Dia sin lluvia en Santa Ana July 2, 2012 Today I arrived in San Salvador... well technically the International Airport which is about a $25 dollar taxi drive from San Salvador. By the time I went through immigration and paid for my $10 Tourist Card, it was relatively late and decided to take a taxi to Santa Ana which dented my budget by about $70... not sure why I gave a ten dollar tip. My hotel is relatively affordable at $15 and my dinner was free. And by dinner I mean the cup of coffee I had at the gas station while my taxi driver got gas.  
It gets dark here really early and most bussineses close early too. At the hotel they recomended that I not go out looking for food. Aside from that, the only exiting thing that happened was this bus on the way to Santa Ana that looked like it had been robbed. But everything was pretty smood and I am exited to see El Salvador during the day time.
Oh last thing... after I woke up from my nap on the plane my first sight of El Salvador was this amazing panoramic view of one of the volcanoes :o)  
En el Aeropuerto
Agente de aduanas: ¿De donde es?Yo: De Mexico
Agente: ¿De padres salvadorenos?Yo: No
Agente: ¿Puedo ver su pasaporte?
Le doy el pasaporte
Agente: Ah! Es Mexicano.
Yo: (suspiro profundo)

¿Donde esta la estacion central de camiones? July 3rd 

Today was technically my first day to explore El Salvador. I was up pretty late after seeing some weird bugs in my hotel room... so I didn't have much of an early start. When I did mange to get up after some guys started cutting metal tubs outside my room it was pretty late. I managed to get lost and ended up going to the wrong church thinking it was the Cathedral, but managed to get some good pupusas and enter the market. Oh the market was funny; it was so big and the aisles were so norrow. There was just about any type of food you can think of and every kind of smell... which is not as great as you might think. Also I constantly found myself making way for stray dogs.
After walking around Santa Ana for a couple of hours, I decided to take the bus to Tazumal for about $0.30. Tazumal is a very important pre-columbian site in El Salvador. The main pyramid is not huge but what was most dissapointing is that the restoration led to the original ruins being covered with cement, so it was hard to tell what was original and what was not. It was still fun to go there and I got a nice jade quetzal outside the entrance.
Afterwards I managed to startle a lady when I asked her if I was walking on the right direction. She actually turned out to be very nice. Better than the experience I had ealier when this lady just gave me the stank eye and continued to eat her water melon while I frenetically repeated "Sabe donde esta la estacion de camiones?"

This is just outside Iglesia El Calvario

Catedral de Santa Ana 

Tazumal Ruinas 

A cora July 4th 
Today I found out that everything in El Salvador is a quarter while I searched for my bus, among market stalls, from Santa Ana to Lago de Cuatepeque. Oh and remember all  those Sacagawea Golden Dollars... they are in El Salvador. In 2001 El Salvador began using a dual currency system, but no one uses the Colon and I think it has made things more expensive. On the way I saw lots of cool stuff. Like this guy mowing his front lawn with a machete and came to the conclusion that salvadoreños are very handsome.  I stayed in a hostel on the lake shore. It was a lazy day and I slept on a hammock most of the day. I originally planned to stay here only for two days, but I think I am going to stay for 3.
One for the books: I am staying at this hostel on the lake shore and it started raining like hell... I felt secure in the confort of my room, the first one with a mosquito net, until the cealing started leaking. Then this weird bird started honking outside and thunder helped the weird bird make some more noise

I didn't get a good picture to illustrate how awesome Lago de Coatepeque is;

 But its basically in the crater of a volcano and it's semicircular

I took this picture on my way out as I rode in the back of some Asian guys' pickup truck 

Cerro Verde July 5
Although today started kinda slow, it ended up being a pretty awesome day. After taking a "shower" in what seemed pretty cold water to me, I went outside the Hostel (Amacuilco... you have no idea how bably i keep messing up the names here) and waited and waited. Eventually four Spaniards from the basque country came and waited as well. When the bus finally came... it was way too late and we missed our connection to Cerro Verde National Park. The owner of the hostel told us we could still make it if we took a different bus and then hitch hiked the rest of the way. Which we all decided was a good idea. So we hopped on the late bus and then on the other bus where we meet another three Salvadorians going to the park and got off a whamming 14K away from the park. We hadn't waited but 2 minutes when a pick up truck came by and one of the Spaniard girls waived it down. Anyways what was so funny is that she managed to get everyone waiting for a ride into the pickup truck. It was about 11 people. She insisted that since we were the last ones there we weren't going to get on the truck unless everyone else got on...
Once we finally arrived at Cerro Verde, we paid our coffer's entrance and parking fee. We then looked for the guide and began the tour which costed about a dollar. This was such a heavy hike. First we had to go down Cerro Verde (an inactive Volcano). There were steps built into the mountain and I think the guide mention it was something like 1500 of them. We then had to go up Volcan Izalco which is an active volcano but has no real trail and there is lose stones and pebbles and huge boulders that look very scary. Finally you go up Cerro Verde Again. This took about 3 hours and lots and lots of stamina. I took some amazing pictures and met some really nice people on the way :o) Oh and had what appeared to be some of the best pupusas so far
As I write this I can hear that little screaming lizard in my room... and the dogs are going crazy outside. I can also hear the wild chicks from NJ screaming and doing what girls do that are from NJ lol It was nice to have the hostel to myself for at least one day. I hope it rains again. 

Volcan Izalco

Some guy rocking it...

Lago Cuatepeque y una cerbeza salvadoreña de preferencia