Coffee....?

Being in the land of "coffee" is a beautiful experience. However, having a cup of coffee isn't. Even though you can stroll through some of the best coffee groves in the world and touch the powerful caffeine pellets, the entire Central American population drinks thier coffee in the "Instant" form. Grody!!!
They do make up for it with their wide selection of tasty Beer. AND!!! The soda is made with Real sugar, not High Fructose Corn Syrup. It still ain't healthy, but not as damaging as High Fruc....and it tases so much better. The Coke, Pepsi and 7-UP reminded me of when I was a kid.
Mmmmmm good!!
I'm back, and there won't be any more posts. I'll put some pics up when I get a chance. Still have to unpack you know.

Back from a journey

This past work week, Claudia, her Mom and her Cousin Judith went on a tour acros El Salvador. We hit some very beautiful villages, met some very inviting people and ate some incredible food. No matter where you go, Home Cooking is the very best.
We started atthe beach, but the beach was nothing comared to the experiences we had in the Mountains.
I wish I had more time to sit and describe the details.....maybe next time Ill bring a laptop to whip up a journal every night.
Ill post some pics later on.....

What´s up, Beaches!!!

The past weekend was a beautiful trip to El Cuco beach.
There wasn´t very many people there, so there was plenty of elbow room, lots of beach walking, Coronas, Supremas, Pilseners, Piña Coladas......just lovely.
Claudia´s uncle ChiCho even bought a live chicken from a farmer and Aunt Ana cooked it up for us whwn we got back.
You can´t beat home cooking.
Today, we are venturing up to do some work. We´ll be starting at Costa Del Sol and we´ll make our way to Cerro Pital, a Mountain on the Honduras/El Savador border...
I´ll post more when I log on again.

The Market is Mos Isley (the Star Wars place)

You know when your not from NYC and are about to either move there or visit and everyone breaks your confidence in humanity by telling you the worst and beware of everything? Then you get to NYC and realize, what assholes those people were for over exagerating.
Well, it is a little shady here....you have to be wary of some people. But, I have this weird vibe following me. Especiallty in some locations.
On Wednesday, we took a bus ride to the market. The Market is a few city blocks that is crammed with everything from fuits, veggies, fish, baskets, machetes, underware....lots of stuff. People really push their products ¨Buy this, you need this, have some underware!!¨Cute sales ladies are touching your arm trying to make a sale.
Then you have really drunk poor guys on the streets aproaching you asking for money or water...really drunk. They´ll fight you, stab or whatever to get that quarter.
It almost reminds me of Mos Isly from Star Wars.¨
Rosco P. Coletrain said ¨No other place will you see such scum and villainry¨. Oh No! that was Ben Kenobi. Then I keep repeating through my mind, Lukes Bar incedent. When that monster with the butt on his face growls at Luke and keeps on egging him on. The Butt face guys freind says¨
¨He doesn´t like you!¨
Luke says Ï´m sorry¨
Guy, Ï don´t like you either!
Luke,Ï´ll be careful¨
Guy, ¨You´ll be Dead!!!¨
That was awesome. That´s my daily vibe.
You´ll be Dead!!!

Pasaporte

Alright, I´m here in San Migel. No pics to post....Í´m at an internet cafe.
The trip here was not to bad. Airtran from LGA to Virginia sucked. The terminal I was flying out of, with Luz ha no monitors to check flight status and the Airtran folks had no desire to answer one simple question. ´What´s the status of flight 915?´ 4 people were behind the counter. One told me to go to the next line (not moving, about 20 people waiting). I explained that I have a stroller and it took me 20 minutes to get through the crownd to the desk, due to the bottleneck in the terminal. He said, go to the next line and I will help you. I said ¨No!, this is a simple answer. I´m notwaiting through another 30 minute line to find the status of a flight that is supposed to leave in 10 minutes¨. He said nothing. I yelled towards the crowd, the same question. All passengers shrugged. One of the Airtran reps looked up and said aprox. 7pm. I said ¨Thank you, that´s all I needed to know¨. I then remembered that I can check status on my phone via internet. Duhhhh!!!!

I stayed a few days in Virginia and snuck out 2am Monday to hit my Salvadoran flight. I met up with Claudia and her Mom in Houston, then off to San Salvador.
We´ve only visited family and will probably roll some video this weekend and next week. We my or may not got to Guatamala City, due to the crimes tht have ben committed in Guatamala recently. Honestly, Claudia & I think it´s all Random. Just like visiting Bronx won´t get you held up or murdered. Not every Guatamalan is looking for someone to mug.

I´ve been enjoying delicious home cooked meals and relaxing in a hammock. A few people have given me big smiles as if i were a Celebrity. One even referred to me as ¨Grigo¨. ¨Hola Gringo!¨ I smiled....I mean, I am a Gringo.

San Migel is overlooked by a Volcano. I will share the pics when I et back. Hopefully we will go hiking up there in the next few days.

Until something else happens, Ciao for now.
Chad

Pre-flight day

So, today is my last clock-in day at Tekserve. Tomorrow is pack & travel day for Luz and myself. I'm taking her to my family in Virginia, while Claudia and I visit El Salvador for 2 weeks.
Amongst things to do there:
I will be meeting the rest of Claudia's family. Luz will meet them in a few years, if not next year. Dance, eat, drink go to the black beachs.......
Travelling to Guatamala to research & travel around El Salvador interviewing and capturing beautiful footage for Claudia's newest Documentary "Los Ultimos".
Visting some Coffee farms. I originally thought it would be a fun, educational thing to do because I love coffee and wanted to see the where a coffee bean comes from and the process it goes through to get to American bellies. But since that thought, I've had many new thoughts. I want to be a Local NYC Coffee Roaster. So, the coffee farm idea will be a chance for me to shake hands with possible growers of my final product.

I'm not sure when I will be able to add new blogs, much less post pics. As I don't know when I'll be around a computer with internet. I seriously doubt I'll be able to send pics from my camera to that computer for uploading to this blog. So, I might just Blog whenever possible and post the pics all at once when I get back to NYC.

I'm very excited to work with Claudia again. This will mark our first big personal project together. The other project wasn't our creation, we were just hired for the bill. This is OURS!!!!
I'm proud of her and know how passionate she is about her herritage. We already have some possible funders for the next wave of this story. So, it is exciting.
My hope is that we'll get invited to Cuba for their annual film festival, once we've completed the film. THAT would be awesome. Cannes, Sundance and Tribeca......I couldn't give a crap about. But, to go to Cuba?...........Golden.
That's it. Hope to be posting at least every few days. If not?........later days.