Jan. 19 – Metapan to San Salvador

In the morning, we collected our clean laundry off the line, and loaded up.  Good roads, gas only $2.19 USD.  Along he road we passed the largest, weirdest garbage dump I have ever seen.  Dozens and dozens of trucks lined up, and trash everywhere.  Not just in piles, and in the trees and ditches, but even buildings, some of them partially destroyed, filled with trash of every sort. Seemed to go for miles.  Weird, and sort of scary.  Levi said he saw a sign saying that it was the Salvadorian national landfill;  if so, it was a national disgrace.

San Salvador is a huge city;  as we rode in it seemed to go on forever.  We finally reached what we thought was the center (on Roosevelt Ave!), and stopped at a very swanky hotel.  It had busboys to carry our bags, an elevator (that worked!), enclosed parking, hot water, A.C., a pool, the works!  I was in a lot of pain, mostly my ribs and shoulder from the first fall, and I needed some quality rest. One of the drugs I had gotten at the farmacia in La Ruidosa had caused some severe intestinal problems, and that only made matters worse. There turned out to be an optical store next to the hotel, and when I inquired there, they told me I could get glasses made by 11:00 AM the next day!  Needless to say, I jumped at that one!

We tried to find some decent food, but we failed in that.  The dinner we had was terrible.  And because of the Salvadorian election, there was still no alcohol sales, so it was a ‘limited fun’ night. The city had thousands of busses;  the streets were clogged with them, flying down the streets three and four abreast.  Many of them had been customized and tricked out, with lighted shark fins and spoilers on top, fancy custom paint jobs and logos, chrome exhausts, etc.  We did manage to get better caught up on picture uploading and blogging and email, and I was able to make some Skype internet phone calls.  I had a very hard time sleeping due to the shoulder and side pain.