Hot in the City

My bus to santa ana was packed out and not the correct one for dropping me near my hostel, as i discovered when i asked the driver where the stop was and he muttered something back in rapid fire spanish (they are so hard to understand here!) which sounded like "we don`t stop there" he then said something else i didn`t understand so i decided i´d just have to get off the bus when everyone else did and get a cab to the recommeded hostel (I would have been hard pressed to get off before anyway as me and my entire luggage were rammed into a tiny space with two little girls sat next to me on a 2 person seat!)

When everyone else got off, i was surprised to see the conductor gesture to me to stay on and frankly amazed when they took me to the stop even though it wasn`t on their route! That would nver happen in Guatemala- the people are just so so nice here!

Beneath us, nestled in between layer upon layer of different coloured rock, lay a bubbling greeny blue crater lake- it almost took my breath away. It just looked like nothing else i`ve seen- i literally felt as though we`d just emerged onto mars!

The hostel turned out to be absolutely fantastic and i could see why so many people had recommeded it- the dorm only had 4 comfy single beds (no bunks- yay!) and it also had its own bathroom with huge mirror and shower- bliss! I was soon joined by a dutch guy who later turned out to be insane (he told me and maddy we wouldn`t get our pensions as the world was changing according to mayan propecy and when we quiestioned him a bit he told us "we weren`t ready to understand"... whatever!!) and two english people, maddy and paul, the first brits i`d met in a long time.

I spent the following day and half exploring the city (not too much to see but fairly pleasant with nice architecture in the centre) and trying to get my backpack fixed. The latter proved more tricky than i first thought as a sucession of sweing shops looked at it, shook their head and muttered about it being too thick for their machines. I finally found somewhere in the city centre and had to wait 4 hours to get it fixed (of course i was told 2 hours, then half an hour more, then come back in an hour... i should be used to central american time by now!) I finally picked it up, only to be asked out on a date by the man who fixed it who could, iconveniently , speak v good english! I was v embarassed and made my excuses and legged it- i reallyshould stop saying no when asked if i have a boyfriend! its just that the B word is too scary even to pretend i have one!! That evening the dry season finally broke and we saw our first rain storm for a good few months- it was refreshing for a while then instantly hot again when it was over!

The following day Maddy, Paul and I caught and early bus and headed out to the cerro verde national park ni the hopes of joining a tour to climb santa ana, an active volcano. We arrived and were immediately charged a dollar just to set foot in the park only to be told that "100 people want to climb Izalco (the other volcano which is much younjger and, although a perfect cone, much better to see from a distance) today so you have to climb that. When we protested and asked why we were told that there weren`t enough police escorts for both (lies...there were loads!) so we couldn`t do it. Paul was really fed up with this and when we saw that the 100 people were in fact school kids, we decided that we REALLY didn`t want to climb izalco! We were soon joined by a group of 6 other tourists who wanted to do santa ana so we tried once more to negotiate but were frustratingly unsucessful. Suddenly, an el salvadorian guy joined us. Turns out he runs tour sin Juayua and knows all the police there so suddely, miraculously, there were enough police to accompany us and we got our way!

We got taken to the base of the walk in a pick up truck and started on our way. It was a fairly easy steady climb for the first 45 minutes through cloud forest, followed by 45 minutes of more tough steep climbing over rocks and volcano debris. The three of us were ok but the others got a bit left behind. The "guide" we were forced to pay did nothing more than follow the policeman up the volcano and didn`t know a thing about it- luckily the exuberant local knew loads and so did the policeman so we were able to understand a lot of what had occured in the history of the volcano.

I was completely blown away when we reached the top- it was one of the most stunning things i`ve see on this trip. Beneath us, nestled in between layer upon layer of different coloured rock, lay a bubbling greeny blue crater lake- it almost took my breath away. It just looked like nothing else i`ve seen- i literally felt as though we`d just emerged onto mars! The views from the top (2250m) were also stunning and we could see izalco and the large Lago de Coatapeque really clearly- well worth the sweaty climb and the arguing to get there!

That night we were joined by an australian couple and, along with Taylor, a lovely american guy who has lived in central america in the past and has a lot of cool stories, we chatted and drank wine until pretty late. at one point i made the mistake of popping to the local internet cafe- a storm broke out whilst i was there and om the way back i literally got soacked to the skin- i looked like i`d just got out of the shower! damn rainy season!! At least it was cool when we finalyl made it to bed though so i was able to get a good sleep for the first time in ages.

In the morning i decided it was time to move on and so, thanks to Taylor giving me a life, got myself to san Salvador (via a mall and a coffee stop- both dangerous for the finances!) and borded the bus to Suchitot, a colonial town 70km north of the capital.