Ive covered a good amount of ground in the last few weeks. By my calculations, Ive traveled a little less than half of the length of the coast of North/Central America by various methods. Healdsburg to SF to SLO by car, SB to LA by train and then LA to San Salvador by plane. Ill be throwing a bus and boat into the mix in the near future. A pretty good mix of transportation if i do say so myself.
The trip down the coast was great. Had a good time in SB with Jake fishing, bbqing, and hanging out on the beach. Being down there made me kick myself for not visiting more often while he has been in school. Headed down to LA to meet up with Eric after that and then took a miserable flight to El Salvador that was three hours late and had a lady sitting next to me that wouldn't move to the empty window seat so we could have some space between us.
Me, Eric and I-Dad stayed at Playa Sunzal for the next few days and had a great time. I tried surfing one day then decided my time was better spent hanging out by the pool. Eric and I-Dad got out every day, even in crappy blown-out surf, and caught some good waves.
On Tuesday we rented a car and drove up into the mountains. The car was a little Ford Escape with what appears to be a somewhat checkered past, maintenance wise. To make it go straight you need to keep the wheel turned almost a half turn to the right. Needless to say, it is lots of fun to drive. Within 30 minutes of being in it we had managed to blow the radio fuse and were tune-less.
Another endearing feature of the car is this alarm the seems to start dinging every time we drive through a sketchy area. We decided the it is a "Stupid Gringos Are About To Get Shot" alarm, and has been remarkably accurate when it comes to going off only in sketchy areas. Technology really is amazing.
We spent Tuesday night in a little mountain town called Juayuac (sp?) and visited a waterfall there and ate some pretty good food. We went to the local waterfall at dusk and were accompanied by two machete-wielding 16 year-olds who were a combined 8 feet tall. Apparently there have been several robberies of visitors to the waterfall by banditos. We escaped unscathed and the waterfall was awesome.
The next day we headed to Lake Ilopongo, a lake about 45 minutes outside San Salvador. We drove all around the lake on rutted and rocky dirt roads trying to find beach access that wasn't bocked off by massive villas of the San Salvadorean elite, among whom the lake is a popular weekend destination. We finally found a coupe of restaurants with beach access and were enjoying a leisurely afternoon on the dock when our waiter came to inform us that out ride had a flat tire. We tried to change it, but one of the lug nuts was frozen. Luckily for us, a friendly local college student taking a day trip to the lake had a air pump that plugged into the cigarette lighter, which we used to inflate the tire. A mad dash to the nearest gas station followed to further inflate the tire. From the gas station it was 4 miles into town where we were hoping to find a place with a pneumatic drill.
The tire held enough air to get into town. We stopped at a ramshackle service station that unfortunately didn't have a pneumatic drill, but they did have ingenuity. Using a lug nut wrench and a six-foot long length of pipe for more leverage, they had the car jacked up, the sticky bolt off, and the tire patched in a matter of about 15 minutes. The cost for this friendly, efficient service? $1.50. When they said the price I initially thought they were trying to rip off the gringos by charging us $150 bucks because I couldn't believe it could be so cheap. That is one thing we have discovered about El Salvador - people are really honest and we have yet to encounter anyone trying to charge us inflated prices because we are foreigners. It is quite a refreshing change from Southeast Asia.
Anyhow, after the tire adventure and an hour drive to San Salvador, we found a hotel in the nice part of town called Zona Rosa. We watched the US-El Salvador game at a bar across the street from our hotel and then headed to the big mall here because we had heard it was a good combination of safety/nightlife. The safety part was there, but not the nightlife. They bars and clubs weren't very interesting, so we called it a night.
Today my suggestion that we try and make San Salvador a somewhat worthwhile detour by visiting this museum near our hotel was laughed down, and we are about to head back to the beach.
I better go pack as my blogging is holding us up...
