Nicaragua

Hello friends,

I am writing this blog from an internet cafe in Leon, Nicaragua. We got here early this morning after spending a night in San Miguel, a night in Perquin, and a night in Guasaule.

San Miguel was rather uneventful. There´s not a whole lot to do in the town, and we got there as the market was winding down. We left the next morning for Perquin.

Perquin was really cool. It was the headquarters of the leftist guerilla organization FMLN, and they still have a major presence there, which is cool. Former guerillas give tours of El Museo de la Revolucion Salvadoreno. That has some really cool stuff, and a lot of sad stuff about all of the human rights violations at the hands of the (US and Reagan supported) Salvadoran army and government. We bought a few Spanish books, and the Abuela who ran the store gave us a few bracelets as a gift.

The next morning we made the trek to El Mozote, site of the 1981 massacre of (depending on who you talk to) where all 757 to 1000 of its residents were executed by the Atlacatl battallion. It was very moving, and angering.

We started the walk back (no bus for another 4 hours or so), and found ourselves in the middle of an amazing view- a dirt road in the mountains of El Salvador. Then we hitched a ride on a flatbed truck- I rode on the bed...full of rocks.

Back at the hostel we decided to try our luck with getting to Nicaragua that night. We took 3 buses to get to the Honduras/Salvador border, then another shuttle for the Honduras/Nicaragua border. We got there late, and stayed in a hotel.

This morning we took the shuttle to Chinandega, Nicaragua, and from there to Leon, and we´ve been chilling out here. We might actually head out to a beach nearby at some point, but we´ll see what happens. I´ve been looking forward to Nicaragua since the beginning of the journey, so I have high hopes. It should be good.

Anyway, moving on to today´s edition of Desert Island Discs...

I haven´t thought about this in a while, namely because I haven´t really been listening to a hell of a lot of music, but here goes.

It may be only a short EP and not necessarily reflective of all this band can do, but I will have to give mention to Jar of Fies by Alice in Chains. Cantrell and Staley realized, I´m guessing, that their haunting harmonies would be even better served by the introduction of acoustic based songs with electric guitar flourishes. There´s none of the bludgeoning riffage of Man in the Box or Them Bones, but the strings in I Stay Away and the moody acoustic riff of Rotten Apples weigh nearly equally with those two AIC classics. It also features one of my favorite Jerry guitar solos, which is in one of my favorite vocal performances and favorite songs of all time, Nutshell. They managed to capture what it would feel like to be in a nutshell- claustrophobic, depressed, and looking for some way out.

Alice in Chains is an interesting heavy rock-metal band, in that there´s something competing with electric guitars for center stage. Cantrell and Staley´s voices mesh so well that they almost seem to be connected mentally, and that the voice of one was made to be heard with the other. Give a listen to No Excuses and I Stay Away to find out for yourself. You owe it to you to hear this record.

Once again, comment on what you feel is necessary. Thanks for reading!