Welcome to El Salvador

This morning we had a civilised start and tuk tuks took us to the Mayan ruins of Copal. Copal’s ruins are amongst a number of Mayan settlements that have been discovered through Central America. Each of the settlements are unique. 

Copan differs from some of the other settlements because of its size 40 sq miles and because they used a lot of colour in their artwork.   

To describe it all wont do any justice to the magnificence of the ruins or the magical surroundings so I’ll leave that to wiki. 

https://en.m. Es el are p/wiki/Copán

Our guide was amazing and you could tell he was so rpassionate about what he was showing us.  Not only were the ruins spectacular but the setting in a forest was superb. The national birds the Macaws were flying round above us. Too cute. 

Tuk tuks took us back to the hotel where we were soon loaded into a new bus and on our way. 

We crossed out of Honduras back into Guatemala and then a little later into El Salvador. The last border crossing into El Salvador was our introduction to great roads and even nicer scenery. 

El Salvador used to have a reputation but in its recent history under their current President has been turned around into a safe, more prosperous country. 

Read more here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador 
https://eightify.app/summary/politics-and-government/el-salvador-s-remarkable-transformation-from-murder-capital-to-safest-in-latin-america

We have been on the road nearly six hours and are approaching our destination. Rafa our guide is crawling the aisle of the bus taking our orders for dinner so that its ready when we get there. 

I’m looking forward to chicken for a change. Bring it on. 

I’m also looking forward to what is our first free day. At least from now on we have every second day to ourselves with travel on alternate days. 

Suchitoto looks like the cutest place. I can’t wait to explore tomorrow. 

Dinner was at a place called Donde Charlie (Where’s Charlie  - but not the Wellington one) and comes with live entertainment. 

Without realising it I had ordered a meal (grilled chicken) with a cream based sauce. Once I googled the sauce I realised. Bugger. It was too late to change my order as our tour leader had already sent the orders through.  The thought of it was too much so I had a beer to settle me down. 

The music was playing people were dancing. The atmosphere was fabulous. And then my meal arrived. 

I closed my eyes for the first mouthful. Oh my god. The most moist and tender chicken breast with a small amount of nondescript sauce.  Just superb. The accompaniments: roast eggplant, potato, tomato and a chilli were equally as good and for the first time on this trip I can honestly say I was drooling. The chimichurri on the side was just waiting for me to dink my bread into it. And then I went to heaven. 

It was helped by a few more beers, some great company and some excellent music. 

I left the young ‘uns to it and wandered off. Kids were grouped together playing cards, the church was resplendent and there was an air of  peace about the place. 

And back home to a hotel that is as cute as a button, my home for two nights. Its rather warm sitting outside writing this but my room super chilled with silent aircon making sure it stays that way. 

Welcome to El Salvador.