Last night we decided we had done enough to break the back of this long trek down to San Jose in Costa Rica, we were now only 1000km away, and we have to reach San Jose on Sunday. Sort out Storage and clean the bikes on Monday and fly back on Tuesday. Unfortunately we still have 3 Border Crossings, and one is into Nicaragua, which we hear is a nightmare. So we decided not to continue but take a rest day and explore the area and stay a 2nd night at our hotel. We also needed to do some washing and few little things to the bikes.

Last night our two hosts from El Salvador collected us in their Double Caps and we drove to a restaurant on the top of a hill overlooking the Capital, San Salvador. We were introduced to Pupusa, the main local food, it is like a thick pan-cake with they cut open and put cheese inside which they then re-heat and then the cheese melts, then you are suppose to fill it with cabbage that has been pickled, then add chilli sauce and then eat it, no meat is served with it.

Donald Duck walks to all the tables and then ask if the food was ok.

 

You could also buy some merchandise.

Our Restaurant :

The view was also very good.

This is in a quiet little street opposite the restaurant.

Little shops were still trading when we left at 23h00

This morning we got breakfast at our little hotel, once again no meat.

Fried Banana, beans and rice, scramble egg and sour cream with a fresh bread-roll and fresh juice. There is so much fruit here in El Salvador, it iOS being sold on every corner. El Salvadors biggest export os Coffee, Sugar and Coconuts.

We took off our panniers (to handle the traffic better,) and then our two hosts took us to a volcano, there were more than one but the clouds was covering the main volcano (there are 126 Volcano’s here and several are still active,) but the smaller one was visible.

Later it cleared some more and the crater was visible

 

There were many little restaurants along the way, and many vendors selling food, this is Chorizo Sausage.

Then we went looking at the lake.

We were 10 bikes and keeping us all together was not easy, but we followed Marvin on his Rally version 890 KTM, (The Rally version of the 890 costs about R100 000-00 more in South Africa than the standard version as it has a much better suspension.

Then we rode to the local beach with its black volcanic beaches. The waves are huge and we even saw a few back-packers who has discovered this paradise before it becomes commercial.

We drank a beer at a little pub and stared at the sea while sweating profusely.

We stopped for a group photo several times but the group is now so big, it is difficult the get any detail onto the photo and get everyone in on the photo.

While we were waiting for everyone to make it back up to the main road on a very poor loose stone track I managed to get my photo of the day, it summarise what I saw today with many school kids and their moms waiting for the busses which are all pimped-up.

The plan was to go for lunch and ride back at 16h00 to avoid the traffic, but at 15h00 we turned in to a seafood restaurant to eat lunch, (and I hear we also have a dinner planned for when everyone wakes up. In Fact, it is now 19h30 and Peens is snoring so loud I am battling to do the blog. )One thing we have learnt is that our hosts are super relaxed, and the clock does not rule their life, something I obviously struggle with, but hey, nothing I can do.

So needless to say we had lots of bumper-to-bumper traffic back to the hotel and only got here at 17h30. But the seafood was great, obviously no tourists, just locals like last night. we had several Mariachi Bands competing for our attention. I had the Seafood Soup:

The other plan was to do some route planning after we get back to the hotel as we need to decide how we tackle the tail of this trip, where do we sleep, how many kilometres we ride everyday etc. And we have heard we can do some Pre-clearing on-line that will help us pass through the Honduras and Nicaragua borders faster, but the forms are in Spanish, so I will not be able to do that on my own.

Our hosts are :

Marvin on the left and Benni on the right. They are both entrepreneurs and Benji bought the hotel we are staying in two weeks ago. The hotel never opened after Covid so he bought is and painted out and cleaned it up and we are in fact his 1st guests. So far he only has the 1st 8 rooms ready, 4 more to follow in due course. The hotel was and old house and I think only the glass doored conference room was built later.

And there are more than enough secure off street parking.