El Salvador

Trip Start Feb 23, 2008
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Trip End Aug 23, 2008


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Flag of El Salvador  ,
Sunday, July 20, 2008

After leaving Granada i headed north to Leon, another colonial city not as touristy as Granada. I soon found out how much i had been relying on Regina with regards to Spanish. I am alway envious of people that can speak many languages and sometimes i forgot that english was not Regina's first language and her Spanish was certainly a lot better than my. But in my own way i managed to get by and arrived in Leon in the afternoon. I checked in to the Big Foot Hostel and walked around town looking at the many churches and market stalls. I so realised that i was feeling tired and jaded. Whether it was because i was back on my own or because i had been travelling for almost 5 months or simply because i missed my german travel companion but i knew it was time to go home
 The next day was going to be an effort. I wanted to get to San Salvador. This would involve 2 border crossing and i didnt really want to end up in the capital city of the El Salvador late at night. I set out early and made good progress. All in all it to 14 hours involved 7 buses and 2 hassel free borders. I was deposited at the eastern bus terminal and a helpful local planted me on the right local bus to Boulevard los Heroes where 2 cheap hostels could be found. I stayed at Xeminas GuestHouse for $6/night. It was in a quiet part of town near the largest shopping mall in Central america.
The next day i headed in to the centre of town and walked around. San Salvador is a surprising nice city. It has an excellent and easy understood bus sytem which certainly makes it a lot easier to find your way round and many parks (although unfortunately not many park benches). There are parts of the city that look like a bombs hit it but thats true in any city. The market is large mostly undercover and sells the usually pirated dvds.
The following day i headed out with an american guy to Suchitoto, a city about 47kms from the capital. When i say city thats what the books call it, i would say a very very small town. We visited a small restaurant where the owner had made sculptures from disused munitions from the civil war, we stopped by a house where an old lady rolled cigars in front of us that cost 25 cents and i tell you we got our 25 cents worth. Thet were disgusting. We then walked down to Suchitlan lake, an artifical lake formed when they dammed a river. You could hire a boat to take you round the lake but the boatman were asking for just too much money so we just sat and watched the world go past before heading back to the capital
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