Age old festival in El Salvador

    
      When I was in El Salvador with La Ruta Inka I had the chance to witness a magnificent festival.  This festival has been going on between two towns since El Salvador was a colony of Spain.  All the people of one town get the statue of thier saint, San Christobal and hike up a montant to a cave where they camp over night.  The next day the mayor or town leader  puts San Christobal on their back and the whole group hikes back down to the other town.

    At the other town the town's people are lined up waiting with a statue of their saint, San Lucas, for San Christobal to arrive with his people.  Once the two saints get closer a group of people from both towns are dressed up in costumes that represent their Indian and Spanish ancestors start to dance with machetea in the middle of the main street as San Christobal comes into town. 

      The saints are carried buy town leaders and are brought little by little toward each other.  This represents when both the saints met for the very first time to unite both towns.  As they are carried toward each other they stop three times and are tilted forward signifying the three times they greeted each other on their first meeting.

  

      At the last tilt or greeting the crowd that is made up of people from both towns cheer and trow confetti.  After all the cheering, all the people line up in two lines and greet each other, one at a time like two high school teams would do after a game here in the states.  This greet consists of both participants holding each others right hands like a hand shake and raising them up to their foreheads.

     Once every one has greeted each other they walk together to the center of the town and dance traditional dances, celebrate their union, and eat typical foods.

The Future of a Country

The night before the Ministry of Tourism of Nicaragua(INTUR) took us to a dinner at a hotel were we sat pool side. Just a few minuets after we had arrived the power went out and we had to wait for a couple hours to be able to eat. As we waited the guys of the group went about trowing each other into the pool with their clothing on, I just strip down to my boxers and jumped in so I wouldn't give them the joy. After we ate a youth group dance typical dances for us and then they played music so we all could dance together.

The next day INTUR took us to a few more museums were we saw more archaeological artifacts. The problem with these museums is that they are just a building with a few artifacts in them and that's all, in my opinion if they gathered all the artifacts that each museum has and make a few large national museum it would help to get more tourism and would be easier for to tourist to get more out of their visit. After the museums we were taken to a few elementary schools.

At the school the children dance typical dances for us and we had time to interact with them. I think it's great that there is a goal to teach the youth about their past and customs, maybe they can help this wonderful country be more know in the world.

Once we had finished talking to the children we were taken to a bakery were the make roscones, roscones are small round baked good made from corn some times filled with caramel or cheese. They have workers roll the dough by hand into circles and the place on a large plate to place into ovens that work by burning wood.

While we was at the bakery there was a child there, I'm guessing related to the owners or someone that works there. I was happy to see him there because it means he is learned how to make roscones and he will keep the costume going. I tried to get a good shot of him for a while until he stepped into open shade and the sun was bouncing of the cement in from of him giving me a nice fill as well as crating these wonderful long catch lights. I just had to get this shot.

Getting to know the great people of Nicaragua

The second day in Nicaragua the Ministry of Tourism of Nicaragua(INTUR) picked us up to go see the historical center of Granada. Once we arrived to the main plaza we only had about an hour there; 30 minutes to hear historical facts about the sites and another 30 minutes to walk around on our own and shop.

After the hour we were ready to leave but we couldn't because there was people from the group missing. We ended up having to wait about an hour and a half because people would leave to make phone calls or get drinks as we waited for the ones missing to show and then we would have to wait for them to get back. La Ruta had set rules at the start of the trip in case something like this would happened, the rule was that we would wait for ten to fifteen minutes, then would leave and the person left behind would have to find their own way to meet up with La Ruta. This rule was in place because we have a very tight schedule and if we start running late we would miss things we had to see and that is just what happened in this situation, we wasn't able to see two stops. To add to the delays when we were all now really ready to leave there was something wrong with the bus and had to wait another few minutes till it got fixed.

We didn't get to stop at the Lake of Nicaragua because of the delays but at lest we were able to look at as we drove by. The Lake of Nicaragua is the largest lake in Central America and is home to the Bull Shark which is the only shark that is able to live in fresh water.

The next stop was a little town that had a large part to do with Nicaragua's revoultion over their old government. Here we was once more greeted with great typical food, drinks, music, and dances. There was a point were even some of our members joined in the dancing.

Just before all the great activities were done I went out side and walk around a little. I noticed that the people in this town had a great intrust in us, there was tons of people sitting out side or on their door steps as well as sticking their heads out the window to take a look at us. I think that as I attempted to capture them trying to get an glimpse of us is when I really realized that people from other places are just as interested in you as you are about them, I would love to studying that in depth in the future.

After a great time at our last stop and getting to know the great people of Nicaragua, we went to an arts and crafts market were we met a group of young Nicaraguans that explained to us about their history and then was as able to go shopping.

After we had learning so much about the Nicaraguan culture, INTUR took us to eat at a restaurant were we ate the same typical dish we had eaten the at our first diner in Nicaragua. This typical dish consist of yuca(a vegetable that's a root like the potato), meat, and on top there is a salad thats like coleslaw but without mayonnaise.
Once we had eaten we left to Managua which is the capital of Nicaragua. In Managua the first place we went to was the bulding were the revolution had started, there they explained to us how the rebels went about entering and taking over the government at the time. This building now has been turned into a museum and were able to walk around and learn a lot more about their culture.

One of the things that I learned this day was that Nicaragua is left winged and a lot of the people really look up to El Che. As soon as I found this out it all made sense to me why I thought I knew about Granada, I had heard about it on some Che documentaries I had watch before. Back in high school some of my friends were Che fans but I really did not know who he was and didn't understand why he was so important. So I did some research on him to find out I like him in his youth but really didn't like the way he went about getting things done late in his life. Because of the fact tones of people in the US like him but he fought agents the US really interested me on why people love him so much in the states. Now in days in the US El Che is just a hip icon and most people that wear something with his face on it do not even know who he is so when I realized I was in a country were he was a extremely important and is a hero to them I just had to take the time and talk to the people and get their point of view.

First meeting with a tribe

7/28/10

The places that La Ruta set up for us to sleep at was different every time. Some times it would be a college or school dorm, military base, field to camp in, or a sport complex. This time it was a sport complex in Panama.

The first place that the Panamanian Tourism Authority took us was to meet a tribe of the Embera ethnic. When we got there the tribe members pick us in these long canoes that fit about 12 people including two tribe members. These canoes they make them self our of a trees that they cut, carve out, and add a power motor.

The first place the tribe took us was a stream that ended at the main river. We had to hike next to this stream to a water fall were we could swim in. As we walked we found out the stream wasn't really a stream but a small river and we would have to walk on rocks and cross the river a few times that was also really rocky. We all took off our shoes so we wouldn't get them wet but the rock were really sharp and hurt our feet. The tribe members had no shoes on the whole day and were not effected at all by the rocks, I guess from living there and walking on these rocks from birth.

After a nice dip in the waterfall we hoped back in the canoes and they took us to were they lived. The way they drive the canoes is that one of them is in the back steering the motor and another in the front that has a long pole that he would keep the canoe away from the shallow areas of the river.

When we got the area were they live at we was greeted by the female and kids of the tribe as well as the elders playing music. When we was there they played music, feed us, explain about their day to to day activities, and dance typical dances for us. When this was done we had time to talk to them and buy some souvenirs that they make.

I had a strange experience right after I got this shot. I seen this little girl standing there and it look so much like an Arnold Newman shot I had to take it. As I'm shooting I realized that there was someone looking at me out of the corner of the door. This made the shot perfect. So I walk up to them to show them the shot since I was so happy with it and as I'm showing them the mother grabs the two little girls and runs inside with them. When I looked around the reason they had run away was because a male tribe member was coming.

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