La Libertad

Dan and Dylan removing the "TEAM AUSTRALIA" sticker

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El Salvador is very rainy and quite dirty.  The few pictures I´ve taken will probably make El Salvadore look quite beautiful, but they are deceiving.  Not that it isn´t beautiful, but it needs a lot of work and fixing up.

Dylan, Dan, Kim and I left Antigua around 8;00am on Monday morning with an English man that has been living in Antigua for many years.  He directed us to a window repair shop in Guatemala city to get the window fixed in the van.  Apparently windows get broken a lot in Guatemala because there were several cars lined up.  However, the men were quite efficient and got to work immediately, and the window was repaired within an hour.  After a quick breakfast we headed straight for the El Salvadorian border.

The border crossing took quite a bit longer with the van than I was used to.  As we pulled up to the border we were rushed by 6 or more money changers eager to change our Quetzals into $US (Yep, they use US money here).  They all had calculators that were tampered with though.  We asked how much $US we would get for 400 Quetzal.  The exchange rate was 7.75, but was adding up to $41.....''hmmmm..... .that doesn´t seem right'' we thought.  The men clearly punched the numbers in, letting us see the calculation, and it still worked out to $41.  Then they let us try the calculation ourselves, and it was still incorrect.  Fortunately Kim had a cell phone with a calculator function so we did the calculation ourselves to show the men that we knew we were getting screwed over.  So finally they gave us what our money was worth.  They were also asking to take our passports for $10...  None of them were wearing uniforms, so we knew it wasn't a good idea to hand our passports over to them.  The immigration window was a few meters ahead, and we didn't have to pay a single dollar to exit Guatemala or enter El Salvador.  However, the papers for the van took a while to sort out.  We finally arrived in La Libertad, a small coastal town, around 7pm and checked into a hotel with secured parking, then went for a very nice, slightly pricey, seafood dinner.
 
The next day the boys did a bit of surfing while Kim and I explored La Libertad, then in the afternoon Dylan, Kim and I went for a drive to inspect some of the other beaches since the one in La Libertad wasn´t much of a beach, although it is good for surfing.  Most of the beaches in the area actually aren't very pretty.  They're quite rocky and there generally isn't much of a beach area where one could lay in the sun, not that there was much sun to soak up.  We did find one beach that was quite pretty.  Dylan went for a short surf while Kim and I attempted some body surfing closer to the shore, but gave up within about 15 minutes when we just kept getting pummelled by waves and dragged further and further to the left, away from where we had placed our towels and keys.  In the evening we had a very nice and cheap meal of chicken, frijoles, ensalada, and arroz at our hotel.  Us and one other Californian boy seemed to be the only guests in the hotel, so I think the owners were happy to have us there.  The first night they had tried to convince us that all the restaurants were already closed when we arrived, and that the only place to eat was there at the hotel.