El Garitón part I

so after El Salvador i moved to a new tortugario (turtle park) in a village called El Garitón. cool place that makes you feel at home and everyone is superfriendly and cool.

gathering storm. have had some massive lightning and thunderstorms. twice while Kate and i were there by ourselves we had lightning strike within 150 m or so of us. had dinner indoors those days.

have finally come up w/ names for 'those two'. not sure about girl though. you will see a bit more of them soon. around christmas time or so i'd say. wink-wink

another beautiful sunset over El Garitón

after a Frank'n'Frank comic by the brilliantly talented Chris Appelhans

Kate saw a bird chase a crab around a coconut, around and around in circles, for about a minute. not the brightest of them

out one night in Monterrico for a party and there was a cool fire-poy dancing girl. at one stage i went outside to chill and sat on the lifeguard tower bottom rung just looking out to sea and up to stars (amazing sky there) when a huge wave came rushing up. i lifted my feet so they wouldn't get wet and in doing so lost my balance and fell back. not all the way but did get back of my t-shirt wet. not one of my brightest moments either

had a dream w/ a friend (she's probably coming over next year). these and other things happened.

David, from a family down the dirt road to main street. play w/ him and his sister Carolina almost everytime we go by. they are guaranteed to put a smile on your face and always excited to see you.

walking for turtles one night (baules/leatherbacks, which can reach 2.5 m, have started coming up early this season) kate and i were pretty tired and almost done w/ the 8km walk when about 100 m from the tortugario a massive wave came up. we just acted on reflex and ran and jumped up a cusp (sand hill) about one and a half meters high. woke us up thats for sure.. and made us laugh

Kate w/ some girls from the village after she´d painted their nails. go into town and you are almost guaranteed to run into one of them at least. one on left is supercheecky.

a little tiny hatchling. we do nest excavations after a few days of the nest hatching and most are out. sometimes you´ll find some deformed, albino, or stuck hatchlings... some dead as well. takes them a while to dig up and once they get out they go towards the light which is usually the waves, so strong lights on houses by the beach are bad for them as it confuses them and the females when they come to lay the eggs.

and here they are rushing out to sea

mosquito nets... another essential... actually that is a lie as i don´t use one in El Garitón but did in Hawaii... and when i was in Sri Lanka last year.

another cool cloud

David, one of kids from this really cool family down the road. Ruty and Angel are the granparents and they live w/ three of their sons and daughters Helder, Fabiana and Anyansy and David and Carolina who are grandchildren from another daughter. also have other sons. every time we go by we say hi and most times spend a bit of time talking and playing w/ the kids. they are guaranteed to put a smile on your face no matter how bad the day. unfortunately Helder, who was 20, died in a motorbike accident a week and a half before i left. went to the velatorio (wake w/ singing and praying on same day) and then the funeral the day after. sad few days, especially seeing them so distraught as they were always supernice w/ honest kindness to us. inviting us for dinner and if i was around for christmas i was invited to spend it w/ them.

till next time

El Salvador

and off to El Salvador i went... w/ Abby and Kate

that be me, Kate and Abby left to right plus the guy that rides you to the border behind. you then walk across a bridge from Guatemala to El Salvador. had the worst robbery attempt ever on us at the frontier. a guy that was on bus came up and asked if i could give him a dollar (they use US dollars in El Salvador). when i told him i didn't have change he told me to give him twenty dollars. i said no and then he proceeded to tell me that if i didn't give him some money now he would follow us down the road and steal everything we had. i just told him to wait there and walked ahead w/ the girls. he started following us and i just motioned for him to wait. he did and we got on a bus away from there.

we stayed at this cool hotel w/ all ancient mayan pieces all over and cool set up in El Tunco. one of nights was spent by pool just being stupid for the camera. this one is about a guy on bus that just wouldn't shut up. "you, look at me please", "Abby, listen to me please", "Jack! Jack! you like Lionel Ritchie" (he apparently decided i was Jack after we had told him i was dennis about 3 times)

some Regia, the El Salvadorian VB, was had. the girls rubbing cold bottles of beer all over me. what more could you want ;)

resting up watching a movie (a luxury not usually afforded to us volunteers back in Guatemala). probably Batman Begins, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory orZoolander. it was a Zoolander quote sort of a holiday.

sunset in El Tunco. one of those rocks looks like an elephant

it's a mer-man! a mer-man!

big surf. there's someone paddling out there. we were actually going to go surfing (i hadn't in nearly three years) but saw a guy come out w/ a broken board and another w/ a cut face. no thanks to massive surf

i don't know what to say. so i'll say nothing about it... oh i do know something to say. Edith Piaf rocks!

Huehue to Hawaii

hej again. how may thee be?

let us continue shall we.

in Huehuetenango at the diviest bar i have ever seen in my life. a drunk guatemalan girl fell off her chair and kept talking into her mobile while her friends helped her up. the cowboys at back were smashed on this aguardiente stuff. another guy was in corner singing to himself then decided to talk to me and asked me to get him a beer. this is all at 1 pm. the toilet was a little latrine in the corner w/ no cover or door and the other had a bit of material as cover.

kids played soccer all over the fields on our chicken bus ride to Guatemala City

in the hostel in Guatemala City. only one night there anda few hours outside hostel and still saw a crackhead girl smoking outside a restaurant. a guy walking in middle of street w/ a cut open head and no top on. a drunken old man. no thanks

one of many signs around Hawaii tortugario.

some of hatchlings in my book

was bored one day so let music inspire me :)

found a human jaw bone washed up on shore in this place called El Rosario. second one found by volunteers in parque this year.

Ysabel taught environmental studies at five schools in the area. i went once w/ her to school in El Dormido, a town that was basically destroyed last year when Hurricane Stan hit. chicken and pigs roaming freely through class which was just nine wooden poles and corrugated iron roofs.

Carmelo is a local kid in Monterrico who i usually see when in town. met him when he led me and a few others to a pool (had four failed attempts before that as other pools were empty or dirty or closed). always get a shout out now

a turtle came up during the day. doesn't happen often. most of our work actually occurs at night as we patrol beach looking for nesting turtles. i found five myself this year and saw quite a few more. so thats about 500 eggs i found. may save one yet :)

a dolphin skeleton we have at the Hawaii park. also have machorras which are a prehistoric type of fish, an iguana named Pancho withamazing texture on his scales, some river turtles and a 7 caymans plus their babies. cool place

and we can go kayaking through a mangrove forest and into a big lagoon. amazing, tranquil place w/ a lot of herrons and other birds, crabs, shrimp and fish

the talked about lagoon

and also find this weird lizard type of creature in mangroves which Kenny (a mate) and i have claimed to have discovered. (a lot smaller than scale sugests and no fire, pointy tail or razor sharp teeth. also saw the man on the moon

you can see three volcanoes from beach off in the distance everymorning before the clouds cover them. one on left, Fuego, still smokes once in a while

we do crawl counts in mornings to see how many turtles came up the previous night. one time we found a very bizzare track trailing through park

had a bbq one saturday, everybeer bought gave 5 quetzales to buy turtle nests. this is me w/ David (New Zealand), Kenny (Melbourne, Aus) and Chad cooking the meat and fish. i of course was put in charge of lighting and running the actual bbq, being Australian it was my patriotic duty ;)

another pic drawn in book. we play cards a fair bit in Hawaii


and have these two dogs which are freakin' cool. Colilla and Stan (yes he was named after the hurricane)

and here they are running and playing in beach. Stan is brown one, Colilla the black one. i was away for a few weeks and when i returned she wouldnt leave my side. followed me to ocean then hammocks then common area, shower area and back to hammocks. always played w/ them there

we had about 30 kids from area in one day so we could show them around the park and teach them about conservation and the environment. activities included a treasure hunt, football (soccer) and short talks

...

sunset as we rode in the back of a ute (picop they call them) to a dinner

and here are all (or most) of volunteers that were there at time w/ some extra ones

had a second day w/ school kids from area. this is Augusto who came and joined me as i played my ukulele on this lookout tower during sunset. whenever i am in Hawaii i always play either tghe ukulele or a guitar on that tower while the sun sets. some amazing ones

woke up in the middle of the night once and Ysabel and Rachel were getting rid of a scorpion in fits of giggles. funny sight to wake up to

leaving Monterrico w/ my Anna and Kate to go to El Salvador