My trip started very early Wednesday morning. Since my flight left DCA at just after 7 AM, I had decided to rent a car the day before so I could simply return it at the airport. All that worked well and my flight from DCA to MIA went fine - it was actually 30 minutes early! So it looked like clear sailing as I boarded the flight to San Salvador which was on time. On getting everyone seated, the pilot announced that the ground crew had put too much fuel on the plane. The pilot told us that 5,000 pounds of fuel was pull in the middle fuel tank of the plane in error. With that much fuel on the plane, the pilot claimed we could not land in San Salvador. However the pilot thought the groundcrew could correct that error in a few minutes.
That prediction proved to be way too optimistic. In fact after 30 minutes waiting we were allowed to get off the plane if we wanted to wait in the terminal as the pilot now had no idea when the ground crew might get the problem corrected. I got off the plane and got talking with several other passengers. We got the blow by blow description of the ground crew actions. First they got a tanker that didn’t have the necessary capacity. Finally, they got a second larger tanker and flight finally left about 2 hours late.
Upon arrival in San Salvador, I was waiting in line for immigration behind a girl (late 20s) I had talked with before while waiting in Miami. It seems she is originally from Panama but now is a US citizen. She was meeting her husband here in San Salvador but didn’t know you had to pay $10 to immigration on entry! She had credit and debit cards so I thought the officials here must have some easy way around this. But after I paid my fee and got immigration approval, I saw her still discussing her situation with the official. So I took it upon myself to lend her the money. She told me that the official was telling her she would have to jump through all kinds of hoops otherwise. Anyway right after we got through Customs, her husband came running up to me to pay her $10! Apparently she had texted him her situation.
The tour group (OAT) had a rep to meet me and another group member at the airport. They gave us a ride to the hotel as one of the (a tour guide in training) was giving us a brief description of the sights along the way to practice his English. BTW, his English was good but not good enough to be a tour guide for most groups.
I had dinner on my own that night and went to a nearby Chinese restaurant recommended in TripAdvisor. It was actually pretty good. The best Chinese food I have had outside North America and Asia.
Thursday morning the group leader, Richard, got the group together for the first time. There are 12 of us. This definitely is not a young group as I think I am the second youngest! We all introduced ourselves and we met a local guide we would have just for the day. After this intro meeting we went by bus to the local volcano, El Boqueron, which is just outside San Salvador. This volcano is 5 km in circumstance and 1 km deep. You have to use ropes to descend inside it. But if you do go down to the inner circle inside it, you get to write out your own special message in the white stones gathered p there. The bad part is that without binoculars no one can read the message!
Next we visited La Palabra Museum. This museum is dedicated to the leftists that fought in the civil war in the 1970s. Here we met Chiyo who works for the museum. When he was just 9 years old Chiyo lost 3 brothers and his mother in this awful war. They were all killed by the rightist army. He told his very sad story and even sang a song he wrote about it.
Our group leader Richard is the one in the background
Next we have lunch in a typical El Salvadorian restaurant with pulpusas which El Salvador takes credit for creating but our guide gives that credit to the Mayans! After lunch we went downtown and saw the National Cathedral where a Catholic Bishop was killed in 1980 in the middle of a mass. Also nearby was another church, Church of the Rosary, which was built entirely out of recycled materials by a bother architect. This church is rather ugly from the outside but inside its two giant arches sparkle with the colors of the glass. It is also noteworthy in that most of its light is from the sun and it is all naturally ventilated.
This picture inside doesn’t do it justice.
After the churchs, we visited a military museum and saw several overlooks of the city.
Our hotel, Crown Plaza, is in the middle left of this picture across from the tall green building which kind of bends into the background
Dinner on Thursday was our introduction dinner so it was a bit of an upgrade. We went to an Argentinian Steak House. It was a nice dinner with a choice of four steak among other entrees along with wine!
On Friday we are going by bus onward to Honduras. It is only about 150 miles but due to the bad roads, border crossings (we actually are going into Guatemala first and then Honduras) as well as several stops along the way, it will take us all day!
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