El Salvador Nighto Three-o

We got shot in the dark in El Salvador.  There were guns. For real! Kind of!

The night came arrived with the surf and sunset and turned to scores and then storms-well not really.  The score of the Jets/Patriots futbal playoff game was 28-21. With 1 minute and 20 seconds left – power out.
What?
Yup.
No tv. No lights. No shower. No food. No bueno.
What are we gonna do?
Lee and Lorena, our fluent Spanish-speakers, went to gather informacion and decided we should walk into town. It was saturday night, they had a generator, and we could eat by candlelight at a little Mexican restaurant up the beach.

In all our dirty -clothes, beach hair and flipflops – we walked along the

beach lit by the moon and the flashlight held by our Casa De Mar guide.
He left us at the end of the sand with the insistent warning again not
to walk back too late.

We’d been told of the dangers in El Salvador. Not safe.

Dangers smangers. We had the boys and Peligroso…although Josh seemed a little nervous (this was his 3rd trip to ES).
We found our restaurant and shared stories by candlelight.

Midway into my chinese stir fry tasting “fajitos con vegetables” the lights came back on!
Whooohoo, let’s go see Fabio!
Pete and Martin brought us shots of tequila and we were off.

Fabio was a big fat bore at work and, as Martin pinpointed, quite the “monkey face”.

I saw the Latin band and drums and my inner mascot ran to Chelsey “Come with me on stage!?”
“What? How?” Chelsey laughed.
“I don’t know yet. Are you in or not!?”
“You are an overachiever. I love it.”

5 minutes later, Chelsey and I were rocking out on stage dancing with the band. We were in our element and ready to dance all night, but alas, half of our group was ready for home. We had such fun people it really didn’t matter the venue, so we all started walking back…and then just before we hit the sand, we were distracted by rocking…not chelsey swaying but rockers rocking out.
Peligroso looked over. “Guys, they sound so great! Maybe one more Corona?”
“Yeah, I’m down!” Pete and I nodded to the others.
“I’m down to hang, but just at a more chill environment back at the hotel.” Boo Martin.
Everyone else nodded in agreement.
Shrugging, we decided to the follow Martin North Starr.
Who knew we’d all owe our lives….ok, fine, maybe just sanity and safety to that moment.
10 minutes later, we sat on the deck by the pool along the beach boozing…como se dise boozing en espanol?
I do remember “como se di se ____en espanol” professor loco Pasqua!

I did PS btw order my drink from a man holding a rifle – I mean like a long shotgun.
It seemed ok and entertaining at the time.
We were all happy to be back laughing, swimming, and boozing.

Gunshot.
Silence.
What?
Was that real?
Hahaha……..ha?
We were all looking around
Wait.
Spoon’s “You got your cherry bomb…” was playing on my laptop set in front of us.

Gunshot? Nah. Silly.
Boom.
Uh, get off the deck.
Rifle man was already up and in front of us pointing down to the beach.

We ran across the deck and up the stairs to Chelsey and Charles’ room pretending like it was all silly, but secretly wondering if we were in danger.  We were tipsy enough to enjoy it a little.

So ends up guns were aimed at Banditos por the policio-that sounds like Spanish right? Something like that.  The Banditos stole from someone and the police chased them down the beach and in front of our hotel the Banditos fired off shots to the police who responded with gunshots back to them.  By daylight the next day, there was no blood or bodies so I’m choosing to believe the story that noone was hit…..And we got a story with guns and banditos.