san vicente

so, we got totally lost leaving san salvador, el salvador, and today we ended up on this tiney country road that circled this giant crater lake at the top of this extinct volcano. the road was awesome, and there was almost no traffic, but i think we were climbing forever. the last 4 kilometers were torture. it was super, super hot, we were hungry, and tired and the climb was just relentless. erik said we were going 3.5 miles per hour. we were hoping that once we got back up into the mountains it would be cool, like in guatemala, but it wasn't at all. the climb just totally zapped all of our energy. we ended up eating lunch at this place that was the el salvadorean equivalent of mac donalds, and i tried to eat a 1/2 burger, but it was way too much meat and i couldn't do it. this is a picture of erik at the end of the day in our hotel room.
and this is a picture of me from last night's hotel room. my mom wants more photos of me... i'm not totally sure how this happened (i'm going to blame it on crappy maps), but yesterday we accidentally got on the wrong freeway at the end of the day, while the sun was setting, and everyone we asked said there were no hotels for miles, and miles. we totally panicked and started biking really fast, and ended up at a "couples hotel". they had only one room available, and there was no running water. sometimes bike touring is awesome, and sometimes it's like desperate times, desperate measures. to flush the toilet, there was a garbage can full of water, and a bucket, and you just dumped water into the toilet bowl until it flushed. so we had all been using the toilet and not flushing, and peter goes into the bathroom, and we hear this scream, and he'd accidentally dropped his boxers in the toilet. he decided the best option was to rinse them out in the garbage can full of water, and hang them off of this protruding rebar coming off of the bathroom wall. then we got some pupusas to eat, and i drank a bunch of beer (i wasn't in a great mood due to being lost and the lack of running water). the pupusas were kinda messy, and i was a little drunk and washed my hands in the gargage can of water, and peter was like, "hey, you pretty much just washed your hands in my pee." not the best night. anyways, soon we'll be in honduras. it's cool flying through countries like this. hope everyone is good. love,
-jessie