Thunderstorms and a hunt for Salvadorean cash

Today´s update comes from the small El Salvadorean town of La Palma. Those of you who carefully memorised my travel plans the fiftieth time I told you about them will remember that El Salvador was never on the itinerary - but after the emergency landing in the plane, I´ve now here for the second time in a week.

The reason for the change of plans was basically the Guatemalan weather. For the three days we were in Antigua the weather followed a very predictable pattern. Sunny in the morning, getting cloudy in by around 10 or 11, and developing into a thunderstorm at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

On top of that, Guatemala seemed to be full of towns that were interesting to walk around, for their 'mix of Maya and colonial Spanish cultures' or other such reasons, but didn't really offer that much to actually do.

So we changed the plans a little bit, and started by heading to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

There can sometimes be, I think, a bit of an art form to reading a lonely planet guide. The LP very rarely comes out and says a place is not worth visiting or best avoided. But if you read carefully, you can usually figure out whether a place will actually be worth visiting or not. It is fair to say that on this occasion, we failed to read the LP to that level of detail.

In fact, it wasn´t until we were on the bus to San Salvador, that I noticed that, according to the guide book, one of the primary attractions of San Salvador is that the high murder rate (pretty much the highest in the world, actually) comes mainly from the gang land suburbs, and if you avoid those, you probably won't get murdered. A highlight indeed.

Getting a taxi from the bus terminal to our hotel, it was apparent that the residents of San Salvador are not entirely convinced that murders are confined to the gang suburbs. Either that or we were driving straight through gang land. I've never seen so much barbed wire - every house and shop is covered in the stuff. Adding to the feeling of a warzone are the police. Every couple of minutes you are passed by a ute with three or four policeman standing in formation, all facing outward, on the tray, in full camouflage gear and with machine guns slung around their necks. They also have on balaclavas. I guess in a city with 100 000 gang members, being a police man is best done anonymously.

Needless to say, after one night we headed straight for the bus terminal to move on. For obvious reasons, there aren't many tourists in El Salvador, and thus no tourist buses, so it was the public transport network for us. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in myself when I realised how much I wanted to avoid the normal public transport and get a nice air conditioned bus. Club med tourist.

Unfortunately, as we got to the bus stop Kate and I realised we were completely out of cash. Not fancying a walk around the city with back packs on, nor the idea of leaving Kate alone to watch the bags while I looked for an ATM, we had the Taxi driver who'd taken us to the bus stop turn around and drive us to an ATM. This is where the problems started.

We pulled up outside an HSBC, oddly located in what was really starting to look like one of the gang suburbs. Fortunately, ATMs in San Salvador are guarded by soldiers with AK47s. I wouldn't say that makes you feel safe, but it helps. Less fortunately, not many Salvadorean ATMs seem to accept foreign cards, and this one was no exception.

The next ATM also failed. At the third ATM, the bank said it took international transfers. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, and that is apparently the day that in Salvador, you pick up the money your cousin in the USA has sent home. Accordingly, there was a line around the block waiting for the bank. And of course more machine guns. Plus one guy who was carrying what looked to me like an anti tank gun or rocket launcher.

So off to the fourth ATM - which, to my great relief worked.

From there is was off to La Palma, in the North of El Salvador and towards the Honduran border. That is where we are now. Its a tiny town, and, though it is in the LP, is clearly not on the tourist trail. As far as I can see, we are the only tourists here. Western tourists that is. It seems this is a weekend retreat for middle class (though not wealthy) San Salvadoreans. Our hotel is full of them. They are generally very friendly and polite, as is everyone in Salvador, guns or no, so its really quite nice.

Tomorrow its over the border to Honduras, up to some Mayan ruins, and then on to the Caribbean coast, as the beachy part of the holiday begins. Apparently, there are whale sharks to be found.