Day 1 in San Salvador

I'm being rather optimistic in my post naming here because at the moment, it's more like three hours in San Salvador.

I am currently in bed because somehow spending 12 hours on a bus can be exhausting. How counterintuitive but as I'm sure I'll write in my best selling autobiography some day, traveling and relaxing can be tiring. You don't realize how you're on sensory overload 24/7, but everything around you in brand new! Sounds, sights, smells, even the language on this trip! So we're simply hanging out now (and to anyone who thinks we should be out doing and seeing more, I say "go buy your own plane ticket because this is my trip and I do what I want!").

So we got here, dropped off our stuff, hit send on my last blog post and went out for dinner. Now, even though we're taking it easy doesn't mean we went the easy route for dinner. Oh no, we walked one whole block past the Wendy's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Denny's (the easy American options) to the authentic pupusa restaurant to get some legit deliciousness. Now, what is pupusa? Whitney, who had never had it before today, describes it as a Mexican Hot Pocket and I guess she isn't wrong because pupusa is a thick corn tortilla that is filled with cheese and other stuff! I first discovered pupusa on a trip to LA and then I rediscovered it in Washington DC and then again at Whole Foods (microwavable Salvadoran food... what a time to be alive). When I first had it, I wrote something along the lines of "if I ever go to El Salvador, I know I'll be able to eat something there!" (This was back when I was a pickier eater. Before I ate pig's tail if you will). Little did I know that I would be here just a year later! And I was right. I have something to eat here!

We split four different pupusa, which was a lot because for something rather small, pupusa fills you up like you're emptying the contents of a cement mixer into your stomach. Four bites is probably a more realistic portion size! But the whole thing cost less than $4 which kind of blew my mind (and I mean $4USD because the USD is the currency here, although they use a lot more dollar coins than we do. Like a lot, I've seen more of Sacajawea and James Madison in my wallet today than I have since my parents gave me five $1 coins that I don't think I ever spent because seriously, who takes them?). We got plain cheese, chicken, beans and "ayote." We did not know what ayote was and we basically got it because Whitney said it while she as looking at the menu and they wrote it down. Google says that it is squash.

We dug in when the stuff arrived at our table. Actually we didn't at first because it was super hot and we had to awkwardly cut them all to make sure we each had half of each sample AND THEN we dug in. Words cannot describe how much better this was than whatever nonsense we ate for lunch. I'm not even going to count lunch as pupusa because it is not worthy -- garbage tortilla sack is a far more appropriate moniker. Even though it was good, we probably only ate the equivalent of one full pupusa a piece. The plain cheese received the highest score while the beans failed to impress.

We stopped at a drug store on our way back for our usual water run (buying a large jug is so much cheaper and environmentally friendly than buying smaller bottles every day) and returned to the hostel. Whitney curled up in bed while I started coming up with plans for tomorrow. Arriving so late today sort of screwed us out of some things that might have been cool to see but we still plotted out an exciting day for ourselves. I tried to watch a bit of TV on the tablet and when that didn't work (the vacation gods think that unReal can wait apparently), I started typing away on my phone to bring you all this incredible post of food-related brilliance. It's like my regular brilliance only better because I'm talking about eating!! I think that's it for now since I don't think you're interested in a lengthy description of the 7-Up that Whitney and I split or the water I'm drinking now. If you are, comment below and I'll laugh at the weirdness of your request and undoubtedly ignore it!