R&R in San Salvador

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I'm back in San Salvador for a couple of days before heading home. I have to leave for Toronto, as soon as I get back, so I thought I would break up my travel so I'm only travelling two days in a row.

As I was coming back from Honduras, I was reminded again how easy it is to travel by bicycle. When I crossed the El Salvador/Honduras border the first time, I was only stopped once to check my passport and to pay a small fee. On the way back through the same crossing by bus, four different people reviewed my paperwork. The whole experience also took about an hour compared to five minutes the first time. This was a very similar experience to when I crossed the Chile/Argentina border in 2005.

This part of the world is obsessed with soccer. Nearly every day the local newspapers have a picture of a soccer game on the front page of the paper. You can also tell when the big games are on as the towns and cities seem to come to a stand still.

I'm staying the better part of town of San Salvador this time. As with Tegucigalpa, the differences between the good and bad parts of town are extreme. You might as well be in two different countries. It is like the country's elite have given up on the old parts of their capitals. This is like no other part of the world that I have visited. Most countries take a lot of pride in preserving their historical parts of town -- not so much here.

One interesting experience today occurred when I visited a cowboy boot store and the salesman, who I also thought was one of the owners, had a pistol sticking out of his pocket! He didn't seemed fussed about, and I guess I was suppose to be the same. I thought for a minute that I must be in Texas!

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