Declan was up early cooking the black beans that we had bought in the market. They had to be boiled for two hours with garlic and onions. We had them with boiled eggs for breakfast.
After breakfast we took the bus into Guate where we blundered through the busy streets in search of the Tourist Office. This we found in the new territory of Zona 4 in an affluent area of high-rise buildings by a huge roundabout. Most of the street traders were selling pencils.
We found out that the Honduran Embassy was in Zona 10 but it was closed now until tomorrow. It was only open from 08:30 hrs. to 12:00 hrs. noon. We then did the rounds of some travel agents to find out the costs of various flights to South America (thus avoiding the Darian Gap between Panama and Columbia).
The cheapest route seemed to be flying from Guatemala City to Bogotá via San Andreas Island for $244 US dollars. The only way to overcome the necessary “onward ticket” clause was to buy a return ticket to San Andreas Island, thus arriving in Columbia with a ticket out of the country and then exchanging the return half of the ticket for a single internal flight to Bogotá.
San Andrés is a coral island in the Caribbean Sea. Politically part of Colombia, and historically tied to the United Kingdom, San Andrés and the nearby islands of Providencia and Santa Catalina form the department of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina.
We had a coke and decided to see what the Honduran Embassy had to say tomorrow. Back at the bus stand I was nearly run over by a motorbike while crossing the road in search of peanuts. We got on the bus and waited for an hour before a 90-minute juddering journey back to Antigua.
We were cold by the time that we jumped off the bus at our hotel so I made some beef stock drink to warm us up. We had supper in the Suchow Chinese Restaurant as usual. We said that we would meet Urkan in “El Tarro” but it was very quiet and moved on to Mio Cid’s.
Here we got talking to an Austrian girl and the Scandinvian piss artists (A savant of drinking, someone who makes it look like an art form, a true patron when it comes to sinking piss. Someone who can down 24 beers and carry on like a champion.) when Byrn and Peter came in.
A colossal drinking debauch ensued. Everyone was chatting happily with all the “regulars” assembled under one roof. Tamara, the excitable little Aussie girl and Chris the dark-skinned Aussie were in fine party mood. “Lucky Chris” had been beaten up and robbed in Guatemala as well as being robbed in Guate.
Today he had been run over by a bicycle carrying two people. Byrn and Peter had a great time in El Salvador but reported that the country was devastated by last year’s earthquake and the civil war. Apparently now all the government departments in El Salvador are working in tents in a large compound.
The 1986 San Salvador earthquake occurred at 11:49:26 local time on October 10 with a moment magnitude of 5.7 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The shock caused considerable damage to El Salvador 's capital city of San Salvador and surrounding areas, including neighbouring Honduras and Guatemala.
According to Wikipedia the Salvadoran Civil War was a civil war in El Salvador which was fought between the military-led junta government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) (a coalition or "umbrella organization" of left-wing groups) from 15 October 1979 to 16 January 1992. A coup on October 15, 1979, was followed by killings of anti-coup protesters by the government and of anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas and is widely seen as the start of civil war.
The fully-fledged civil war lasted for more than 12 years and included the deliberate terrorizing and targeting of civilians by US-trained government death squads including prominent clergy from the Catholic Church, the recruitment of child soldiers and other human rights violations, mostly by the military.
An unknown number of people disappeared while the UN reports that the war killed more than 75,000 people between 1979 and 1992. The war ended with the Chapultepec Peace Accords, but in 2016 the El Salvador Supreme Court ruled that the 1993 amnesty law was unconstitutional and that the El Salvador government could prosecute war criminals.
The United States contributed to the conflict by providing military aid of $1–2 million per day to the government of El Salvador during the Carter and Reagan administrations and provided significant training. The Salvadoran government was considered "friendly" and an ally by the U.S. in the context of the Cold War. By May 1983, US officers started to take over positions in the top levels of the Salvadoran military and were making critical decisions and running the war.
Counterinsurgency tactics implemented often targeted civilians with the United Nations estimating that the FMLN guerrillas were responsible for 5% of the acts of violence of civilians during the civil war, while 85% were committed by the Salvadoran armed forces and death squads.
Byrn was explaining to the Austrian girl about how he was going to buy the brightly-coloured woven wrist bands that the indigenous Indians were selling and to resell them in the United States at a huge profit. “I see”, she said “and then you can send the profit back to the Guatemalan Indians”. “Fuck off! You’re joking”? exclaimed capitalist Byrn.
Laars and Tom grappled in the back room and everyone got happily drunk. As valued customers we got a free Cuba Libre each when we told the bar staff that it was our last night here in Antigua. At 02:00 hrs. we went into “Moscas y Miel” for more Cuba Libres and then on to “Los Pollos” for more beers and a “Polloburguesa” (Chicken Burger). We got back to the Hotel Placido and bed at 04:15 hrs.
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