Santa Ana, El Salvador

Directions: Before reading go to youtube.com. Search¨MS-13¨ and click on some of the videos. You will have viewed the reason that we only spent one day in the country of El Salvador and even decided to bypass the capital. Excuses...Excuses...

Upon leaving Honduras we needed to get to El Salvador. If we were not to spend substantial time in the country, I still wanted to stay one night, see one attraction, eat some pupusas (thats a food by the way...), and get my passport stamped; We would accomplish 3 of the 4.

The shortest route to El Salvador was first through Guatemala. We entered briefly and then walked across the scenic border crossing. We were the only people crossing during this time. The area was basically deserted and those citizens at the border watched us as if we were lost. I knew where we were, but we would soon find out we would have preferred not to be there at all.

We direced ourselves to the second largest city in El Salvador named Santa Ana. Evading the passed-out men in the streets, and the not-so-tempting prostitutes, we found ourselves at a decent hotel.

Upon arrival did we decide not to see the ruins that lay nearby on the very day. However, once we had made that decision we soon found out that the ruins were to be closed on Monday. The ruins were not to be.

Not much occurred over the next few hours. In a scramble to find an ATM that accepted our debit cards, we walked around the city for a good hour and a half.

I bought Max a piece of cake for his birthday and we finished the eevening eating pupusas from the local street vendors (...again, thats a food).

Although there is not much to write about in reference to our one night in El Salvador, I do want to add that I enjoyed not seeing another tourist for the entire day. It was almost as if we had discovered a lost and forgotten city (or country even). In alot of ways, we became an attraction to the Salvadorans.

Lastly, Max´s birthday will be celebrated at a later date. My impeccable precision in trip planning landed us in the worst place possible to celebrate a birthday. In an attempt to make amends, every picture in this post is of him. (Pictures will be posted tomorrow 8-4 due to computer difficulties)

After a day in our 5th country we were headed to Guatemala.