included. The full price was $195US per person.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Jody and Linda on the bus

Waiting in the queue at the border
(twice on the way there, twice on the way back)

                               



The usual delays along the way - 2 border crossings, roadworks and slow Salvadoreans, meant that we didn't arrive at our hotel until 1pm. Mind you we managed more than 40 winks on the bus - good prep for a long night ahead!

Arriving at our hotel, Guatemala City
3 Kiwi's, 1 Aussie and a Scott!

So after dropping things at the hotel - Hotel Biltmore Guatemala, a very comfortable hotel, we headed off to the Estadio Nacional Mateo Flores, an outdoor multipurpose stadium, which holds up to 30,000 people.

The road to Tigo Fest

Along the entry road there was lots of advertising, memoribilia, Tshirts, as well as drinks, including beer and shots. Little did we realise it was a dry concert, so we had to drink it all before we went in!

And we had time to mix with the locals as well!

                              


Once we were inside, the action had already started.

Flaminia - Guatemalan musician/singer. Indie-experimetal
Francis Davila - Guatemalan musician - electronic - DJ
Bohemia Suburbana - Guatemalan alternative rock/popular contemporary. 20 years of producing music, well know popular Guatemalan rock group

Mana - famous Mexican band with several grammies to their name, as well as no.1 sales in the States in 2002. Latin Pop Rock mixed with love ballads.















And....RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS - what a crazy performance!

                                           

After an hour and more of RHCP, it was getting on for 10pm, and many people left - not coping with the dry Sat night! Anyway we decided to stay and watch Paul van Dyk - so glad we did!
A German, and star of Electronic music. the light show was amazing and the music just kept getting better. (Glad I wasn't near the stage though!)

We crawled into bed at 1.30am - very pleased with ourselves staying up so late!

Painters in the house

February 2013

This week the landlady decided it was time to paint our house.

On Monday morning the crew arrived - 2 young boys and an older Salvadorean. They spent the day outside, painting the front of the house which was quite weathered after probably 3 years of rainy and dry seasons.

Mauricio (21), Mateo and Serjio (17)

The following 2 days they swept through the house, working nonstop from 8am till 5pm, with a 1 hour lunch break. I guess they went to a local comedor and had the tipico meal of carne de res, frijoles, casimento and guacamole.

Each day we had at least one visit from the 2 supervising locals - Alejandro - the Poligono manager, Luiz - resident at no. 52, maybe a friend of the owner, and Artillo - the armed guard who spoke english and translated.

 

Each day we were asked if we were happy with the work, if the boys were working hard and if there were any areas they didn't paint well enough.

Luiz-neighbour ,Alejandro-manager and Artillo-guard

Serjio is 17 years old, lives in Ciudad Merliot, not far from our house. He is a friend of Mauricio who asks him to help painting houses whenever he has work.

Mauricio is 21 years old and lives in La Palma. He trained as a painter in the Fernando Llort program, painting traditional hancrafts. Now he works in San Salvador Mon-Fri and travels home by bus each weekend. He gets paid $12 a day as a skilled house painter.

Mateo lived in Oregon USA for 2 years and can speak good English. He was likely an overstayer, deported back to El Salvador - he had been working as a Pest Control worker there, visiting houses for termite control. He works when needed as a painter now - he only came for 2 days to help the boys get finished on time.

Time for another Adventure - Lago de Ilopango

Mandy called last week with a cry "It must be time for another adventure!"

We've been in El Salvador now for 21 months, and initially the adventures were every weekend. Adventures consist of travelling into the unknown, with a destination in mind, but just see what happens along the way.

Often these adventures involve a street market - take a wrong turn and find ourselves driving shoulder to shoulder with the market vendors and their wares. At times a little disconcerting as we tend to be a source of great interest to the locals.
Other times these adventures have seen us driving up a mountain range on a dirt track, past small villages, again at the amazement of locals who seem to have never seen gringos before.

So on this Sunday the destination was Lago de Ilopango, with of course the usual warning from local Salvadoreans - 'be very careful, its not safe there!'

Brian managed to program the GPS - an advancement on our first year in El Salvador when we relied on tourist maps. Driving from Santa Tecla, through San Salvador was straight forward with the GPS - only a couple of last minute decisions at road junctions. Through dreaded Soypango without stopping and onto the turnoff to Apulco. A quick drive down to the lakefront and we were there - amongst the riverfront cafes and local people.

We arrived at 1130, as the cafes were getting ready for the midday diners, our arrival brought them to their doors encouraging us to dine there. As we wandered along, a boat guide quickly made his way toward us, and from behind, a Mariachi band appeared from nowhere and began to play, blocking our escape route from the waterfront. A boat ride seemed preferable to loud midday music, so we engaged the boatowner. We quickly ordered a bucket of drinks and climbed into his boat.

So away we went for an hour, around the lake - a crater lake with a couple of lava islands in the centre with picnic spots for locals to enjoy.The lake was perfectly calm, the water warm and there was a warm breeze blowing, just gorgeous.

Scuba diving in the lake is a tourist activity and our guide tells us that Jacques Cousteau has also visited the lake for exploration. in the middle of the lake we could see in the distance the diving platform for the adventurous.



Once on our boat-trip we saw many extravagant lake homes, beautiful scenery, green trees and bush, and local villagers enjoying their Sunday afternoon with a relaxing day at the lake,  even a baptism!

From our view on the lake we had noticed a more developed area with established eateries and a concrete promenade along the lake front with many local families enjoying the area.

 On our return to the car we drove back up to the main street and came upon the entrance to Apulo Recreation park. An entrance fee of $4 and we decided to find our lunch spot here.

We finally chose our restaurant and ordered food and drinks.
Camerones and ensalada - $4
Giant shrimps on garlic butter and ensalada - $10
Mariscado - seafood soup with giant shrimps, camarones, fish and crab - $6
Beer $1.25

Then for a stroll down the prom - and dessert - plantain barbequed and served with salt in the banana skin. Very ecologically friendly!

Or if you prefer - shaved ice (expertly prepared from an iceblock with a metal chisel) and served with chilli, limejuice and salt! ?A non-alcoholic margarita ?

And of course.... the ever present armed forces for our protection!


Another great day out full of surprises and adventure, in El Salvador.