Nature
Experiencing Extreme Weather
Please reassure me that I’m not alone here. When I’m nervous, I will talk to myself in an effort to calm my jitters. On our last trip to El Salvador, my inner voice was pretty darn active. “Well, AT LEAST it isn’t a hurricane like the 2005 and 2009 events causing loss of life to hundreds of people in El Salvador,” I optimistically attempted to comfort myself while witnessing a.....
Experiencing Extreme Weather - the November 1st upcoming story
Tropical storms are frightening in a different way than U.S. eastern coast storms.
Rue de Flores
Signs for Rue de las Flores appear as soon as you exit the airport, and they pop up every couple of miles after that. They cannot be avoided, and soon you simply want to visit this place out of sheer curiosity. (It is similar to driving on I-95 south to Florida and seeing those pesky signs for South of the Border or I-90 for Wall Drug in South Dakota. You.....
Exotic Trees
What are some things that make a tree impressive to you? Here are some of my criteria: 1) One that makes my eyeballs jump out of their sockets and gives me goosebumps; 2) One that I cannot get the entire tree into the frame of a photograph; 3) When stretching arms around the base of its trunk, I cannot begin to capture its girth; 4) One that is so tall,.....
Sustenance of Fruit
Confessions of a fruit junkie: I LOVE tropical fruits. They are all so enticing, piled in the baskets on every street corner and mounded high in the huge elongated baskets attached to the front of bikes the vendors drive. Too bad we foreigners are discouraged from trying the fresh fruits from street vendors. I find my mouth watering at these unfamiliar and curious fruits. Move over banana, pineapple, avocado, coconut,.....
Farming Hope
FARMING HOPE Who in their wildest fancies would have imagined finding a makeshift above –the- ground pool filled with a school of small tilapia swimming around on the top of a Salvadoran mountain? Who would have pictured finding neat rows of peppers, tomatoes, herbs, papaya, beans, and corn planted in neat rows in a garden up there? Who would have conceived of finding on a mountain top workers.....
Tropical Flowers
Signs for the Ruta de las Flores (Route of the Flowers) become prominent on the highway from the time you leave San Salvador’s airport. This 36 km route between Sonsonate and Ahuachapan winds through the mountains and small villages. Varied flowers grow wild along the road and paths to the waterfalls. The village of Ataco itself is worth seeing along the way where many houses are colorfully painted. Abundant and.....
Cocoa
COCOA - The Sweet and Bittersweet “I never met a chocolate I didn’t like” reads one of the magnets on my file cabinet. It is part of the collection of t-shirts, mugs, and other “kitschy” items friends gift chocoholics like me with. Living near Hershey, PA, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve ridden in the fake cocoa bean through the simulated ride at Chocolate World hearing.....
Waterfall
Waterfall A mystery trip, the second one of the day. We don’t ask; we don’t want to know. Our only request is that our local friend choose some places we may find of interest as well as provide photographic opportunities. On the trek towns have long since given way to villages that have given way to strings of dwellings hidden back from the sides of the roads. Highways have long.....
Turtle Release
PARTICIPATING IN A TURTLE RELEASE “. . .We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” John Steinbeck This marvelous adventure was a chance encounter we literally stumbled upon–a totally unplanned departure from the itinerary. But when it was posted and offered, we jumped on the bandwagon, or van, as the case was, and joined the crowd to take part in the.....
Mangrove
Its lazily-flowing, murky, pea-green water has a strong organic smell to it as fallen tropical vegetation floats along its surface. Fish jump in one’s peripheral vision. Circular ripples near the shore signal the presence of small insects to the birds perched directly overhead, ready to dive and devour. Clumps of dead wood have washed ashore making a stable home for the various-sized iguanas sunning themselves. They move only.....
Raining Black Ash
[caption id="attachment_1797" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A Worker Burning Sugar Cane[/caption] The processed white granulated sugar in the canister in my kitchen is one of the many products I use without a thought of the all steps in its manufacture much less the hardships its workers endure in getting it to me. I learned a tiny bit about it by listening to Salvadorans, observing the conditions under which it is grown,.....