Leon and El Salvador

Have now made it to Guatemala. After partying it up in Granada for a few days, I decided to start heading towards Guatemala. Ended up going to Leon, and stayed at a hostel called Big Foot. Was a cool town.......it is considered to be more liberal than the colonial Granada (the university is there). As I had said before though, I was pretty exhausted from Granada, so I actually packed it in early both nights that I was there. Made it to the beach one day, but didn't get to do any surfing. Still trying to find a decent guitar to buy, but haven't had any luck. The ones here are all garbage, and they're still looking for over 100 bucks. Tried to buy one off a guy at the beach, but he wouldn't sell it to me. Next day, we caught the Tico bus to Honduras for $25. It is a little more $$$ because it is basically a luxury coach (like a Greyhound), instead of the standard school buses that I've gotten used to. The border crossing is still a little nerve wracking. They have a line up of heavily armed military dudes waiting for you. They clear everyone off, unload all the bags, and then line us up in front of the bags. After that, they go through each pack and question you. As soon as they see the Cdn flag though, they crack a little joke, and then send you through. We just ended up passing through Honduras, and then into El Salvador. Stayed at a hotel in San Salvador. It is very Americanized......they actually still used the US$ as their currency. It was pretty pricey there too. Had to pay $13 bucks each for the room. It had A/C and a TV though.....AND, most importantly, it had warm showers! I forgot how amazing they feel. I took one of my patented 25 minute showers (I don't care what any of you say.......us North Americans take these awesome warm showers for granted! Ha). The funniest part about San Salvador was the amount of armed guards everywhere. Even the Sushi shop next to our hotel had a guy standing outside with a shotgun. Literally every single store on our road had an armed guard. We actually also saw some crazy looking dude with a machine gun walk out into the middle of the road, because he was protecting the people that were pulling out of their driveway in a Benz. Made it to Guatemala the next day. Guatemala city was even more Americanized than most American cities......if that makes any sense. Just watched the soccer game there, and then jumped on a heavily overcrowded school bus to Antigua. They literally fit 3 to a seat, with people standing. It is quite the experience. Some of the buses actually still have the school rules listed (no standing up when the bus is moving). Made my next major translation/pronounciation error the other day. After coming out of the bar, I was starving and was looking for something to eat. I wanted to tell the cabbie that I was hungry (tengo hambre), but instead I pronounced it as 'tango hombre', which basically is like saying I wanted to tango with a man. These spanish folk are so damn picky with their pronounciations. The little French that I know is more of a hinderence than a help. I think the cabbie got the point though when I started making the gesture of eating my hand. Have been watching lots of world cup. Starting to really get into the games. Actually got nervous today watching the England/Portugal game, when it went to penalty kicks. Back is doing OK. Good days and bad. The beds here are pretty good, but once again, they are about 2 inches too short for me. On average, I crank my head here about 2 to 3 times a day. I think that I'm starting to get numb to it. Anyway, in Antigua now. Probably the coolest little town that I've been to since I got to Central America. Guatemala in general is good and cheap as well.....probably on par with Nicaragua. Will probably be hanging out here for a little while. Staying at the Black Cat hostel. Cool spot. I'll check in soon. Bye for now. Ryan