Hotel Paseo Del Sol La Paz

... there are more frequent services east. After an hour a Swiss Salvadorean couple chanced up, with the same destination, so we decided to hitch. 3 rides in the back of pick ups, several long roadside waits (hardly any traffic) & one bus ride later, finally made it to town, sun & wind burnt & exhausted, at 5.30 pm - the distance was only about 55k!

Dropped my bag at the first hostel & we all headed ...

... like caving, horse riding, river tubing the beauty of the place was that you could do absolutely nothing. On the first day, I and a keen photographer, Tom who was staying there, went with Pablo, who works there, to some nearby caves to take photos of Pablo doing fire poi. It was an amazing privilege to watch Pablo make shapes with the flames by the speed of his arms. Pablo, who is originally from Argentina, has been Guatemala for 7 years and working at Finca ...

... 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 ...

... It is a surfers paradise, as are most places along the Pacific and has, again, the most beautiful sunsets. We stayed longer than expected in just one spot due to very lovely people we met and also due to various stomach bugs that hit us one by one. El Salvador has still a way to go in terms of higiene, we the foreigners, went down like flies.... parasites ...

... VIN, etc) all over again from scratch.   Then he would print out the same form we had just filled in by hand on the computer, come out to the bike and verify all the information, come back in to the office, sign and stamp the form in about 5 different places and give it to his colleague, who basically came back out, verified the plate numbers, VINS (number by number) etc.   The whole process took about three hours while we ...

... the end of the route even further away - somehow. Turns out we were on the wrong side of the road, so we rode that bus right back the way we came and finally ended up at the Metro Centro. We definately saw the city - 3 hours worth of it. It takes less that 3 hours to drive across the whole counrty! So, we don't really like San Salvador very much. We left the next day for Playa el Tunco - a little surf village for New Years.

... 1 Columbian, and 1 El Salvadorian. So luckily we are able to talk and communicate easily. We were warmly welcomed and made to feel at home in the house. The first day that we arrived, we were given time to acclimatize and settle into the routine of the week. Thursday night we had a devotional with the other staff and talked about what would happen during the following days. On Friday, we went to the community meal, which is where kids from the various communities ...

... time, like in some teen comedy - her behaviour and expressions had been far too in sync with mine. Had I wandered under a particularly strong light and revealed some facial blemish that was deemed unacceptable to her standards? Or had I forgotten to do up my flies after my last trip to the toilets, and carelessly allowed an untrimmed testicle to release itself into the cold, pale moonlight? Either way I suddenly found myself marching towards the centre of the dancefloor with no ...

... was a bit worried at first that the two men were the only people living there until I looked outside and saw women's and children's clothing on the line. I talked with the younger guy for a while and found out he is the nephew of the man that lives in the house and doesn't actually live there. He spoke to me in English (he lived in the states for 4 years when he was a child) and I responded in Spanish. It was rather amusing. I told them it was my birthday that day and they ...

... We finished finding everyone's home and I returned to mine. I spoke with my brother for a while and found out he is 21 and is attending university in San Salvador for business and has three siblings in the states. Later that afternoon he was giving one of the local women lesson and how to read. She seemed to be in her 30s or so. My sister is 20 but doesn't talk much. She is going to school to be a science teacher. I saw her making tortillas out in a cooking building (I don't yet ...