Puerto Morazan, Nicaragua

It's Wednesday morning, and I'm sitting in the front room of my host family. I've just noticed that the time on my computer says 8:30am. Strange. The clock on the wall says 10:15, and I'm pretty sure that my computer clock is right. My pocket watch has been intermittently functional over the last few days, a quality not especially useful in a watch. That does however mean that I went to bed at 8pm last night, not the 9.45pm I thought previously. Lightweight.

Francisco, my host, is a teacher at the local school. He is charmingly adorable. He just left to go to school, on his motorbike. Actually, no he didn't, I can see it outside. Last night he did pick up his papa from "the fields" and afterwards his wife, Virginia, on it. There aren't really any cars around here, in Tonalá. I reckon there certainly aren't more than 100 in the whole municipality, of 15,000 people. Those that there are are pick-up trucks. A fair few motorbikes, and lots of bikes though. And buses between the towns.

So the place I'm staying is Tonalá, not Puerto Morazán. I'm here because my home city, Bristol, is twinned with Puerto Morazán. Through the Bristol Link with Nicaragua (BLINC), I'm spending a couple of weeks here. Although it would be nice to spend a month here, the car has 30 days in the country and I've been in León for a week already. And afterwards I want to visit Damian on Ometepe, a twin-volcano island in the Lago de Atitlan, the world's largest freshwater lake.

So it appears that the municipality of Bristol (denoted by the local council, Bristol City Council) is twinned with the municipality of Puerto Morazán. Confusingly, that includes the town of Puerto Morazán, as well as the surrounding villages. Further, the administrative offices are in Tonalá. It's taken me a couple of days to get my head around all of this.

It's quite a shift to be figuring stuff out for myself. For one, a shift from the daily routine of getting up and going to the beach. But also from the 'development' gap year work I did in Nepal 9 years ago (wow, it was that long ago), as well as the Education solidarity delegation in did in Colombia 3 years ago. Both of the latter were more guided and led, with a lot of presentations, talks and explanatory workshops. That is mainly due to the fact that then I was part of organised groups.

I feel like coming here wasn't quite so big a shock, or shift, as flying from the UK to Colombia, out of one culture and into another, quite different, in 24 hours. I've had 6 months to feel my way along and into this life. That's has been the truly wonderful thing about this trip so far, and by avoiding flying, is noticing the gradual, subtle differences (cultural and socio-economic) as I creep along. Nonetheless, getting off the tourist trail has, like I said, been a shift of gears, and is a culture switch of different sorts.

I can see the difficulties that have been faced in the past by representation of solidarity campaigns. There have been issues when people from the UK have represented the Colombia Solidarity Campaign while in Colombia, and then said and done reprehensibly stupid, or at least naive, things. This had consequences for representing the Campaign in a negative light in Colombia, and also facilitated internal factional rifts at home. So, to be in this position myself, as representing BLINC, is a step I take with a heavy weight of responsibility.

So I can see how these difficulties have arisen. It feels like a minefield, what should I say, what shouldn't I say, who should I talk to, who shouldn't I talk to, and what the hell am I doing here in the first place? I feel like really I should have looked more closely at the BLINC website, on their stance and angle on the solidarity and development work the do. I know that they try and facilitate exchanges, and have helped equip and fund local schools.

Well, I'm here for my own reasons, that I'm pretty sure are more than compatible with BLINC's. After discussion with Alix, the Chair of the Bristol Twinnings Association and a comrade in the Bristol Latin America Forum (whose blog is incidentally getting a fantastic spread and volume of hits from around the world), I decided to try and make a short film about Puerto Morazán. Additionally, wanting to get my hands dirty, I was to try and help the Lucrecia Lindo shrimp farming co-operative, who have suffered storm damage from Hurricane Mitch, and also to have a chat with the new incoming Executive Mayor about their development priorities for the next 5 years, to present an informal report to Bristol City Council.

So last week, I emailed BLINC's local contact in León, to discuss my arrangements while I'd be here. Having waited 5 days, on Monday I found the address of the office and popped in. It turns out I had an incorrect email address. So, from there, after a phone call, it was arranged that someone would pick me up from Chinandega, the nearest large town to both León and Puerto Morazán, roughly half way between the two. So I met Norma, who would turn out to also be on the new Council Board.

I drove us to Tonalá, where she said it would be better that I stayed, and she arranged to put me up here, with Francisco and his lovely family. All this took a little while, with nonchalant efficiency, given that this was all being done without any of their prior knowledge. I felt bad about this, all happening on the spot. WIth hindsight, I wonder if had I announced my arrival 3 months previous whether this would have made any difference.

Explaining to Norma that I would like to help the women's shrimp farming co-operative, we drove to Puerto Morazán from Tonalá, a 20 minute drive down an occasionally bumpy, straight dirt road. I could see the lagoons on either side, some of which were decidedly dry. We arrived, and parked the car in the shade - at 2pm, it was around 34ºC. I'll spare the details of who and how, but we arranged that I'd meet the co-operative for Tuesday at noon, after meeting the new Alcadia (local Council).

So yesterday being Tuesday, I awoke and made my way to the Council building for 10am. A single storey concrete block, the Alcadia is not quite on the same scale as its equivalent in Bristol. That's a heritage of slavery and capitalist exploitation to thank for that. As I arrived, my contact from Leon was there to take a photo of the new administration. It turns out I was here for their inaugural cabinet meeting, the new administration for 2009-2012. They were a friendly bunch, and I tried hard to avoid comparing them to Bristol's Board. Somehow I felt closer and more alike to these people, from a rural municipality in Nicaragua, than to Bristol's elected representatives. Maybe it's my quasi-diplomatic status here, or something else, I'm not quite sure.

I observed the meeting, the details of which I'll spare you. Meetings are the same the world over - being at them is one thing, usually a fairly necessary evil, but reading about them is quite unnecessarily pestilent. I want to keep what little readers I have at this stage. Suffice to say that this is the steep learning curve that I need to improve my Spanish further at the moment. It's come on leaps and bounds since being in Central America, and pushing it further is pretty hard work. Maybe that's why I'm sleeping 10 hours a night.

Afterwards, I went back over to Puerto Morazán, to meet with the shrimp farmer co-operative. In the back of my mind, I wondered on the way over why Alix had suggested this lot in particular to work with. I said I was up for getting my hands dirty, and this was a suggestion. While driving over the day previous with Norma I questioned the appropriateness of a bloke helping out a women's group, but she quickly put my mind to rest. She said that women here were emancipated and liberated, that it really wasn't an issue.

So I got to Gloria's house, and the lady we met the day previous was there, along with Gloria. Not quite the 16-strong co-operative I had been led to expect. So we had a chat, getting some plastic chairs out in the shade in front of Gloria's house. I found out more about the co-operative, and the history of the relationship between BLINC and them. Without literally pushing the issue, I suppose my presence did. It seemed like the explanation I got was a explanation for the absence of action going on. From what I understood, BLINC had given a bunch of money to help legalise ownership of their land, and buy a boat. It seems like now, they need a bunch more money in order to actually get started, for machinery and suchlike. It appears that it all cost more than previously thought.

So this was the crunch. I felt my representation of BLINC and my level of involvement with them at home under irreconcilable tension. I explained that my role here was to offer practical help, for a week or so, to help repair storm damage that I suppose had been offered as an explanation for inaction in the past. Hurricane Mitch was in 1999, 10 years ago. I wondered how long had they been off-line? This is precisely why funding overseas 'development' work is so fraught with complicated ethical issues.

In return for my gentle prodding that elicited a diplomatically defensive response, it was my turn to take the back foot. I explained my level of involvement with BLINC as truthfully as I could, through the Bristol Latin America Forum as cross-solidarity work. I also felt a bit guilty in explaining the last 5 months of my time as constructively as possible. So sensing that doing anything practical with this group was not forthcoming, we agreed to meet tomorrow at 6am to go for a tour of the lagoons. This would be a great time to get some footage and photos for the film.

The film... is going to be a tricky one. I have a Canon Powershot S70 camera. It takes 10 frames per second of 640x352 video, approximate to a cameraphone. I think that it can work though. It'll have to be short, and snappy, and be led by a strong narrative. As long as it's viewed on computer screens, it'll be fine. Which if the target audience is for kids in posh Bristol schools and the Council, it will be. The hard part will be the editing, which takes time. But time is something I'm not short of really.

Getting More Productive...

if you look really hard you can see me jumping on the horizon

Saturday 3rd January - Friday 9th January 2009

It's my last night in El Salvador, after a really rather relaxing, and moderately productive week. I'm extremely glad I came. It's a jolly beautiful place, despite the recently ended civil war. And there's not many tourists (other than surfers), which is also jolly nice. And the best part is that it cost absolutely nothing for either our persons or the car to enter the country. Just the way it should be, No Borders [link]and all that.

After leaving Finca de Eden, on the Honduran North coast, we backtracked a bit down a lush, well paved road. We decided we would make the border that night, so stayed in Santa Rosa de Copán, a colonial town described in Boring Planet as exuding a gentlemanly cool. Artistic license gone a little crazy there...

The next day, the border crossing took a little longer than hoped. Although free, the issue was that the 'aduana' (customs - the ones that deal with vehicles) for both El Salvador and Honduras were located together. It appears from my experience that Honduran border officials are amongst the worst I've met. In order for an El Salvadorian vehicle permit to be issued, the Honduran one had to be cancelled. Now, a brief look at a map shows that for those travelling South / East, one must pass back through Honduras (unless you have an amphibious vehicle). So I was being told that my Honduran permit "To Enter And Leave The Country" had to be cancelled, and I would need to pay $40 for a new one when re-entering Honduras. Again, Saturday crossings meant there was one tired and fed-up looking staff member, with no management around. All this just to get the (free) El Salvador vehicle permit.

This all sounded a bit odd, and after an hour of back-and-forthing, the lady agreed to phone the boss (a second time) to check this was correct. Turns out that because the vehicle is mine (with title to prove it) I don't actually have to cancel the Honduran permit in order to issue the El Salvador one. I wonder how many folks before me have forked out another $40.

So, another hour to do the paperwork with a jolly friendly El Salvadorian chap who came out to the vehicle to check it over, then another in the office to type it up, and by the time we were on the road it was 2pm. Note that no immigration paperwork was done here, nor taxed for this, as per the CA-4 agreement. Good job El Salvador.

The rest of Saturday I was in a rather foul mood. Our decision-making process broke down somewhat, and we ended up doing something I wasn't pleased with doing. Given that I'm the driver, that's rather frustrating, as I had to take us exactly where I didn't want to go. Consensus failed - majority vote ruled, and I was in a minority of 1 against 2.

My proposal a couple of days earlier was to go to a National Park in the Northern tip of El Salvador, as a park-up one-night stopover. The idea was to arrive with plenty of time to go for a nice long walk, although this was an afterthought.

So, it was decided that they (my girlfriend and Damian) didn't fancy the lush, only accessible by vehicle, National Park, and instead we chanced getting to the South coast by nightfall, as if we hadn't seen enough beaches in the last few weeks. Am I losing my persuasive abilities? I didn't think it needed persuading. They were all up for it until 5 minutes down the dirt road, whereupon we turned around.

Arriving at Playa El Sunzal, going for a Lonely Planet tip at Surfers Inn, we camped for $2.50 a night. The currency here is US$, quite bizarre. Good for getting dollars out of the hole in the wall to replenish the emergency supply though.

i haven't yet tried the aguardiente (local moonshine) i got from this shop... should I?

On Monday I took a daytrip by bus to San Salvador, an hour and a half (and $0.95) away. I couldn't face the prospect of driving to a capital city, and worried for the safety of the car and myself in it. Bussing was a good choice in the end, cheap and easy, and a good break from driving too. I wanted to go to try a seek out some film contacts for the Cinema Klandestino LatAm film festival in the autumn.


I went to the Museum of the Word and the Image, to check out their exhibition and film library. They have a great catalogue of documentaries, recently put onto DVDs, although few with English subtitles. I also didn't bring my laptop to San Salvador, so couldn't copy any. Nonetheless, I got a couple of good contacts, one with a local film club.

lots of people chilling in front of the National Palace prompts the old classic, what are they waiting for, justice?

The whole day in San Salvador I didn't see a single white tourist - except on the bus on the way back home, this German guy stood up and made an announcement. He'd had all of his stuff robbed, including passport and all, and there was no German Embassy. I didn't really listen to all of it, but it reminded me of how shit i felt when I got stuck for 2 weeks in Delhi aged 18 with no money having lost my onward ticket on my way home back from Kathmandu, having to beg in a city of poverty. I gave him a dime.


Wednesday we moved off to the next beach location, Playa El Espino, where there would hopefully be less tourists. The never-trust-the-guidebook maxim won loud and proud, the dirt road now paved, and the isolated beach a bustling fishing village. By Damian's "if there's cold beer, it's civilised" rule, it's civilised. We gave a ride to a couple of ladies hitching from the main road, and in return one of them hooked us up with her abuela's place, a champa on the beach. A champa is a basic shelter structure, made from coconut leaves. A great spot for our hammocks, a fire, and our pirate flag. See the video below for a 360 view.


We've got used to being stared at and laughed at. Maybe it's my silly haircut. Any interaction with the locals results in hard laughing... but usually success. We've been living off flatfish - I think they're plaice - for $1.50 for 3 big ones. I've got pretty good at filleting them, the first attempt to barbeque them whole didn't really work without the barbeque.


The moderately productive part has come through learning to use Traktor, this other DJing program that appears much more intuitive and useful at mixing songs than Ableton. I've worked my way through the manual, which I very well laid out.

The car in the top right corner, the sun top left. Ahhhh. Almost like a Jeep ad or summat.

Tonight, my girlfriend got her first driving lesson on the beach. The sand was pretty hardpacked, so was pretty good. And it's an automatic too, which is pretty easy to learn to drive on. I'm not sure whether it's good to learn to drive an automatic, but we'll see. Afterwards, Damian and I drove further up the beach to hunt down a beer, and ended up hooking up to the soundsystem in the bar and blasting a few tunes. We ended up having a soundclash with the locals, who put on the jukebox after each tune, and had a right laugh. On return, the abuela and my girlfriend were worried about us, going off on our own, which snowballed into an argument. Funny how the old gender stereotype stories often turn out true despite not believing them, and wanting to resist them.

New Years Day Swim - my best moment of 2009 so far....

Saturday 27th December 2008 - Saturday 2rd January 2009

This post really is going to be short. Very little to talk about between Utilan New Year and getting here, Finca de Eden, back on Honduran mainland. And still no photos either.

The day after Boxing Day we left Paradise for Water Key, a small uninhabited island about 500m long by 50m wide. Sunday I perfected my hammock, mosquito net and tarpaulin setup, by using the diagonal of the tarp across the line of the hammock, and tying the other 2 corners down to not obscure the view too much. The net then attaches to the eyes of the tarp by 4 corners, being a hybrid 4-poster hammock net, perfectly suited for such use as this.

Monday night rained hard, the rainy season on Utila being completely out of sync with mainland Honduras and the rest of Central America. The horizontal sheet rain got me wet from both ends, so I crawled into the tent with Damian and my girlfriend. Damian's net and hammock all-in-one's zip's broken, but he is travelling with a hammock AND a tent, so is well equipped. Tuesday we blagged a bottle of vodka off some Guatemalan rich tourists, and had Bloody Mary shooters. Later Zorro picked us up and took us back to Utila and Paradise.

New Year's Eve was probably my second best ever (after the multirig free party 2 years ago), again staying up all night. It started fairly unpromisingly with having the runs during the day of the 31st. So I slept from 8pm-11pm, and felt a lot better. And my favourite moment of 2009 so far (ahem) was swimming from the dock of the bar to our dock, and then back again, at 9am on New Year's Day. It's not often you can swim from your hotel to the bar.

Today, Friday, we left Utila on the boat, picked up the car that I left the passenger side window open of as I left in such a hurry, paid the lady an extra 100L on top of the 150L for being 5 days longer than we said we'd be, dropped Jordan off in La Ceiba, and headed for El Salvador. Our stopover tonight is a place run by a German guy, pretty chilled given it's the 3rd January, with good cold beer as one would expect from a German bar owner. Tonight, in the absence of a good hammock spot, I think I'll sleep in the car, a factor I haven't really taken advantage of since the U.S.