el salvador - la libertad, lake coatapeque san salvador and suchitoto

so I was deciding whether to skip call fuller or not and decided to come here.

I started In la Libertad, which is a town near the ocean with lots of surfers. I went to playa San Diego and went in the ocean. All of the water here is so warm compared to sf. I stayed one night at a hostel near the ocean and was the only guest there. They had a swimming pool, which was nice, and I hung out with the family a bit. They asked me if I wanted the daughter to make dinner for me to buy and said she was a good cook so I said sure. She may be a good cook as the food was flavorful but she started with a tough cut of meat and ended with a tough cut of meat. The next day I decided to go to the national park where there was supposed to be lots of wildlife. Since it was hot and I was not seeing much wildlife and the long hike only gave you a view of the river I changed my decision and only did the short hike.

On the way out I passed a group of about 12 students. About half of them came up to me with their phones and cameras and took pictures and videos. I felt like a Rock star.

Before leaving town I went to the pier where they have all kinds of fresh seafood and got ceviche.

Here we go again. I got hit by another travel day on independence day and eventually found out the bus I needed was not running and I needed to take an extra bus.
I am constanlty amazed that I get where I need to with the language barrier and both lack of information people have and conflicting information they give, especially when I am traveling on longer distance buses and I arrive in towns with multiple stops and don't know which one I want. Everything is often "2 blocks away" even bus stops but everybody points a different direction.

I then headed to lake coatepeque. The lake was formed long ago by major volcanic eruptions. The lake is beautiful.  I met a gal from Canada there and we hung out a bit.

The next day she wanted to go to the nearby national park and see the volcano. Her plan was to check out of the hostel, which had 3 pools BTW, by 1. She was heading to Santa Ana and I was headed to San Salvador. The problem was we left around 8 and between 2 buses, 3 pick up trucks and a lot of walking did not arrive until around 11:30. Thank goodness we did not walk only after the buses. We would have been exhausted and would have taken a long time.

There are 2 hiking options:
The hike to the volcano leaves only at 11 and is 2 hours each way.. And it was hot. We could not have done that one even if we wanted to and at that point I did not want to.
The other option was about 45 minutes and you must go with a guide.
We went with option 2 but did not see much. We did meet a nice couple of kids who gave us a ride most of the way back, which was great.

I arrived in San Salvador planning g to stay 1 or 2 nights but I am staying 4. There is more that i want to see then I thought and I arrived late the first night.

The hostel owner gave good advice on what to see and do but between her instructions and the advice from locals I did not make the volcano again. I had not gone to one yet.   Thursday I got all of the way to parque Daniel Hernandez but was supposed to continue to parque boqueron and the volcano, so I decided I would go today after going to puerto el diablo. This was an adventure also.

First the city just (temporarily?) Changed the bus schedule a and nobody is sure where they run now.
Second the bus driver forgot to tell me when to get off to change buses even though I kept making eye contact with him.

When I finally got there I realized that I left my camera in my room so the only pictures ate in my minds eye.

There were some kids there hammering at the rock. They said that they were students and he was making a sculpture. There was also a "crazy lady" at the entrance saying there was a $1 entrance fee.

I then went back to my room for my camera before heading to the volcano. Eventually I got there. There was a group of about 13 people who are coworkers and asked me to take their picture. Afterwards I asked if there was room in their van for their photographer. The person I asked said no but when they drove down the hill and saw me walking they gave me a ride....and all the way to where I wanted to go.

Tomorrow I am off to a mm Darby city, suchitoto and then have a long bus ride to Nicaragua leaving at 3 am.

On a side note when I was in amapala the place I stayed had no running water and when I touched the bathroom sink it fell almost 45 degrees. I was afraid to get near it lest the sink fell to the ground.

The travel nurse I spoke to prior to my trip made no mention of taking an to malaria medicine, which you need to start ahead of your trip. The guidebooks thought otherwise in some areas especially during rainy season. If you have some valuable input please email me.

Aerosmith is in concert tonight and I can hear them at my hostel.