Family Ties

So yesterday I went on city tour of San Salvador. Overall it was pretty good, but the tour guide wasn't Miguel and I got stuck with Judy's brother, Jeff. Now I highly doubt that Jeff was Judy's brother but you could have could have fooled me. He was whinny (although not as whinny as Judy) and asked a lot of lame questions just like Judy. Within the first five minutes our guide, Mario, asked us how we were doing. He replies tired because he's usually not up at this time. The way he said it was so whinny like someone was making him come on this tour. He's also about as stupid as Judy as he was asking what bus he could take back down here. The thing you have to understand is there is no formal bus system and they really, I mean really don't recommend tourists taking them.

Our first "stop" was to the American Embassy!! I've always wanted to know about the Embassy. Did you know that they have their own gas station, swimming pool and living quarters?!? From the questions Jeff was asking I could at least rule out the fact that he didn't work at the embassy.

After that we wound our way through some residential areas and had a great view of the city and the soccer field. The stadium looked a lot bigger but apparently it only holds 4,000 people. ****Whoa, we interrupt this program to tell you that as I was writing this I just went through my first tremor here. It wasn't too bad, things were shaking but it was probably done in 30 seconds. It was more weird then anything since I'm not used to it. Apparently tremors happen every several weeks or so around here. Okay, I just had to share that but now back to your regularly scheduled program*** Below is a picture of the place and another one where you can see my hotel in the distance, right below the arrow.




After the stadium we went to downtown San Salvador. It reminded my a lot of New York. Mass quantities of people and street vendors all over the place. We stopped at the catedral metropolitana which is their biggest cathedral. It also is the resting place of Archbishop Romero who was killed during the civil war for his beliefs.

Next we went to Puerta del Diablo or the Devil's Door. It had some great views of the country and at one spot could see the ocean. At the same time it was kind of a depressing place. Apparently during the war the military and guerrillas would toss the dead people over the cliff. And not just a couple of people we're talking in the thousands. Yet, if you wanted to you could walk to the cave area where tossed people over and have a picnic. Go figure.

Lastly we went through the artisans market. They had a lot of touristy stuff but nothing I hadn't really seen before. Anyway, that was about it for the tour. When we got back to the hotel Jeff was still whining about something but hopefully I won't see him around here again. Also, since blogspot is really annoying I couldn't get my other pics to post here so that is why they are posted in a septerate one above.