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There was a few things i missed last week and some other things so doing my final blog from El Salvador, as I leave for Nicaragua at 6am tomorrow morning.
During the dog santuary volunteering, we went back to the tick house on the second night, we were in darkness as there was a power cut. we were thinking ahh this is san salvador, it wont be off for long, but it was. we couldnt see how many ticks were there apart from with torchlight. it didnt look like many to begin with then all of a sudden hundreds appeared n were all over us. we moved to the bedroom which had less, got into our sleep sheets for extra safety and just as we settled with a nytol pill each, the power came on after 2 hours of staring at the wall! It was horrible!
Nights in the sanctuary were cold as it is in the mountains, and i had to go buy thick socks to just get to sleep. very cold. i began to get ill from the altitude and the cold air so as good as it was living there, it wasnt practical at the time. duno how katty and georgi do it everynight. and having a beagle either side of the room barking all night, drives a person crazy. i do not like beagles nowadays! the dog of the devil!
To get there and back you can take a pickup truck from or to santa tecla then get bus to san salvador from there. one night we stood outside the sanctuary in the middle of the road to make sure one stopped. the first one we stood infront of stopped and we had a bad conversation in spanish getting the jist that he was a private pickup not the public ones. so we laughed it off and tried again, the next one that stopped had no one on it which was normal we guessed for that time of night, however we soon realised they were off duty and they wanted to give us the ride of our lives down the mountain at the highest speed they could reach and by driving in the middle of the road. other drivers were beeping them cus they were idiots and me and kerry were being thrown around stood up in the back trying to hold on to a sturdy bar. the more we laughed the faster they went and this is a long winding road, so normally it takes 25mins, this took 10 to get to the bottom. worst of all it was getting dark and they dropped us 4 long blocks away from the bus stop or anything familiar in santa tecla. it was worth the 25cents though for the pure entertainment and waking us up from our exhaustion comas!
On Thursday last week i dont know if i mentioned we picked up Chiquita as she was being adopted by Hostel El Roble. She got car sick and threw up everywhere. not nice. and continued being sick all afternoon and night until finally at about 9 she perked up. She didnt like us leaving the next day though and was happy to see us when we got back so we knew it would be good for her to get used to being without us and bond with darren and seka instead so it was good timing when we went back to the sanctuary for the weekend.
Saturday was busy because we had a big cook up of cheese on toast and emma and georgi made salads and we had chicken etc so lots of food. Kahlua also left in the morning. This was the saddest one of all the adoptions because her and Moccha are inseparable and we were hoping theyd be adopted together. But the lady only wanted Kahlua so she put a collar and lead on her for the first time and Kahlua ran to the other end of the sanct and didnt want to move. Moccha came over and they said goodbye, it was so touching and then Katty had to pick up Kahlua to put her in the car and she made us all kiss her and say bye which we managed to just have tears then as they drive away one of Emmas children cried so hard and Georgi started crying, Moccha was upset and me and Kerry then began crying. It was so emotional. You could see Kahlua didnt want to leave and looked so scared. Moccha didnt want to come out of her room all day and wouldnt eat then had diahorrea. She was depressed.
Later the sanct had been hired by some loaded locals who wanted to provide a birthday party for their beagle who was 1. it was ridiculous. they had to wear party hats, theyate of plates saying baby on them and the party food was a specially made cake for dogs with dog treats, you know the lollis but dog chews. was funny though. even though it upset all of the sanctuary dogs. we walked a few dogs that day to chill them out.
That night before i left i said goodbye to Moccha, Poochie, Paco, and the biggest goodbyes were to Chele, Spock and Scooby whom i had grown so attached to. i tried to fight the tears but it was impossible although i did quite well actually. i gave them all a cuddle and gave chele the biggest cuddle ever and we left.
Sunday we went to a house of one of the directors of the sanctuary, Beatrix. She has a nice house and pool in San Salvador suburb in a gated neighbourhood. We took the blind dog Elton John with us. He is so huge and hairy he malted all over us in the car and drooled too. nice! but hes so adorable. because he cant see at all, he spent the whole day bumping into everything. its so unfortunate. we saved him from falling into the swimming pool once and showed him it was water by dipping his foot in and he turned around and forgot where he was and fell in. We got him out n he shook all the water off and 2 mins later fell in again. this happened 3 times and the last time he was in the deeper bit and was completely submerged and i think that one finally shocked him and he was more careful. we left him to dry for hours but after lunch he was still sopping wet and its not good for a dog of his age so the hairdryer came out. about 1 and half hours later he was dry and groomed by a joint effort from me and Georgi!
That night we said goodbye to Katty and Georgi and that was sad too as they really wanted us to stay. I think i will be back to work for them next year!
Updates on dogs: since we left in 4 days, Chele and Spock have been adopted together, Moccha left today with her new owner, Canela is being adopted and Hannah goes this week too. Both the beagles and Kahlua and Chiquita went last week. so good news.
We have become somewhat famous in El Salvador now from being on the tv we have been spotted or people who follow Urban Dog Sanctuary spot us and call Georgi and say ahh weve just seen the english girls in so and so. Georgi always knows what we are doing. We met Beatrix outisde Walmart after we picked up Chiquita that thursday and she came up to us and said ahh you work at the sanctuary, youre coming to my house on sunday. it seems like such a small country in this way.
We went to Suchitoto for a day by bus and bussed it back to the beach in the afternoon. its a small pretty town which reminded me of Colonia in Uruguay. Sleepy town just pretty. we had a good lasagne there too.
When we got back to El Roble, we could see Chiquita was happier and more settled. She winds up Lippy now but Osso still doesnt like her. She follows her mum and dad around now and has a playtime. only problem now is all her sores on her skin and coughing everytime she eats. Im sure darren and seka will get it sorted. shes so quick to learn.
Wednesday night, our last night in El Salvador we celebrated in Style!!!
We went to a little town called Nejapa for the annual Bolas de fuego...balls of fire. Basically it began years ago as 2 rival gangs throwing violently balls of fire at each other. the men dress in gang style or halloween style clothing and the balls are balls of socks soaked in gasoline for months beforehand and they pelt them at the rivals. this goes on all night up and down the road and there is no health and safety. crowds line the streets either side, theres live music and street food vendors. we had a few drinks and watched the ska / metal style band called REDD i think and then we went to the street for the start. it was INSANE. theres no other way to describe it. balls of fire were hitting and bouncing everywhere. i got hit really hard on my hand and it was so hard it knocked my camera flying out of my hand. luckily it was round my wrist otherwise that wouldve been a goner! I had balls of fire by my feet and hitting my legs. One really hard one hit my chest. ouch. its the sort of thing when you sober up you realise how much danger youre in. but the best thing was there was riot police with their shield on the edge of the path, i was on the road and tried to get on the path and they pushed me back into the road so i couldnt get to a relatively better safety! funny. one of the on duty normal police got a huge cheer when he picked up a few balls of fire and threw them down the road! bet he gets a b******ing today! there were news crews everywhere, and oh guess what happened. they asked to interview kerry and went off on a speil of spanish and she had no idea so all of us were telling her things to say then darren took over the interview! so on tv once again. and saw a woman we know from the sanctaury. we really cant hide here! it was so fun though. we got headaches from the gasoline smell. one man aprantly got set on fire at one point. me and kerry had one between our feet and as we both jumped trying to avoid it we bashed heads too which really hurt. then she had a gone out fire ball hit her head which i found so funny as it left a big black circle. luckily it wasnt on fire or thrown hard. she was fine!
After we went and had a final drink with Darren and Gordo from El Roble then today just catching up on things in San Salvador.
Leaving to Managua, Nicaragua in the morning. so excited :)
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