So while it's barely 80 degrees here yesterday, the humidity was at 74%. Yeah, it was pretty brutal. I, unfortunately, do not have a ton to report because San Salvador is really the first place that has underwhelmed us. We've certainly had a good time yesterday but there isn't as much to do as we had hoped and the gloomy skies mixed with the mind-numbing humidity made us want to take a nap more than we care to admit (however, please refer to my previous post on what I have to say to people who are going to be pudgy about how I send MY vacation!).
So, how did we spend our sweaty day in San Salvador? Besides sweating, of course.
It started with a walk down the street for breakfast. We'd spotted a cute cafe the night before and thought we should try it but then it was closed. I really have no idea why a breakfast place wouldn't be open for breakfast but no one asked me. So we went to Denny's instead and I got the cinnamon roll pancakes which were insanely delicious.
We were going to be adventurous and take public transportation to the city's central park but after a half hour wait at what we thought was the bus stop, we gave up and took a taxi cab. The highlight of the ride was that our driver, who spoke no English, blasted Christian rock the entire time. Now to be fair, if listening to Pitbull and Shakira could really teach a person Spanish then I should be fluent but it's still strange to me that you're blaring Jesus music without a clue what it means. Do you like Jesus? Are you Christian? Are you pretending that you don't speak English so you can laugh at us as we sit in the back of your cab and express or confusion over your taste in music? I really have no clue...
Anyways, rant aside, we got dropped off at the Palacio Nacional which was like the Palacio Nacional we visited in Guatemala City in some ways and different in others. Guate City gets the points for style here. It really wasn't a competition because there was not a lot happening here. BUT San Salvador gets points for us being able to understand the tour... because there was no tour. It was self guided, which in our case means bumping into walls for 20 minutes without a clue what we're looking at or if we're even allowed to be wherever we are. There were no maps to help anyone out -- in English or in Spanish -- and by the time we found information to read, we were sweating to heavily into our own eyes to see it. So we took several VERY unattractive, sweaty selfies and left.
We walked into a church across the street but left when we couldn't tell if a woman was trying to tell us to cover up or asking for a cover charge. (She kept pulling at her shirt and holding her hand out. We also thought she might have been telling us to be quiet but she was louder than both of us combined so this will just have to remain a mystery -- our list colony of Roanoke if you will -- because now we shall never know).
Since that church was a bust, we visited Iglesia El Rosario. This was another church but it was one of a kind. From the outside, we couldn't believe that this was the place that we were looking for; it was an awkwardly shaped junket building in the middle of a crappy square but inside was magic. The whole church is shaped like an arch (I told you that it looked weird outside) because on the inside, the rows of stained glass make it look like a rainbow! I can't begin to describe how cool it was and it was definitely the saving grace of our trip downtown. We took some slightly more attractive but equally sweaty selflies here before taking a cab back towards our hostel.
Except that we weren't going back to the hostel. Our hope was to visit the museum of anthropology and we got dropped there easily enough but when we went in, things were weird. We went over to the desk to buy tickets but no one was there to help us. We were, however, surrounded by cater waiters, security people and lots of men in fancy military uniforms, so there was some sort of shindig happening and we were not invited. The museum wasn't closed per say but we also weren't getting in.
We decided that we would head in the direction of our next intended visit but made a pit stop at Wendy's for dinner frosties. It was hot and we were sweaty so we got mediums but these were like super jumbo frosties! I swear they don't make them this large in the States. Their medium was like you'd just pissed off the ice cream equivalent of Bruce Banner and he was Hulking out. And I, of course, managed to finish the whole thing.
After that, I forced my dairy-filled stomach through the heat/humidity of the day up a giant hill to the Museum of Art. We were helped in the museum by our usual dry wit and sense of humor AND the fact that I introduced Whitney to Google Translate because it has a function that allows you to take a picture of something and immediately translate it! (Although sometimes it does this badly) We were translating a lot of the names of pieces although we figured out that a lot of them were "untitled" rather quickly. Why? I don't know but it became a great bit for our sister stand up routine.
After that, we returned to our hostel where Whitney kicked my butt at foosball (apparently our dad gave her lessons so she could make friends in college. This explains so much). The score was 10-0...
We went out to dinner and basically picked the first place we saw that wasn't an American chain. We have no clue what it was called but it was fantastic! I got surf and turf (SUPER cheap) and Whitney got some crazy soup that basically included the entire cast of The Little Mermaid, singing crab and all (actually I did all of the singing but the soup did have a whole crab that I unceremoniously tore apart for Whitney to eat). After dinner, we found ourselves very thirsty and at the bar across the street where Whitney taught me how to take a tequila shot (for the record, I still prefer my tequila to be blended with ice and juice and handed to me in some type of decorative glass).
And that was our day in San Salvador. I'm writing to you now from the next stop on our trip, El Tunco and to say that it is the opposite of San Salvador is an understatement. Stay tuned for my next post where I will try to state all of it and more!
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