Mariscal Hotel Suites San Salvador

Wednesday 9th September 09

Not a great deal to say about today. We spent it travelling. We did overnight in a new country though so I figure it deserves a pointer on the map.

We took a shuttle this morning into Guatemala city, about an hour from Antigua. From there we bought our tickets to Nicaragua with an overnight in San Salvador in El Salvador. The bus ride was grand, five hours I ...

... The baby is only 2 days old, but is a healthy 5 1/2 pounds. (Newborns are smaller here - that is on the larger size for this community). The mother is doing pretty well too. She had an episiotomy and the nurse said we will have to watch her recovery over the next few days, due to the degree of her bleeding. We also touched on nutrition - I was told that there is a belief that tortillas, cheese, and hot chocolate are the only foods that should be ...

... was one man who was attacked by a gang with a machete and he was cut all up his arms and his head. He's already been back everyday to the Hope House and his infections are going down! It's really amazing how incredibly helpful and life changing just a 10 minute consultation can be for these people! Maybe next year we could have even more nurses and doctors come! It's so amazing what medical professionals can do here! I was at the Hope House all three days and we painted ...

Hey Everyone!

So today Jamie, Maddie and I were supposed to go to the malnourishment center to work with the little babies and play with them. but it didn't work out. As i have told you there is a big outbreak of the flu. Many children have been staying home and they wouldn't let us in b.c they didn't want us giving germs to the ...

... toen we toch een beetje vreemd gevoel in de maag kregen. We passeerden plaatsen en steden welke we van te voren niet op onze geplande tocht verwacht hadden.....en voor we het wisten reden we El Salvador binnen...de hoofdstad...wat een vieze stinkstad!!
Eenmaal afgezet bij het eindpunt was een jongeman zo vriendelijk om ons uit te leggen dat de busjongen vergeten was ons te waarschuwen. De enige optie was een taxi te ...

... station just blocks from where the road turn-off was. Part of the luck was that it was close enough that just a few directions and hand motions were enough to indicate where the road was - as I was clueless what the verbal directions I was given were (and between 4 or 5 people they couldn't even agree amongst themselves.) Following the general directional sense they gave me, we ended up crossing over a main highway, but without seeing an entrance (or knowing if it was where we should be ...

... getting past an 18" deep hole but eventually managed the trick. Off we went. The trip across the lake took about 20 minutes. I needed to catch the bus in San Francisco which I figured was going to be a just-as-steep walk uphill...oh boy! Fortunately for me, the ferry captain said the guy with the Jeep would drive me. The driver looked a little surprised but I was loathe to turn it down and he graciously assented ...

... meet a friend. Our hotel was about 50 yards or so from the back end of the Taj. The petrol bunk that exploded was across a small lane from our 4th floor hotel window. We have since heard that Ashok Kamte, a schoolmate of ours from Kodai, who was second in command of the Mumbai police, was killed in the line of duty. I called a few other friends in Mumbai and they are shaken but fine. To put this in some context: given the ...

... more than dubbing (I hate dubbing, btw..Tom Cruise probably does not speak Spanish), the museums I went to were all in Spanish. This is unlike other museums I have been to in the region that have Spanish and English captions and signs, to help out the gringos. Then I decided to find a little restaurant near the University... but, being as hardly any streets have markings here, after an hour I gave up. Batman, El ...

... Hotel Canada). While it may not be the authentic Canadian food we've been searching for, their tortas (grilled sandwiches) and fresh squeezed juices (orange, pineapple, and another 10 or so) were amazing. We ate or drank there at least three times. It was an interesting time to be visiting Mexico City. Our understanding is that the current administration is working on reducing corruption in Mexico (a portion of which is due to the ...