As El Salvador is about 2/3 the size of Belgium. It should surprise no one that it’s easy to drive through it in only a few days. The roads so far have been pretty good – even with a proper 4 lane highway for most of the day! – which helps speed up the progress.
Even though they have a currency of their own called the colon, El Salvador uses the US dollar in day-to-day life. This is a bit of a shame because we really like the foreign money as it gives the country its own character. You can also feel the influence from the USA here from the way people dress, the English publicity on the street and the fact that a lot of people also speak English.
We started the morning with a visit to our very last Maya site off the road trip at ‘Tazumal‘. This is only a small site but still in very good condition. The stucco which the Maya used to put on top of their buildings can still be seen here. It has to be said though that the owners don’t preserve the site very well. Plants and kids are running freely all over the buildings so I hope people can still come and see this site many years from now.
Being with over 20 school children on a small platform looking out over the temple above we decided to head back down and continue towards ‘Lago de Coatepeque‘. Unfortunately it started to rain and by the time we got to the lake all we could see was the below… yup, in case you are doubting, that’s the lake in front of you. You will have to imagine the volcanoes in the back yourself. 🙂
So we continued further south towards the Pacific Ocean coast. We were looking for a campground called ‘El Hostel’ but it seemed to have been replaced by a fancy resort so we had to look for another solution. We stopped in a few hotels to ask for the price and see the accommodation. In the end we opted for an Italian owner who was so kind to share his umbrella whilst showing us around and move us closer to the covered area in a double bedroom room for the same price as a single one but more importantly: he had internet!
We spent the rest of the day at the hotel as the rain prevented us from going anywhere without getting soaked and we needed to catch up on some blog posts, mails and general research. At least the late lunch kept us going for the rest of the day (and the day after) and we had a beautiful view at the ocean with its black beaches.
Good men through the ages trying to find the sun
And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain
Keep Calm and Drive South 