Happy Dogs, Happy People.

Just a quick one while she's away. not sure why I'm referencing townshend. Two and half days in El Slavador and man this is a really different place.

It fascinated me, while traveling in SE Asia, how different Cambodia was to Thailand and Thailand to Vietnam. While there were so many simularities, the differences seemed to stand out so strongly. I caught myself looking for such extreme differences between Honduras and Guatemala. There were but there weren't. Here there are. Or not. Maybe it's got more to do with how my perspective shifts. So many variables, physical health, travel duress, beer temperature, hotel matress quailty, dog talkative-ness, pretty pretty foggy greeny mountain visibility, water swim-a-bility, baby cuteness, smell of the buses, and all the other stupid stuff that adds up to my answer to Auna's loving question: how are you?

El Salvadorans, after my nearly three days of expertise, take better care of their dogs than Hondurenos. Also they smile more and engage more. Auna pointed it out that while the people stare at us about the same amount here, when we say hello, they respond. The dogs still won't talk to me, but whatever. I have no steak.

We're in Suchitoto now after a night just south of the border in a town called La Palma. La Palma is known for having its own style of modern-muralist-surrealist kind of painting. And not to disappoint nearly everly wall of every building was covered with this art. And they paint it on chunks of wood, and they paint it on little tourist curios, and they paint it on toliet seats (well I didn't see that, but I wish i had and you get the idea). It was quite a contrast from the honduran towns we had just left. They had had a simliar colonial legacy and they had similar cobblestone streets between the paved highway and the dirt paths of the residential areas. but the ubiquitous art made La Palma a world apart. It was a cool style, because you could see that there was the influence to the godfather of the style (fernando llort) but it seemed like just about everyone painted and they all had their own variance to the style, not just a copy cat technique. kinda like jazz might have once been I suppose, before it died. Okay it's not dead, I shouldn't say that. But like jazz was before it was choked to death by definition and arose as a zombie to haunt us in the night.

Why jazz, Christopher? well we're listening to what I believe Roland Kirk in a very bohemian cafe on the edge of the parque centro en Suchitoto. Es muy bonito y tranquilo. Despues la tarde de ayer estabamos bañarnos en la cultura y comida de este pueblo. Por la tarde hoy vamos a caminar por una cascada grande y posible bañar alla tambien. Man it's awesome to be able to say, "hey I think it's Roland Kirk, and I'm really enjoying it", without having some fecking jazzer correcting me. As tourists seem to kill the culture of the beautiful towns they visit it's the fans and practitioners of jazz that have complete choked the life out of it for me.

But Suchitoto has survived tourists like me so far. There are a surprising number here. Nothing compared to your average Guatemalan or Honduran town, but from what we've been told El Salvador is still feared by many tourists, so it seems like a lot. This town is another pueblo de arte. There are so many galerias and the restaurants and cafes are all selling art. And's it's good stuff too, not just derivitave crap for tourists. With the cafes and the city merging with the parque central and the view of the mountains and the lake, it's really idyllic.

Last night we went to a beautiful restaurant and had a romantic dinner of amazing food. We sat just off in a garden at our own little private table underneath a bell tower. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel through yet another parque (this one decorated with a couple pieces of art made from war garbage). As we passed a window, I saw a very hip looking, ponytailed, goateed man of about fifty watchin us from a window. We said good evening and walked around the corner only to find him welcoming us through huge wooden doors into a very hip little bar. Can I get a another hip in here folks? Maybe I can get a "burnin" in for you yazzers. This bar was all wood with the doors swept wide open onto the huge colonial streets and dramatically high ceilings. The walls were all covered with posters of John Lennon, Faburundo Marti (the namesake of the local revolution FMLN) and Che and other musicians and other art. There was quiet samba music playing (you think the rock shows are loud stateside, Central Americans believe if you can talk or even think while music is playing it is far to quiet). And when I asked the old señor for a cuba libre he responded, "si, por supuesto" (yes, but of course). He, Auna and I launched into an extended conversation about music, politics, differences of rum, more music, tourism and half a dozen other topics. He spoke slowly enough that I was able to understand everything he said and I could tell he truly enjoyed talking with us. It was the essence of why I travel in one evening. It wasn't even ruined when we payed him in US dollars (the official legal currency here).

Auna and I bought ice cream on our leisurely walk home and watched another mind blowing lightening storm from the roof of our hotel. ¡que romantico! We earned it too, Auna has only felt healthy for the last two days, and I'm still recovering. It's not all wine and roses folks.

Oh yeah, and my iPod fecked up. Or i should say, it got fecked up when the bus guy threw my pack on the ground. It wiped all of it's data. From my recordings to the music, everything. Whatever, I'm still an apple boy. If I added up all the times a microsoft product has gone tits up on me (my version of 98 could only save one in four word docs), I would run out of fingers. I do believe you get what you pay for in the computer world. But still, I'm bummed. There were some really cool recordings and some good song ideas on there. Plus now how am I gonna rock me some Eagles? God, I hate the fecking Eagles.

Okay so that was more of a Yes tune than a Who tune (unless of course we're talking about who's next era who then I guess that would work, but anyways). Either way, I wrote another tune last night in the hotel room, which was really nice because I haven't touched my guitar for two weeks due to my spending every spare minute I could find being sicky sick boy. Yeah, I'm homesick. But only to start recording again. Cheers. Puppies.