Parque Nacional Imposible

We made our way from San Salvador to Parque Nacional El Imposible on a "chicken bus" (a psychedelically painted U.S. school bus) to the wonderfully named town of Cara Sucia (Dirty Face) near the coast and the Guatemalan border. There we got in the bed of a truck which took us up into the mountains.

Halfway, we picked up a disheveled borracho with wine stained lips who launched into a long, annoying, revolutionary soliloquy. I couldn't understand much of what he was saying and was, like many, trying to ignore him, but he repeated every few minutes like a bad beat poet, "Che Guevara, revolucionario, marxismo, comunismo," before continuing his rant.

After a while an extremely dignified family got on the truck and the paterfamilias listened for a few minutes before calmly wresting control of the conversation from the borracho and respectfully shutting him down. Again I couldn't completely understand him, but the gist was that guerrillas are violent and godless and will change nothing, only when men's hearts change will the world change. Something to that effect. When the borracho got out he said goodbye meekly and loped off.

Soon we reached the park gate, paid our dues, and found a nice camp spot in the woods off by ourselves. We chose to visit the park partly because of its name. Before a modern bridge was built, many people and their mules died trying to carry coffee through a gap in the ridge over the mountains.

Sadly SalvaNatura, the company that runs the park, is in charge of providing the impossbilities now. It is impossible to obtain a map or trail information and they claim it is impossible to hike without a guide. So, our first morning we reluctantly hired Orlando, a small, sweet, droopy-moustachioed local, to take us up to the summit of Cerro León with somewhat smoggy views out to the ocean. Without Orlando we might have missed the boa constrictor hanging out next to the trail and would have certainly missed the leaf-impersonating esperanza bug. The trail, however, was absolutely foolproof, and Orlando's main attempts to edify us included reading aloud the numerous trail signs, apparently without irony, and pointing to the horizon to identify the Pacific Ocean. Finally he lapsed into a welcome, if awkward, silence.

The next day we decided to sneak off by ourselves for a hike down to a beautiful river where we swam, had lunch, and met a horrifying spider leading a lurking clinic. We also saw some underwhelming petroglyphs, some coati and agouti, and no other people. On the way back to camp Hilary found me a exquisite insect wing that I wore in my hat until it was destroyed by the wind in the bed of a pickup.

That evening as the sun set though the trees, illuminating the yellow blossoms in one of them, we regretfully decided to leave El Salvador the following day and cross into Guatemala, one country closer to home.