San Salvador

The hotel in San Salvador opened the gate at 3am and we were pleased someone had stayed awake to accommodate us. The room was huge and came with air-con which we had dearly missed for the last 15 days in Nicaragua. We swiftly unpacked partially and went to bed but had to be up before 9am to get breakfast which was the traditional refried beans, grilled plantain, eggs, sour cream and bread rolls. It sounds a weird combination but actually worked really well and was super tasty washed down with juice and coffee. Back in the room we were so tired from the lack of sleep and the lack of touristic opportunities in San Salvador that we chilled out and decided we needed to have a strategy to plan ahead as this Easter week holiday (Semana Santa) was proving very troublesome. After a morning on the net and a midday kip we ventured out to get our " I went to the murder capital of the world and survived"  t-shirts which was a bit presumptuous but we fancied our chances. Walking around we were surprised how empty the streets were. Devoid of any people apart from behind gated communities with armed guards for protection.

Gay  pride bought all the pink balloons in the shopping center.

 We trod carefully, sticking to main roads until we hit a very American styled shopping mall and had a wander about looking for dinner. It was obvious they were fast food obsessed here by the amount of fast food outlets and the enormity of their waistlines. Joining in, while in Rome and all that, we ordered some fast food buffet which was pretty poor along with being cold. We walked back before it got dark but misjudged it. Kath needed some beers but I decided to abstain for a change to give my liver the night off but it delayed us enough to be walking nervously along the back streets to the hotel in the dark.
  Next day we were determined to see at least a bit of the city so hailed a taxi to take us downtown to see the sights, a church being the highlight, El Rosario, which was an underwhelming affair but had some interesting window displays and sculptures inside.

George, Jeffery and Bungle were missing in action.

 We then wandered among the rubbish strewn streets, with armed guards on every corner, impromptu stalls selling anything and everything and the steady,constant scent of decay filling our nostrils. It was a rough, tough,dirty town centre and unappealing but at the same time fascinating with its undertow of fear. We hanged about , ducking into the odd shop and fast food outlet until we had our fill of the mediocrity of it all and caught another taxi to the shopping mall we frequented the day before to sample some slightly better fast food from Subway. This time we managed to walk back to the hotel before it got dark so no dilemmas there. Shame we did not get our 'we survived the murder capital of the world' t-shirts though as we were super confident now we were going to make it through the night without fear of death.

Locals like to use cannon fodder on the street to increase their survival chances.

   And next morning we awoke still alive, had breakfast, got my Uber app working on the phone at last after sending them a moaning email, and got dropped off at the Occidental bus station which had our bus waiting to take us to our next destination Santa Ana. Looking out the window as we cleared the city limits of San Salvador I wondered if they did actually sell 'I went to San Salvador and survived ' T-shirts and if they didn't then they should as it would be a bestseller. (apart from the people who unfortunately did actually die).

Thanks god for keeping us alive in this city of sin.