In the Mountains Again

Monday, Apr. 25, 2011--San Salvador to Alegria

The internet wasn't working at my hotel this morning.  My guess is that they needed to reboot the computer.  Since it was a travel day, I didn't worry much about it.  I just got an earlier start for my four bus trips.

I was able to catch the first bus just a block from the hotel at 9:00.  That took me to the Terminal Oriente (Eastern Terminal) in San Salvador.  There, I immediately transferred to a Bus 301 which left within 15 minutes and dropped me off 1 3/4 hours later at Villa El Triumfo.  A connecting bus for Santiago de Maria was waiting there, and I really had to squeeze to get myself and my bag into it.  Finally, I got a bus for Alegria about a block from where the previous bus ended.  I was in Alegria about 12:30.

Alegria (pronounced ah-leh-GRHEE-uh)is a delightful town in the mountains.  I had planned to stay here for two nights.  I wanted to walk out to the lake in the extinct volcano, to take a bus to the nearby town of Berlin, and just relax.  But that plan was based on my staying at the Entre Piedras Hotel.  When I arrived, it was locked up.  The locals called the owner who drove by to tell me that he was off to San Salvador for a week of vacation.  A friendly policeman then brought me to Casa Huespedes la Palma.  They had a room for me, but it is a hostel and not a place where I would want to stay two nights.  The room is small and dark, the bed is worn, and the bath is barely satisfactory.  Therefore, I will stay only one night and find another town in my travels where I will add an extra night.

I wandered through and around the town.  I read for a while in the park.  All that time, it seemed as if rain was threatening.  When it didn't come, I decided to walk the 2 1/2 km (1.5 miles) to a lake that is in the crater of an extinct volcano.  Sure enough, after just 1 km (0.6 mi), it started sprinkling hard.  I had to turn around and return to town.  When I got back to my hotel, the rain began.

This is the second time in 3 days there has been daytime rain.  Before, it has always been at night time.  I hope we are not passing into the wet season where it will rain almost every day.  That's not supposed to occur until the end of my trip.

I had too much to eat for dinner.  It was the largest plate of food I've been served since I started traveling.  It had a huge piece of steak that had been charcoal broiled, rice, and 4 salads--cucumber-lettuce, potato, tomato-cilantro, and marinated vegetables.  It also came with two thick corn tortillas.

This afternoon, I finished reading When We Were Orphans by Kazou Ishiguro.  It was such a disappointment.  The first 2/3 of it was great and had me thinking it would be a good story for Masterpiece Theater.  Then things happened that just didn't make sense.  This was supposed to be a famous detective, yet he waited years and years to try to find his parents who had disappeared.  When he finally went searching for them, he expected to find them alive and still being held by kidnappers after all those years.  What is most sad about this book is that it was a finalist for the Booker Prize.  The judges were either paying attention to his reputation rather than this particular book or reading only the first part of the book rather than the whole thing, or there were only poorly written books within the entire British Commonwealth that year.  I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 4.