Off the beaten path

(These are pictures of the main square in Santa Ana. Because I was sick most of the time, this is about all of Santa Ana that I saw. At least that was pretty.)

Confident with our Spanish and anxious for a little adventure, we decided to go from Monterrico to El Salvador using the public bus system. We also realized that not many tourist buses went to the boarder, so it was really our only option. Surprisingly, the chicken buses (old schools buses decked out with Jesus paraphernalia and techno music) were not terribly crowded and even a tiny bit more comfortable than the crappy minivans that are considered tourist buses. The locals were always very helpful and would help us flag down the right bus to wherever we wanted to go. However, we did end up having to take 1 boat, and 2 buses to reach the boarder, then walk about 1K across the boarder, and then take another 2 buses to our final destination of Apaneca. We just about randomly chose this small mountain town because our travel books remarked highly of this ¨very pleasant¨ mountain town in the middle of the ruta de los flores (route of the flowers). When we reached there, we had arrived in a VERY small, somewhat empty town with no banks, restaurants, tourists or street signs-- a big difference from everywhere we went in Guatemala. Eventually, we found a nice hotel (basically a house with rooms for rent in the back) and ate at the local Pupusaria (kind of like a thick corn tortilla filled with cheses, beans, or meat). Unfortunately, later that night I (Shana) felt the affects of not having any gringo friendly food.

The next day we headed onward to the 2nd largest city in El Salvador, the ¨Queen of the West¨, Santa Ana. I was expecting a cute, clean, touristy town like Antigua, but not in El Salvador. Although Santa Ana is larger with a very beautiful Cathedral and Municipal Theater, it is still void of any gringos. Unlike Guatemala, there is no obvious indigenous influence and everything seems a bit poorer. Unfortunately, I´m still sick (probably from the pupusaria), so I´m spending most of my time in bed enjoying our first cable television of the trip. Thank goodness the Food Network is in English! Greg is taking very good care of me, running to the (Walmart owned) local grocery store for Gaterade of Ritz crackers and has even agreed to go to the Mall to see Sex and the City with me (we hope its in English).

If I´m all better by tomorrow, we´re going to head north to Honduras to Copan where we expect to see some awesome Mayan ruins (and probably some gringos again).