We decided to hike to a waterfall near the town of El Pino called Cascada Zacate. After getting into town we walked through one of Dole's massive pineapple fields, which in itself was pretty incredible for two reasons. One, the entire walk smelled like pineapple, and two it's just really interesting to see how pineapples are grown.
After the pineapple field we hit the jungle and started up a path that basically hugged the Río Zacate all the way to the waterfall. The jungle was really awesome, and the amount of tree coverage was mind boggling. Even in the midst of a heavy rain storm it only seemed to drizzle while we were walking through. the jungle was filled with awesome vistas, lizards, butterflies, and even a few old wooden footbridges. eventually, after about an hour long hike, we hit the waterfall, which was roughly 40 meters high, and just absolutely crazy.
We wanted to see the view from the top. so we hiked up a rain slicked trail to where there were bats swooping out of their caves and crystal clear pools of water. the one closest to the waterfall was a real life infinity pool, so we almost immediately jumped in and went swimming. as we did this the rocks, already soaked with rain, became even harder to grip, and of course, being the clumsy asshole that i am, i slipped, fell, and nailed my head on a rock creating a nice 2 inch gash below my eyebrow but above my eyelid. we managed to stop the bleeding and walk back down the mountain where i caught a bus to my sadly familiar stomping grounds of hospital d'antoni. where obvious questions led to...
"¿Te duele?" Does that hurt?
"¿Que piensas?" What do you think?
also, the doctor who was stitching me up was pretty peculiar. as he was sewing above my eye he started to sing to me in broken english. out of all the song choices available to him he chose the beatle's song, "all my loving," which goes something like, "Close your eyes and i'll kiss you, tomorrow i'll miss you." I'm pretty sure he had no idea what he was singing, at least i hope he didn't, or maybe he was just screwing with me. who knows.
Since it was late and there were no more busses to Jutiapa I had to spend the night in town on pc's dime, which wasn't too bad, except that I was still wearing my soaking wet clothes from earlier, and i had nothing with me as far as food, toothbrush, etc., but all in all it wasn't too bad. today i just have a pretty solid black eye, and the right side of my face is pretty swollen, but eh what are you going to do? when people in town ask me what happened to my face I just respond. "Estoy bien, pero usted debe ver el otro hombre." so far people don't think that's funny, but then again humor is a whole different story down here.
