Clumsy Muggers

As usual there have been many things to cover from over the last 3 weeks, some stories more exciting than others, and some even a little frightening. In a nutshell we´ve covered a lot of ground, ate a million more pupusas, and have had 4 different border crossings. And perhaps one of the bigger traveling changes is that we are now a solid Trio, since Bz has joined in the adventure.

So as soon as we had said our goodbyes to Brian´s parents and to Bz´s friend Sharon, we immediately planned our departure from Guatemala to El Salvador, and were ready for the travels to continue on.

Our first border crossing was a test to our nerves, and introduced us to fact that even though El Salvador has banned guns in most cities, carrying a machete around is fairly normal. After our failed attempt to take a bus across the border, we paid the extra money to have a taxi drive us in about half the time. Marvin our driver passed every truck, bus and cow that came across our path, but really proved to be useful as he battled the money changers while we got our exit stamps. One flash of his machete and some strong No thank yous, was enough to make them back off.

Our plan was to visit some of the highlights of El Salvador for about 4-5 days and still have time to go back to Honduras for the Copan Ruins and a Micro-Brewery. But our plans which are usually altered on a daily basis, took a complete detour with a memorable event on the beaches in La Libertad. On our first full day on the beach, we decided to take a 2 hour walk to the main town about 5km away. After about an hour into the walk 2 super skinny guys approached us and proceeded to clumsily mug us of the few belonging we had.

The first guy with no teeth, reached for my backpack right out of my hands. My first reaction was to pull back, but as Ia saw the machete being raised over my head I immediatly let go. Its money and a backpack, easily replaceable items, whereas my arms are far more important As we talked about it after- we all selfishly felt survival mode kick in and how to not get everything robbed from us. Kylie slyly turned her fanny pack around out of view which held her money, camera, and passport, and kicked off her shoes. In the caos and yelling they never even noticed it around her waist.

Brian seeing my backpack as already gone, backed up into the shore throwing his towel, his shirt, and his book into the water. The second Ladrón kept telling Brian to calm down and even picked the wet book back up and handed it to him. He eventally had to fork over the $15 phone to satisfy the ladrones

My survival mode kicked in to me begging for my sandels that were attached to the backpack, which the stupid ladron oddly gave back to me, even though they demanded Kylie´s sandels and Brians sneakers. In the end they got away with 2 watches, a cheap phone, old sneakers, worn Chacos, and an old backpack with a tank top, water bottle, $40, an ATM card, my license and Sadly my passport. Why my Passport was in my backpack has been the crucial mistake of this event and what has eventually altered our plans.

The Ladrones left us on the beach, kylie and brian barefoot, me in a bathing suit top, and the three of us in awe at what just happened. We walked back through a garbage filled river and hitched a ride to our hostal- El Roble, where we spilled the details to the manager. They were shocked,In the 3 years that they have been running the hostal this is the first time anything like this has happened.

Ana called the police- they showed up 2 hours later only to have us pile into the back of their sedan and show the officer where it went down. Finally we made it to the ¨station¨ aka, beach house where we filed a report. As the day dragged on it became apparent there would not be much of an effort to retreive our stolen items.

The next day Kylie accompanied me to the embassy in a car ride set up by our hostal. I got a new photo taken and filled out the forms. And with $100 and in 7-10 days I was told a new passport would be ready. So knowing we had at least a week ahead of us we began looking into where we could go.