Cerro Verde, Volcan Izalco, & Lago de Coatepeque

Cathedral in Santa Ana
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The day after, we decided to venture inland by chicken bus.  We left the van parked at the hotel and payed Juan $8 a day to keep the van safe for us at the hotel until we returned.  We first bussed to San Salvadore (the capital) and ate some typical food for lunch at the bus station before catching another bus to Santa Ana (the 2nd largest city in El Salvadore, which is said to be nicer than San Salvadore).  It rained off and on all day, so we didn´t visit much of the city other than walking into the Cathedral which was immediately next to our hotel, used the internet, and walked into a few shops.

My brand new shoes burried in volcanic rock
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From Santa Ana we caught another chicken bus, with our one little day-pack each, to Parque Cerro Verde.  To our surprise, it was cold, wet, and very foggy, and we were definitely happy for having been bright enough to bring our rain coats and sweaters which we had nearly left behind in La Libertad.  Our plan was to climb Volcano Izalco, thinking we would have a beautiful scenic view of the lake below, neighboring Volcan Santa Ana, and the valleys and countryside below.  However, the park was enveloped in mist and in areas we were only able to see a few meters ahead of us, so much for the view.

1 day old shoes broken in
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The hike up the volcano was very strenuous, although the 30 or so teenaged school kids that joined us on the hike, and the armed escorts seemed to have no problem scaling it.  I put it down to them being used to high altitude, but maybe thats just my woosy excuse to make myself feel better.  I was pretty sure I was going to die.  It started with 1700 steps down, which you knew you would have to come up at the end of the hike, then a very steep climb up volcanic rocks to the top.  The whole time we were climbing through mist/fog.  Nevertheless, the hike was pretty amazing and enjoyable.  There was steam spurting out of various cracks in the rocks, and if you had enough energy you could walk around the entire circumference of the volcano.  On the way down we tripped, slid, and scrambled down very steep, loose, gravel like volcanic rock.  A large rock was knocked loose bñy one school kid and nearly bowled us all down the hill and there were many screams of "piedra, piedra, cuidado, estas bien?" ("rock, rock, careful, are you ok?") and various other yelps and shouts.  Luckily we all managed to make it down mostly unharmed other than a few bruises, scrapes, and very dirty and rock filled socks and shoes.

No kidding, thats how much dirt was in my shoe after the hike
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After the hike we caught a bus to beautiful, calm, quiet, peaceful Lago de Coatepeque.  We did some swimming and canoeing and were pleasantly surprised when the canoe didn´t capsize when all 4 of us piled in, and were escited at the opportunity to pull our canoe up to a restaurant/cafe on a dock right on the lake´s edge.  We had planned on doing another hike the next day but there was no way I was up for another hike that soon.  Especially because it was supposed to be 6 or 7 hours mostly downhill (Ouch on the knees!),  so we stayed an extra night at the lake, then headed back to La Libertad to retrieve our van.

Kim, Dan and Dylan hiding from the rain
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Callum and Elijah (2 more Oz guys) met us there and we took the van to a nearby town, also on the ocean, to stay with an American guy who was just setting up a hostel.  The first night we just slept on mattresses on the floor but by the second night he had made up some bunk beds.  The boys were going to stick around there for another week or 2 to surf, Kim decided to go back to Guatemala because there were still places she wanted to see there, and I decided to come down to Nicaragua.