It has been exactly three months since I left Denver, and tomorrow I'll be leaving San Salvador for Managua (Nicaragua). It's a 12 hour bus ride - oh goody! But I was given 3 English-language Cosmos to read and a couple of Newsweek and Time magazines, so I am plenty weighted down with reading material.So three months in and 3 of my, what? - 10 articles of clothing, have holes in them. I ditched The Lonely Planet before leaving Antigua but have since acquired a thinner, "revised" version. I gave my stainless steel water bottle to my Salvadoran mom. I left the over-the-counter anti-diarrhea drugs in Copan Ruinas (Honduras), along with my pop-up hairbrush/mirror which was stolen from my room by the cleaning lady. (She said it was very rare for something like that to happen.) I broke my sunglasses, which Guillermo fixed with super-glue, and which I broke again a few days later. I finished and gave away one of the two novels I brought and acquired one more. I gave away my awful Spanish/English dictionary that never had a single word I needed in it. I gave away my Spanish phrasebook and dictionary, because, well let's be real, how often do I need to say, "My room has not been made up." or "Is there a certificate of authenticity?"
After leaving Antigua I spent a week in Monterrico, Christmas and New Years in San Pedro, La Laguna, then headed for Tikal, which was amazing. From there it was Placencia (Belize)...a decision that was influenced by a need to renew my visa but mostly from a tiny little photograph of a beautiful beach that was pasted to a hand-painted, almost cartoon-like map on the wall inside of a travel agency in Flores. And the beach was just as beautiful in real life. From Placencia a trek to Roatan Island (Honduras) for nearly a week of rainy afternoons and lots of mosquito bites, but it was nice nonetheless. Roatan to San Pedro Sula (Honduras), the AIDS capital of Central America, where I had one of my worst experiences so far - I thought I was getting robbed by 5 or so men dressed in black with guns drawn who turned out to be police, at which point I thought I was still going to be robbed. Super-scary, but in the end nothing happened. From Central America's AIDS capital to Copan Ruinas to El Salvador/San Salvador.
I've been in El Salvador about 10 days and have experienced amazing hospit
ality from the locals as well as the mother (and her husband) of a co-worker of my friend Jenny's husband. I spent three days traveling around El Salvador with a family that I got acquainted with on the bus from Honduras. They really made me feel like part of their family and insisted that I join them for a few days. I got to travel in El Salvador like a middle-, maybe lower-middle class local taking the local buses everywhere, eating pupusas from street vendors, drinking coconut water and getting to have all my questions about El Salvador answered. I was well looked after and taken care of. And I was also humbled by how caring and giving this family was to those truly in need. 
After traveling with Guillermo & Norma and their mother, Doris, I was delivered safely to Margaret and Don who have been amazing hosts and really invited me to feel at home in their beautiful home in San Salvador. I have been spoiled for nearly a week with my own comfortable and super-clean bedroom & bathroom (with a hot-water shower!), with an incredibly comfortable bed that is almost impossible to get out of, with delicious meals, wine, internet access, phone calls home...all of the amenities of home and then some! They have both spent many years working around the world for the U.S. Embassy and have collected gorgeous rugs, wood carvings, dishes, masks, etc. during their travels.Margaret & Don in Suchitoto
One of Margaret's employee's daughter, Marcella, was kind enough to be my tour guide for the past three days (picking me up at 7:30 a.m. the last two days!) and has shown me lots of El Salvador...amazing ruins, beautiful countryside, lakes, and views. She was great company, a wonderful guide and we really had a lot of fun together. I even got to meet her 83 year old grandma and her 88 year old great aunt who still runs a plant nursery out of her home! And it was Marcella who loaded me up on Cosmos and Newsweeks for my trip tomorrow.(Marcella & me with Lake Coatepeque in the background.)
I am having an amazing time, better than I could have ever imagined!
