Quality Hotel Real Aeropuerto San Salvador

... was really looking forward to those stamps.

We got to El Salvador and were dropped at the Tica Bus Hotel, a right dive but still going because of its connections with the bus company. We checked in and then had to find a shop to get supplies for the next day (13 hours on a bus, not good without nibbly bits). We found a supermarket, stocked up, showered and went to bed, very exciting stuff!

... kills mosquito larvae. The families place these in their water sources and change them every 2 to 3 months. The community asks for them often, and the clinic just got enough in to make 700. They are expecting a large turnout on Monday afternoon!

-I was also asked if I wanted to give vaccinations on Monday morning. I will be doing home visits to give vaccinations to infants and toddlers - I am nervous and hope I don't start crying when the babies cry!

... literally means "The Savior" so this church calendar holiday is celebrated throughout the entire country, for the entire week, actually! All the schools have a week off and there are carnivals, and parades, and all kinds of fun happenings! The Lutheran Church of El Salvador has a huge march every 6th of August, so we all participated in that! It was really fun, and after the parade we came back to have a dance/party at Casa Concordia with lots of new friends, including a ...

... the library. Its almost done!! Ohh and btw even El Salvador loves Michael Jackson. It was great, we blasted Michael Jackson all the way to the library!

We painted for a couple hours, then came home! So today was a great rest day! Tomorrow will be packed! Another day with the kids!


Thanks for reading!

Love,
Mere

... me that there were a couple of bats that flew in and out of our little sky hut. Fine by me. Probably kept the mosquito population down. Did I mention the hammocks? Lots and lots of wonderful hammocks. And a big TV to watch movies on at night, of course not all the questionably legal DVDs worked, but the attempt to watch them was fun ;) So basically, I loved our trip to El Salvador. I would reccomend it to anyone. I attempted to surf ...

... top, after a short hike, some more distant volcanoes can also be seen, but only if the weather is clear and not hazy. Unfortunately, the path to the bottom of the volcano was closed, so all we could do was view the caldera from a few vantage points along one side of the rim. Very impressive, nonetheless. After that we drove down the back side to eat at a recommended restaurant near the top and then try to loop around the mountains back to the city. Of course, as our luck would have it ...

... drive to the city of Chalatenango where I changed to another bus. I was surprised that there were only 3 of us on this latest bus, but soon found out the story. I had boarded at the bus station on the outskirts of town. When we got to the main intersection of town, about 100 people got on. Am I exaggerating? I don't know. We sat there for a few minutes and despite the fact that we were already shoulder to shoulder ...

I can't really explain why I like this place so much. As I said before it's violent and dirty. The people I came into contact with were what made it for me I suppose. Stayed with Karla again, in her new flat. She's living with two other girls, Rosie and Colette, both incredible people with interesting stories ...

... a pretty hard time. As a friend of mine said yesterday (and you know who you are), maybe this is when I need to be alone the most. I decided to come here. Nobody made me do this. Maybe I came here to meet myself. That is the hardest road to travel... Abe Lincoln said something about (did I say this already?) being gentle with yourself. So that is what I am trying to do. I came also to learn about the cultures down ...

... guidebook and took a mini-bus into the city. Without a doubt, there were 40-50 people in the van. Ray was "lucky" and was pushed to the back bench with his backpack blocking all forward vision. Candy stood surrounded by people who just kept coming. Did we mention that El Salvador is mostly mountains with very narrow valleys? Ray and Candy disagree on whether this experience tops the "maxi-taxis" in Romania. We do agree that we would ...