One More Stop before Honduras

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I arrived in San Miguel yesterday. This is the third largest city in El Salvador and the eastern hub for the country. Its distinguishing feature is the active volcano it has towering over it, which last erupted in 1976.

At only 50km and most it downhill, this was by far the easiest ride so far, but one of the most dangerous, as I didn´t have a good shoulder for the last 20km into San Miguel, so I had to tough it out on the two lane highway with all the buses and trucks. Some of them seemed to come so close...

Not much new here other than a big fiesta they were having tonight. It was a 40th anniversary for something, but I couldn´t figure out for what. Anyways, it was quite the festive mood with the streets crawling with people and food vendors. There were also some live performances, but my patience ran out before things started. They seemed to stumble along for ever before getting started...

Once again, I couldn´t find another tourist in town. That is amazing given that this is the third largest city in the country. This could possibly be the least visited country I have ever been to. However, when one compares Central America to somewhere like South-East Asia, it really isn´t even close. For the a better price, one can get better food, friendlier people, cheap massages, and cleaner hotels. No wonder why SE Asia cleans up as a tourist destination.

I had an interesting conversation with a gentlemen from San Salvador over breakfast. When I told him that I had read that Salvadoreans were hard working people, he questioned it, as he said too many of them depend on money transferred from the friends and relatives living abroad. Remeber there are 1M emigrants scared around the world for a country of 6M.

I must admit that I´m looking foward to be moving on to another country tomorrow. There is always a level of excitement and anticipation with every new country. Another thing I have noticed over the years is that no two border crossings are the same. My motto is to proceed slowly until someone starts yelling at me or raises a gun -- it always seems to work. :-)

*By the way, the map entry for San Miguel is wrong. That is why it looks like I´m back tracking.

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