El Salvador: The Unplanned Adventures

So what did we do for the next 10 days?

Since plans had changed drastically, we started asking questions about other towns in El Salvador. All we knew was that we wanted to get away from the beach that lead us to our demise, while never being too far from the capital (San Salvador). As I was prepared to call every day to check if my passport had arrived we wanted to be ready to go in the minute it was ready.

First we headed to Juayuà, a small town in the mountains known for coffee production and a weekly food festival. Luckily, the weekend we went there also happend to be a big stage with live street music and space for dancing. We made dancing friends and had a great time being stared at by the locals and learning new moves. The next day we felt like a long walk would do us good so we took a hike up to Laguna Verda - a poorly named lake in the mountains - and then back through town to some waterfalls to cool off.

After the food festival the town´s population declines immensly, so we took the cue to move on to our next destination, to ciudad Santa Ana. We finally arrived at 2:00 to Casa Verde a small but modern hostal with a killer kitchen and cool host. The next day we were up early to catch a bus to Cerro Verde, where we paid the $8 for a guide and a police officer to accompany us to the top of Volcàn Santa Ana. The view was decent but the crater stole the show. Not only 3km around but also 300m down from the rim was beautiful juniper-green laguna, with steam still pouring out and a strong smell of sulfer. Georgous! Along this trek we also met Adam, another Massachusetts Native, who decided to prolong his plans to Honduras and stay the night with us. We returned home in the late afternoon and promptly took showers.

Carlos, our host returned from work and asked if we wanted to go to Trenchtown Bar, ¨Of Course, when do you want to go?` `Temprano`, he replied with a huge grin. (It was 4:30). As you could guess, Trenchtown was a reaggae inspired local bar with an atmosphere beyond what we could find in a guide book. Kylie danced away, Adam got into the art, and Brian shared a little Whiskey with Carlos and his cousin Carlos. I attempted to speak spanish and danced with a crazy regular until the bottle of whiskey was finished and the 6 of us piled back into the car to go home.

Feeling we couldn´t top a day like that in Santa Ana, we decided to move once again to a small artist town, Suchitoto. After a horrible/hot night of sleep Kylie and I took 2 min showers and left to get some coffee and see what we could do for the day. We settled on a small walking tour with views of the nearby lake, a few stops at some galleries, a taste of michiladas and some ice creams. It barely filled our day or our stomachs, so we concluded with a stop at the market to make stir-fry wraps. However our lunch plans turned out to be a horrible idea once we saw how dirty the kitchen was.

The next day, Friday March 5th, was a gamble, we went into San Salvador so that on any chance my passport came in we could pick it up and be on our way ASAP. We left at 8:00 with plans to do a short hike on volcan San Salvador but after 4 hours on buses and bus stops we scratched our plan and heade to the Museo de Arte de San Salvador. A small but decent national gallery with air conditioning. After, a nearby Hilton Hotel generiously let me make my local call to the embassy and we found out my passport was in! It had only taken 7 days and we could finally plan for our departure.

Thinking we could cross the border into Honduras, we went to a SMALL town in western El Salvador, La Palma - famous for its art style and being the center for peace talks at the end of the revolution. Sadly though, I was not allowed to cross the border still, since I had no stamp in my passport. El Salvador would let me out but Honduras wouldn´t let me in. Kylie and Brian still went in to check out a town close to the border, with a potential opportunity for Kylie and I to volunteer.

So on Sunday we had to return to the San Salvador so that on Monday I could go to the office of Migration and finally get my stamp. Since our spirits were low and the city was modern Brian suggested we treated ourselves to a fancy Sushi dinner with plenty of Saki. Finally on Monday morning Kylie and I were up early to the office of migration where I paid $25 for but only got a 15 day stamp. Which meant I would eventually have to go to Costa Rica for 3 days but at least we could leave El Salvador!