After a couple of hours sleep we had dinner and started drinking once again; I took it very easy this night even though the rest of them went hard. Juan had planned a new drinking game for us to play; Gaucho. I was delighted when I heard this because I was so familiar with this game from Cali and I knew I wouldn’t have to drink much cause I’m lethal. We played this and beer pong the whole night and when everyone was hammered I suggested that we go for a dip in the lake. Juan was gargled and was afraid to go in but I knew he’d be grand; I wasn’t drunk at all. So we headed down and jumped into the pitch black lake (it was still ridiculously warm). Again, another unbelievable situation; lying back in a warm lake in El Salvador at 2am looking at pretty much every star in the universe the sky was that clear. Who would have thought I was going to be here back when I was getting up at 6am on the 1st of January to head to the airport to go to Canada. Not me that’s for sure. I said this exact thing to Erik at the time, and I properly appreciated where I was. Juan was getting scared for Erik’s safety for some reason (he was so drunk it was hilarious) so we calmed him down by all going back inside and after another hour or two we went to bed. The next day we were up and eating breakfast by like 11am and this was our proper day on the lake. We were all itching to get out on the water and by 12pm we were packing our cooler and loading everything onto the boat. But before we went out on the boat Juan let us play with his toys. He brought out a slick metallic red Jet Ski from the boathouse that boasted 80km per hour top speed. Me and Juan jumped on it first and he let me drive it around the island on the lake. This was my first time on a Jet Ski and it felt so good. I know it sounds cliché but there was no better feeling going this fast on such a beautiful lake with the wind in my hair. I was decent at driving it as well, but it’s not like it’s too hard; there’s no traffic on a lake. We gave Dave and Erik their go afterwards and then Juan brought out another toy of his; the doughnut. So we hooked up the doughnut to the back of the Jet Ski and me, Erik and Dave jumped on board. Juan took off and the doughnut flew off after him. It was a lot faster than I thought it would be and Juan was throwing us around the place; but it was so fun. We hung on for ages and Juan was getting so annoyed that he couldn’t make us fall. He started getting more aggressive with his tricks and turns and a couple of minutes in we were speeding up to a massive wave he had made from the Jet Ski; we knew this was going to be the one. We crashed into it and the doughnut flew up into the air, with it starting to flip all I could do was let go and along with the other two we were thrown into the lake with a bang. Juan felt a bit guilty afterwards but it was only a bit of fun anyway. So that was fun but I had enough of it so I jumped on the Jet Ski with Juan and his mates took out one of their boats. We headed off down the lake to a small cliff in the bushes; about 30 to 40 foot high. It was such a cool little spot and when we swam in and got to the top the view was so sweet looking down over the lake. Now all we had to do was jump. I wanted to go first to get it over with so I held my nerve and just ran for it. It was such a thrilling feeling; it felt like you were in the air for so long and then bang; you’re under the water. I went back and did it two more times and then had another spin on the Jet Ski before we headed back to the house to put the toys away. The fun wasn’t finished though. Straight away we got the cooler, rounded the troops and jumped into Juan’s boat for a long spin around the lake. I could try describe more how unreal this lake and its beauty was as we drove around but I think I’ve done enough of that already so we’ll leave it at that. We got back into the house and everyone was packing to go home but me and Dave thought we’d relish one last opportunity to go out on the lake and we grabbed out a 2 man kayak and set out on our track. This was a much different experience to the boat and toys; it was so silent and peaceful. We stopped in the middle and took it all in, talking about how lucky we were to have ended up here and had the 8 months that we had. This lake in general really made me appreciate so many things. Unfortunately though, we had to go back to the city so we kayaked back in and all packed into the car and left for home. 2 of the best days I’ve ever had needless to say. Over the next couple of days we didn’t get up to anything too exciting apart from going out to eat in different places and just hanging with Juan and his friends. Then one of the days Juan’s friend Niko brought us all to his ‘ranch’ by the sea. Yes, I said ranch; I didn’t have a clue what that meant either but he promised a pool. So we took a thirty or so minute drive out to the Pacific Coast to Niko’s ranch. We stopped at a seafood restaurant along the way, owned by one of Juan’s friend’s families of course. I had Calamari for the second time in my life, the other time being in Turkey, and it was delicious. So we continued on down to this ranch and although I still think it’s a really weird concept it was very enjoyable and relaxing. It was simply just a large space of land with a sheltered patio along with 8 hammocks in addition to a pool. And all of this overlooked the ocean. So yes, the ranch was pretty cool. We chilled there for an hour or so having a couple of beers and then we went for a walk along the beach and to a nearby town. Again this is one of the interesting parts of being here, instead of going to fancy restaurants or drinking on a boat we also got to see some real El Salvadorian culture and see how a lot of the country lived. It was a lovely little village with plenty of little shops and bars and a river flowing down the side of it (although it wasn’t too clean). But there wasn’t much to see here so we went back up to the ranch and headed off home again. So our time in El Salvador was slowly coming to an end but we still had time to do a few more things. We played more football, went out to that nightclub again, went up the mountain to eat, went to Juan’s country clubs to swim and play sports and we went up to Andrea’s for dinner one night. Funny story from when we went to Andrea’s house; we had been joking all week about how well off Andrea and her family are, so we arrived up to the house and her security guards let us in and we drove down the driveway to park. There was literally at least 5 Toyota 4x4s in the driveway and I jokingly asked Juan as I was getting out of the car did her family own Toyota as well or something. He got out of the car after me and looked at me and smiled. “Ye”. It was hilarious and now that I look back at it, and although I was joking, I had no reason to be surprised. This just showed the wealth and power of this family. Juan knows how to pick the right woman. So anyway, on the 22nd of August we went to visit a local volcano. It was quite interesting to actually be at the top of a dormant volcano. The crater was so much bigger than you would think (1.5km in diameter). The last time it had erupted was in 1917, only a small eruption, but it is thought that if this volcano had a violent eruption which it possibly could, the city of San Salvador would be completely destroyed. There wasn’t too much really to see to be honest, it was just a massive crater at the top of a mountain but it was very interesting all the same. On this day the previous year I skydived in Portugal, which was one of the best things I’ve done in my life (and probably ever will). But little did I know when I woke up on the floor of our (Me and Glen) 1 bedroom apartment in a small fishing village called Alvor in Southern Portugal, scared to death about jumping out of a plane at 12000 feet only hours from then, that I would be standing on the top of a dormant volcano in San Salvador in Central America, the other side of the world. It’s crazy to think about how life works and how things happen based on such small decisions made in everyday life. Who knows where I’ll be on the next August 22nd; but hopefully it will be somewhere crazy doing something else that I can’t picture right now. So that pretty much concluded my time in El Salvador. We had dinner in Juan’s country club with some friends for our last night and drank a few bottles of wine. Then we were home in bed by around 1am. I had a long chat with Juan about how happy we were to have become such good friends and about how he and Erik are coming to visit us in February. We talked about him going back to Canada and me going home and how we’ll both be counting down the days that we get out of college. But overall we decided that we had a great time while it lasted and to look forward to the next time. I went to sleep, but only for a few hours because we were up at 4am to get a lift to the airport with Juan’s friend Filipe. We all said our goodbyes and now it was time for me and Dave to hit up New York.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 22:40:49 +0000
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