But just because we're leaving, it doesn't mean that our curiosity for what lies beyond is gone. We were lamenting that we haven't been to El Salvador yet, so we took advantage of a 3 day weekend in March to go. We went to the beach town of El Cuco and stayed at a great place called Azul Surf Club. To our surprise, the owner was a Southern California woman who went to U.C. Berkeley. In fact, she had just returned from a short trip in California the same day we arrived. Mind you, this was a day after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. The news was warning of possible damage from large waves all along the Pacific coastline, but as it turned out, there was little change in the daily ebb and flow on this stretch of the Pacific.
Getting there was half the (not really) fun. An hour after leaving the capital, we hit a snag. Unbeknownst to us, there was a big rig that had overturned on the main highway and we sat in traffic for 3.5 hours. Luckily some other friends who we also heading out of town were traveling in the same direction and just a little behind us, so we let them cut in front of us in line and we played frisbee to pass the time.
We eventually were sent on a detour on a bumpy dirt . road where we passed by this rural cemetery.
Finally, after 8 hours of car time (which should have taken only 4), we arrived at our destination.
We have a few new loves when it comes to El Salvador...
1. Border Crossing
El Amatillo was a dream. The Honduran's bid us farewell and the Salvadoran's welcomed us with cheery smiles and light chit-chat. The crossing took 15 minutes, tops. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about our beloved Nicaragua. We LOVE Nicaragua. But truth be told, we're over the 1.5 to 2 hour border crossing where passports are scoured, superfluous papers are stamped and we wilt in the stifling heat of the midday sun. We loved El Salvador within the first hundred meters... that border crossing was a dream.
2. The Taxis
We actually didn't ride in any taxi's while we were there... once we parked the car, we were pedestrians. But the taxi's are yellow with black and white checkerboard on the side... just like at home!
3. American Dollars
Now, this was a little weird, but the currency in El Salvador is US dollars. Did you know that? We only found out when we moved to this part of the world. Now, the funny part was ordering food at a restaurant, seeing that it cost $13, then converting that into lempiras (lps. 320!) and saying "That's too expensive!"
