#miramundo

[italiaes]

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Actuación de #miramundo a Roma el la final de la selección del #1M2017 @one_more_lab #1MEurope (en Contestaccio Live Music)

[gersonsanchez180]

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#CasaGrande #Chalatenango #Miramundo #VistaPanoramica #360 #ElSalvadorImpresionante #TurismoNacional #GersonSanchez180 #UnDiaALaVez 😎 😉 👊 👑 🎬 ☝ 📷

[gersonsanchez180]

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Para #Miramundo #Chalatenango #Montañas #Pinos #Familia #Vacaciones16 #GersonSanchez180 #UnDiaALaVez 😎 😉 👊 👑 🎬 ☝ 📷

[andiiochoa]

Las re amo! #friends #instapic #elsalvadorimpresionante #elpital #miramundo #latinas #girl #cute #salvi #bella503 #503

[arielinelsalvador-blog]

Attempted Glamour

NOTE: This is a story written by myself, Meghan, Lindsay, Patrick and Andrea. Pardon the French. It was almost necessary to use the language, considering how angry we were at the time we were writing it. Enjoy!

Meghan turned 23 on a Wednesday. On Friday, the five of us planned to go to a hotel atop Miramundo that was recommended as being quite glamorous, by Salvadoran standards. We were promised: great customer service, a decently priced menu, tablecloths and unbarred windows with impressionable views of the valley.

The day started a few notches down from glamorous. One member of our group woke up and, unfortunately, trusted a fart. For their dignity, a name won’t be mentioned. Three other members, Andrea, Ariel and Patrick, fared only slightly better than this, as their ascent up the mountain on the bus was abruptly halted when the bus died. Kaput. KO’d. Down for the count. All of the men on the bus unloaded and went to look for giant rocks to chock the wheels of the bus. Patrick did not.

  After about 20 minutes of sitting on the bus, the Georgian trio realized the situation was hopeless and decided to commence the eight kilometer walk up to Rio Chiquito. Obviously this plan was not thought through. About 4.5 seconds later, they passed a tienda where they decided to buy ice cream and wait in the shade. It was at this point that Andrea and Patrick realized their dire needs to urinate. Patrick chose to occupy the nearest tree, while Andrea went back to the tienda to ask for a restroom. She was directed toward the house across the street, where she was received with open arms into a home with tiny chickens scattered across the yard.

  A few cars passed by before Ariel whipped out her truck-tailin’ skills and nabbed a ride up the mountain. With one swift gallop, Patrick mounted the truck. Ariel somewhat graciously tumbled into the back. Andrea got one solid foot in the truck, leaving the rest of her body flailing out the back, swearing at everyone and pitifully whimpering “help me” before her successful face-plant into the bed. The driver must have been having a contest to see which gringo he could swing off the back of his truck first, as he charged each corner like a bat outta hell. By the grace of God, the Georgians made it to Rio Chiquito in one piece to begin the 40 minute walk to the hotel, La Posada del Cielo, glamour central.

Upon arrival, our first welcome was a steaming shit on the front steps. We weren’t sure if it was human or animal, but we were still excited for the fanciness that awaited us just beyond the stench of the poo. When the trio arrived to the hotel, Meghan and Lindsay were waiting in the room - 4 beds for the 5 of us, an “impressive view” of the road, and sweet mountain scents of shit, flavored with a hint of pine. We passed some time playing cards down on the restaurant patio, reminisced about grassy knolls, and questioned the study of Vulcans. At 5 o’clock, after a rather violent game of spoons substituted with bobby pins, we became the only guest at Chez Posada del Cielo.

  Although a bit pricey, we were excited by our menu options. As we were preparing to order, our waiter explained to us that we needed to pay for our rooms. In the most polite tone, he explained that they needed to close down the hotel register at that precise moment, and that we had the next 5 minutes to go down to the register and pay. Ariel went to fetch the money from the room while the rest of the group enjoyed flavorless coffee. A few of us had ordered pupusas, but our waiter somberly returned to deliver the news that the order of pupusas “queda mal...ya no hay.” The only restaurant in El Salvador that had run out of pupusas. We exchanged out $0.80 pupusa option for $5.00 hamburgers. The token vegetarian ordered a grilled cheese. Or so she thought she did.

When the food arrived an hour later, we received 2 stale/moldy, ice cold burgers, a plate of french fries, and order of nachos, and two untoasted slices of white bread with questionable looking margarine and a dollop of cheesy jizz in a perfect circle on each slice. The waitress must have noticed the sheer disappointment in Meghan’s eyes, as she realized she was about to pay $2.75 to eat cheesy shitpies on bread. She graciously brought out two more slices of white bread with cold, but intact slices of American cheese. Lindsay watched everyone else gag down their food as she continued to wait for her order to arrive. She even coveted the original “grilled cheese” that had been cast aside. Once we were all finished eating, her cold burger arrived. She soaked it in hot sauce to disguise the taste.

  We were all on the verge of tears, pitifully laughing at the sad state of our glamorous dinner out. We asked for the bill and discovered that they didn’t really even know what we had ordered, as half of our items weren’t even on the ticket. We weren’t about to bring it up, but when it came time to pay, they had no change anyway. They asked us to come back in the morning to pay for our dinner.

After dinner, we went out to the fire pit to warm up, since the temperature had dropped significantly during the 2 hours that were spent in the dining room. The “fire” consisted of 3 pieces of wood and a flame that wasn’t big enough to warm a squirrel. Lindsay, Patrick and Ariel tried to use their Boy Scout/camper skills to keep it going by blowing on the embers at the same time, to no avail. As they were hopelessly trying to keep the flames burning, another Salvadoran hotel guest peered over the balcony, shamelessly laughing and calling to his girlfriend to “venga a ver los gringos.” We retreated to our room out of shame.

A little while later, we heard someone singing. The sound intrigued us, so we followed it. At the other end of the noise was the waiter, singing kareoke. We brought our gringo parade into the room to join in with 6 other Salvadorans (including two staff members and a very affectionate couple). While we all sang a little, Andrea definitely stole the show, belting the high notes to Bohemian Rhapsody and Hotel California. We thoroughly embarrassed ourselves, even attempting to sing along to a Spanish song that we had never heard before. The night ended with a giant snuggle party in order to keep warm while we reflected on how ridiculous our day had been. Though it was a rather pitiful attempt at a semi-glamorous getaway, it was the perfect opportunity to make memories with friends.