Days 1-4

So... El Salvador has been a blast. A lot better than I ever expected. The people are friendly (although I get the customary stare from everyone, I have yet to see anyone that even resembles my shade of color). The one word I would use to describe this place is "green". Lots of trees, plant life and hills. The first day we immediately took the bus from San Salvador and went into Santa Ana. Walked around the city a bit and stopped at a restaurant where they had excellent food. During the meal, the rain came pouring down so we waited it out with many rounds of Bahia, one of the local beers. The second day, we took a bus to the lake, Lago de Coatepeque, and checked in at the hostel, Amacuilco. Don´t do much this day except read by the water. Oh, and I think I´m going to marry the woman who runs the place, Sandra. She´s the greatest. Next day, we wake up early and go to Parque Nacional Cerno Verde. We take a guided tour/hike of Volcán Izalco with some guys from the Bay Area and escorted by two armed Policía. Let me tell you, the hike was a bitch. We went down about 1900 meters of stairs, then had to climb the black, loose rocks of the volcano. The summit was awesome, and everywhere there were steam pockets. It was damn hot up there. The tough part was leaving. Down the volcano was like the scariest ride I´ve ever been on. I call it "rock surfing". You´re basically sliding down the volcano causing mini rockslides beneath you. Then, we have to climb up the stairs again. Yeah, that was my exercise for the trip. And now today. We took the bus back into San Salvador. And I finally got to take a hot shower. Going to taste the nightlife tonight, so we´ll see how that goes. If/when I get back to a computer, I´ll give you guys the heads up again. Thanks for reading and I´ll see you soon.

I'm off!

As most of you know, I'm headed to Central America for a month-long vacation. Due to my old age, my memory is continuously worsening, so I'm going to attempt to keep a running diary/journal/blog of my experience over there. Hopefully I stick to it (and can periodically find an internet cafe) and hopefully you will deem my posts interesting and worthy of reading. And if not, maybe you can just check them occasionally to make sure I'm still alive. Don't miss me too much while I'm gone. I'll see you clowns when I get back. Late, Derry