Blogs from Santa Ana, Western, El Salvador, Central America Caribbean

I had been told that there were buses leaving Copán to take me towards the Salvadorian border at 6.00, 6.45 and 7.00am and everyone seemed to think these were the only ones until 2pm. So it was another early start for me. The 6am was out of the question, but I managed to get to the bus stop for 6.45 and hopped on a colectivo. The journey was taking me to Santa Rosa de Copán, a couple of hours away and where I'd have to change to get another bus to the border. The journey was uneventful and when I arrived in Santa Rosa at 9.45 (yes, that's 3 hours, not 2) I was pointed to a car park and told to wait for the 10am to Nueva Ocotepeque, the nearest town to the border crossing ... read more

101 Things to Buy on a Chicken Bus in Central America OK. This list was inspired by a journey on a chicken bus out of Santa Ana in El Salvador.img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4941618901_4438926dd1.jpg" width="393" height="342" alt="Donuts" align = "right" / Up until that point we had been fairly impressed by the range of things being sold by sellers coming onto the buses. But in Santa Ana the bus station is in the middle of the market and as the buses work their way through the market at less than walking speed a continual stream of sellers goes from bus to bus with quite a range of stuff on offer. Our attempts to remember 101 different items has only reached 90 so far {with no cuddly toys or chickens yet} but I hope people will ... read more

Santa Ana Trying Not To Look Like A Gangster The journey from El Tunco to Santa Ana is not a particularly long one but it does take three separate buses to get to Santa Ana.url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whereissteve/5036745897/" title="Another Day, Another Bus Ride by WhereIsSteve"img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/5036745897_3ba4948181.jpg" width="400" height="373" alt="Another Day, Another Bus Ride" align = right / There are no great dramas or break downs and we reach Santa Ana on time. On the journey we have the usual flow of sales people through the buses including someone selling worm tablets again - selling worm tablets seems to be good business in Central America. We are even treated to an in-flight movie on the last bus. And just when you think a posse of enterprising popcorn sellers will f... read more

Wednesday, August 4th First of all, I should clarify my use of titles. At first I was saying Santa Ana Refugee Camp, and now I've been using the more appropriate title of Los Angeles Commnity. There are probably a number of other "commnities" around Santa Ana where the families that are either made homeless by flooding, earthquake, or mudslide are given small parcels of land to use as their homes. In both the original Los Angeles community suported mostly by Kenton Moody Ministries and the newer and smaller Los Angeles 2 community, the average family lives in a 20 foot by 30 foot (my estimation) plot with tree limbs, boards and wire for fencing and a combination discarded tin signs, hunks of wood and whatever else they can scrounge up for houses. Generally speaking, they only ... read more

Monday, August 2nd: After a good night's sleep, it was another excellent breakfast before heading back out to LA to finish up "my" house. After arriving at the camp and stowing my personal gear in the church, I was told they wanted me to work on a different house today, the one the leader was left out of after get rather sick yesterday (By the end of the day today he was back in good shape.. stress, the heat, or both). So, after a quick photo of the previous house, I went to work on one that had the walls more or less up. By lunch time, we had that one pretty much finished, with the walls up, the door and windows installed and the corrugated roof well under way. When I returned to help put ... read more

Saturday, 31 July We left the house at 3:30am and joined up with the other 29 Hillcrest Baptist Church missionaries. We had no problems with connections or seats all the way to El Salvador, although we did observe the usual "I can't fit my luggage in here" and "you're in the wrong seat". Getting thru customs and out with our luggage (2 LARGE suitcases each, plus carry-ons!) was a matter of organization and helpful customs folks. Upon leaving the customs area, we quickly saw a lady holding up the Moody Missions sign and figured that would be us. Sure enough, in no time at all, we were loaded up on two small buses and a pickup truck and headed towards our hotel in Santa Ana. My first impressions of El Salvador is that it looks and ... read more