Travels with Maggie

This weekend, Maggie and I decided to go on an excursion. I had long promised a visit to my friend Shelby’s site up north in Morazan, and I really wanted to bring Maggie up there since Shelby’s boyfriend, Pedro, will be adopting Maggie when I go back to the US. As much as I would love to hit Mags with a giant tranquilizer dart, stuff her in my suitcase, and trek her home to the states, I don’t (1) have the patience for the mutt, (2) have anywhere to put her (or myself for that matter) and (3) I don’t think she would like the adjustment to life without constant chicken/pig/toddler built-in playmates, corn fields to get lost in, and tortillas to munch on between meals. Therefore, Maggie will be packing up as I do, but not heading quite as far north as me when we both depart Sunsulaca.

So, Saturday morning after a quick stop by my church for a breakfast of fried chicken sandwiches (a major food group in El Salvador and my personal favorite invention of all time), Maggie and I headed for my bus. Now, Salvadorans are wont to stare down a 2 ton bull, nonchalantly kill scorpions and tarantulas with flimsy ginas, and regularly board some of THE most sketch transportation devices in the world (I’m talking hanging onto a rusted piece of an old pickup truck with your feet balanced on the license plate, hurtling down a mountain). However, they are absolutely terrified of Maggie (and all other big dogs in general). Therefore, trying to hoist Maggie onto a bus filled with aforementioned Salvadorans causes pandemonium without fail. As I loaded Maggie onto the bus that morning I was met with the usual – gasps, sharp intakes of breath, and a few squeals and “santo dios”-es from the frailest of the bunch. Mind you, these are the same people who have hoisted baskets with live chickens in them onto my lap and who regularly foist their sweaty tortilla bellies into my face while on this same bus, so I was not feeling too apologetic.

After a rather uneventful ride – Maggie was unsuccessful in her attempts to leap off the moving bus, thankfully – we got to my pueblo of Cacaopera where we needed to await the second bus up to Shelby’s site of Joateca. Joateca is about 2 hours north of Cacaopera along a very long, very bumpy deserted dirt road. Much to my dismay, when Maggie and I arrived at the bus stop I was immediately informed by a friendly little old man that there was no bus to Joateca that day…the bus driver was on an “excursion” and wouldn’t be doing his normal route. So little old man, Maggie, and I walked a little ways down the road and decided to try to hitch hike to Joateca. Lucky for us, about a half hour later a giant truck drove past. The ingenious driver had slid wooden plans horizontally across the bed of his truck creating benches, and there were already about 15 passengers with their cargo en route. After lifting Maggie into the arms of an assistant up above, I (un)gracefully launched myself into the truck and we were off!

Now, I know that traveling in the back of a truck perched on a wooden plank on a deserted dirt road does not sound the safest…but it is one of my favorite modes of transportation. The views of the countryside are gorgeous, the breeze is fresh in your face, and you can easily space out and ignore everyone around you trying to chit chat. Maggie feels about 100% differently from me. She couldn’t get her sea legs and spent the whole ride making loopy drunken circles around the bed of the truck before finally collapsing under my gentleman friend’s legs halfway up.

I was beyond tickled with my sweet situation and texted Shelby that I would be there “soon”. I have learned this lesson many, many times in El Salvador, and Saturday I learned it again – no matter how well something is going, DO NOT call it a success until it is over. Halfway up the mountain, along this oh-so-deserted road, our sweet ride came to a screeching halt and had us all unload. I looked to my hitch-hiking buddy in confusion. “Hasta aqui no mas va este” (He’s only going this far), my friend informed me, about an hour too late. Apparently this had been said when we got on the truck, shattering any erroneous belief I had previously held that my Spanish was functional after 2 years down here speaking essentially only Spanish. As I tossed a disgruntled Maggie off the truck and hopped down myself, I started to contemplate my options. We had passed the last bus back down to Cacaopera en route, and I was still about an hour from Joateca by car, so I was pretty fully screwed.

As I sat, sweating and contemplating my options, a fruit and vegetable vendor drove by. Since stores in the rural areas of El Salvador can’t stock produce as it goes bad too quickly, vendors load pickup trucks with fruits and veggies in San Miguel and then spend the day driving at a snail’s pace around the campo, blasting advertisements from a megaphone tied to the roof of the car and stopping for any person who leaves their house looking to purchase. I flagged down this veggie truck and with my biggest smile, and sweetest gringa pleading voice asked him to PLEASE save the life of my child and me and take us to Joateca. No problem, the man informed me kindly, but I would have to ride in the back with the produce as there was no room up front, and since he entered every community on the way it would take us about 3 hours.

This was far more attractive to me than spending 3 hours either walking towards Joateca, 3 hours walking down to Cacaopera, or just trying to sleep on the side of the road, using Maggie as protection, warmth, and a food source if it came down to it. So, Maggie and I rearranged the goods in the back and wormed our way in with the plantains, watermelons, potatoes, and other perishables.

As promised, Maggie and I spent about 3 hours in the back of that truck. As a result, my butt will be permanently bruised from now on (nothing like perching your butt on the edge of a pickup truck and then not changing position as you go lurching over huge potholes), but on the upside I am now officially trained as a vendedora if I can’t find any suitable employment in the states post-COS. I also arrived at Shelby’s with a nice juicy watermelon and a good story.

my first ride

mags, relatively calm

the trickster

second ride - those clouds are joateca

maggie lovin' life