Jan. 20 – San Salvador to San Miguel

After a restless night, we had  a decent breakfast in the hotel, and I walked a few blocks to a farmacia for more pain stuff.  At around 11:00 we turned on the TV and watched the Obama inauguration, and then I went and picked up my new glasses.  Perfect!

It was a wild and crazy ride to get out of San Salvador;  we had to pass through the main market area on CA-1, and it was a nightmare.  Four lanes of busses and cars crunched down to one lane, passing through a thousand market stalls with vendors hawking and shoppers running and people pushing farm carts and wheelbarrows and ice-cream carts and hot-dog wagons and you-name-it!  Too many blocks of just pain craziness.  Just something you have to see to believe!

Then a good road east.  We stopped at a wide spot in the road for a disappointing pupusa lunch, then continued through some very beautiful country-side.  Crazy drivers, very bad traffic.  We stopped early in San Miguel, 70 K. from the Honduras border.  Another first-class hotel, with no hot water!  Here in El Salvador every large business, and every hotel and restaurant  has an armed security guard on its premises. After checking in, we jumped into the unheated, unfiltered pool just to cool off from the 100º F heat.

We walked around and found excellent steak dinners for $4.50 USD.  We bought oil and supplies to do an oil change on both bikes in the morning.  Cigars and cerveza by the pool finished off another good day.