Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
me and held his own as we ran together for a few kilometres. If I ever
needed reminding that life is cheap in Central America, Wilfrido's
death rammed it home. The article told how Wilfrido was shot dead
after getting into an argument with men at a club not far from where
he worked at City Hall. One paragraph in the article made my blood
run cold: 'Campos-Gonzalez was last shown on
Action 4 News
during
a report about an Australian man running from the North Pole to the
South but who made a pit stop in Matamoros.'
august 24
The Guatemalan flag includes two vertical blocks of blue flanking
a block of white. The blue is for the ocean that borders Guatamala's
south and part of its east, and the white represents peace. They have
a program here through which international travellers can have a
government tour guide assigned to them to ensure their safety and
patronage. The government realises how important the tourist dollar
is. The system works well. So if you're trekking to the crater of one of
the volcanoes or surfing the coastline or even just running through, it
pays to contact the government tourist board first.
A bridge was washed out by yesterday's torrential rain, which
resulted in a 10-kilometre detour along a dirt road filled with potholes
that has for now become the major highway to El Salvador; it was may-
hem. It's doing my head in, constantly battling the semitrailers.
In the canopy of trees above, the orchids are spectacular. The
lizards here are beautiful, big and bright green. The predominant
roadkill, though, is snakes. I've seen many a squashed python on the
road.
Children and the elderly wait at the sides of the roads with shovels
and buckets: they fill in the potholes and hope that drivers will reward
them with a small gratuity so they can buy food. I cannot understand
why the United Nations does not concentrate its lending and exper-
tise on infrastructure. All of Central America could really benefit and
even profit from a good rail system for freight and passengers, to take
a huge load off the roads and make the countries more productive.
