Sniper Bear

So we survived travel day! I will tell you that my anxiety level reached record levels that day. It’s funny how quickly my adventurous, spontaneous, free spirited ways drift away as I get older. I was literally a scared ball of nerves and felt so out of control. I kept telling SB that had I taken this trip with anyone else…I may have had a mental breakdown! Somehow…that man bring out a patient and level headed Jess.

The next day was Thursday. Jueves. (I do remember some things from High School!) We started the day off with a massage on the beach. It was JUST what my body needed after travel day and we walked out of the tiki huts feeling fannnntastic. We hit the pool asap and had cold drinks in our hands. We were ready to take on the challenges of language barriers and enjoy the beauty that was around us. What we were NOT prepared for…was the sun. Somehow, the idea to dab on a lil sunscreen escaped both of us. We don’t put it on at home…probably won’t need it here, right? Wrong. Only a few short hours later we realized just how burnt we were. Despite our efforts to put on sunscreen after the fact we decided to head inside for a siesta and to get out of the ball of fire.

Viernes. Needless to say we were sunburned, but we were feeling more and more comfortable with the surroundings at Decameron. We figured out what to eat (and more importantly NOT eat) at the restaurants and found a modest little spot on the beach to spend the day. It was covered by a tiki hut umbrella thing to block any unnecessary sun. We did some exploring in the ocean and took lots of pics. We relaxed and we had some talks that brought our relationship to an even better level. We needed this trip. 🙂 We also needed the day of relaxing to prepare us for the following day…Neal and Jude getting married! On Sabado…we continued our journey…

When Neal asked us to come to his and Jude’s wedding, I wasn’t sure that an excursion to another country would fit within the things we were going to be able to do this year. However, after much deliberating, Jess and I decided to do it. So we budgeted out the next few months and booked the trip. The events that followed were something I will never forget. 🙂

The morning of the trip sprang on us faster than we thought but we were ready. Chase was dropped off with his dad and we hit up the airport. We had buddy passes so we were on stand-by. No worries, we were about 5 hours early to the airport. It was freezing cold at the airport as well as on the plane. Being in first class certainly helped, but it was still chilly. The notion of anything cold soon evaporated. From what I remember it was about TWO THOUSAND DEGREES in El Salvador when we got there. The humidity was off the charts and it was a new kind of heat. Something the likes of Georgia just doesn’t have. No worries. This was a tropical adventure.

Having never been out of the country, Jess and I were ill prepared for the lack of U.S. Citizens and anyone that spoke english. We managed to round up our luggage and get to the rental car place. I had enough sense to pre-book us a car so we were quick to actually get in the car and get on the road. Despite not being able to speak the native tongue we were able to communicate as needed. The car they gave us was this 1992 Nissan Sentra that had seen better days. I’m not sure if they realized a) who was going to be driving this car and b) what country they were in. The roads were rough at best. Never-the-less, we made the best of it, and Jess, me, and “Pedro” (that’s the name we dubbed our car) were on our way.

It took about 30 mins to figure out where we were exactly, but once we got going it was an awesome drive. That is until we made it to the river that we had to drive through. Apparently, the roads in El Salvador aren’t their highest priority and a recent storm had washed away one of the bridges. Thankfully, the local children were gracious enough to navigate us down a dirt path through the actual river (about 12″ deep) to the other side. I will forever be grateful to the little children of El Salvador.

The rest of the ride was pretty straight forward. It was about 2 hours driving through gorgeous country side and cliffs overlooking the ocean. You could see mountains way off in the distance that dwarf anything I’ve seen before. The camera was all a flurry. With no music to keep us company, we resorted to talking to each other. It’s a foreign concept that seems be long gone from some relationships, but not this one. We talked about the cows and people on bikes. About how the people there seem to have a simple life. How no one seems to harbor any sort of ill intentions or desire to harm or wrong us. People were just nice there. The country was “untouched” as Jess put it. With out the distraction of a radio or technology or Facebooks and Twitters we really got to reconnect. That ride was something I will always remember.

Around 3pm El Salv. time we rolled up on the hotel. It was a stunning place and we figured surely, there would be other gringos there and someone to speak our language. Again, we were mistaken. All the hotel staff and guests and armed guards were either from El Salvador or from El Salvador. This didn’t stop Jess and I though, we were going to make the best of it. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but we soon realized that at 3 they start checking people in. We were all (like 200 people) into a big conference room where we were assigned a number. This tiny little card with “88” was all we were given. Up on stage there was a guy that sounded like a cross between a Spanish auctioneer and a monster truck announcer was going to town. We saw people check their cards, then head up to one of five booths. We deduced that they were calling out the numbers. Jess knew enough Spanish to know that “88” was “ochenta y ocho”. So there we sat, listening for the those 2 words. Eventually, our number was called and we worked our way through what the host lady was saying at the booth. We got our key and a map of the hotel and headed to our room. The room was very nice. It was a million degrees outside, but inside, it was nice and cool.

After some unpacking and re-gaining of our bearings we donned our bathing suits, some towels and hit the pool. The resort was all inclusive, so the drinks were free. However they were served in the worlds smallest cups. Jess and I fixed that problem with a trip to the gift shop. We got our huge coffee mugs and were set for the rest of the trip. The rest of the afternoon was spent just walking around the resort, making sure we knew where everything was (bars, restaurants, spa, etc). Dinner was at Pastafari (a fusion of Italian and Jamaican food… still not sure that’s a successful combo). We wanted to hit up the shows or “discotech”, but sadly we were exhausted and decided to call it an early night. We had survived our first day in a foreign country where only about 1% of the people spoke our language. We had driven a tiny little car literally “over the river and through the woods” through streets lined with cows, old ladies on bikes, people selling shoes, DVDs, mangos, and children. It was an adventure. It was unforgettable, and it was only the beginning.

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