El Salvador - Country #46

Due to the presidential elections in Guatemala on Sunday, September 9 and Guatemala Independence Day on September 15, we were given a three day weekend off of school and decided to head to El Salvador.

I traveled with three co-workers: Fabio, the HS Principal and Jesse and Reid, both 2nd grade teachers. We joked with Fabs that he wanted to go to El Salvador because Guatemala wasn't serving alcohol the day before, on or after election day, but it was also a smart move considering the intensity of Guatemalan politics.

We took a three hour luxury bus from Guatemala City to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador on Saturday morning and were all impressed by the comfort of the ride and the free meal (including coffee, although Jesse thought the bus attendant was telling her that she couldn't drink the coffee . We laughed when I asked and the woman clearly said we could help ourselves; Jesse's working on her Spanish). The laughs began on the bus and didn't stop until we arrived back in Guatemala City!

The bus dropped us off at the Sheraton in San Salvador and we hired a driver who took us to Sunzal Beach about 35 minutes away from the city in a nice, air-conditioned van. We checked out a few different places, ranging from a gorgeous resort on a rocky cliff for $160 US/night to a small, surfer hangout with both nice rooms and rundown rooms with a semi-private deck and hammocks on a river for $52/night (for all four of us). We chose the surfer joint called Roca Sunzal Hotel and the rundown rooms (the rooms shown on the website are the nice ones).

Jesse likes to surf and Reid gave it a try on Sunday. I tried it once in Bali, Indonesia and didn't have any desire to try it again. I think it'd be great fun, but I'm not into it enough to put the effort needed into learning the sport. Fabio and I stayed on the shore, sipping El Salvador's Pilsener beer, eating shrimp ceviche and reading.

We spent the evenings playing Scopa, an Italian card game using a special deck of Italian cards. This turned out to be an absolute blast and I can't wait to play again! The first evening Reid and I were a team versus Fabio and Jesse, but the second night we had a boys versus girls competition and things really heated up.

Jesse and I were a piece of work, trash talking with things like "Are you pickin' up what I'm throwin' down!?" when we scored on a move (and the other team member was supposed to pick up the cards that the other had laid). We exaggerated everything and were completely obnoxious, but got an excellent ab workout from laughing uproarously at ourselves (sometimes we even managed to humor the guys).

Other entertainment came in the way of playing pool and checking out the cabbit, which appeared to be half cat/half rabbit, although we found out that it truly was a cat. I Googled cabbit in El Salvador and was humored to find it had already hit the web and there's even a Cabbit video! An article was hanging on the wall that explained that it came from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and was actually a Manx that simply looked like it was part rabbit. It was the oddest cat I've ever seen, but quick on its feet as it managed to almost dodge a cue ball that sailed off the pool table, grazing its fur.

We're already planning our next trip. I'm hoping to get a group of six together and stay at the San Blas Beach House that I found while researching this blog. Come down and join us!