One week in...

We are now just over a week into the trip and are settled in El Salvador, staying with friends. We have acclimatised to El Salvador and got used to the crazy driving, the poorer areas and the street dogs and are now looking for a place to stay. El Salvador is not really geared for tourists and as a result hostels are hard to come by and hotels are few and far between but pretty expensive.

The first day we visited El Zonte it was a bit of a culture shock, the houses are pretty run down and the village is quite poor with none of the pretensions that us tourists are used to seeing. Combine this with the welcome from the guide book saying that El Salvador is not the safest place to be and you can see why we were reluctant to stay anywhere other than behind the safely guarded doors of our friends house. But a few days later and we realise that the El Salvadorian people are (so far) a very friendly bunch of people who don't want to kill us or steal our things and are really welcoming. And so our second trip to El Zonte felt much better, we visited a hostel there and it was really nice, currently the rooms are all taken but I think we will rent one when it comes free. The hostel is right on the beach and has hammocks and palm trees, just what you'd expect really. Sam and Will can surf and I can read in the sunshine.

Today Sam caught his first wave on his new board, hopefully the first of many and Will played in the sea with him for a couple of hours whilst me and James drank fresh passion fruit juice with a view of the sea.

Sam was due to speak with his Dad today, unfortunately the signal wasn't very good and they got cut off which upset Sam a bit. If we could just get over this hurdle I think everything will be fine but it's hard to see him sad and to know that it must be just as hard for his Dad. Still I guess these weeks will be the hardest and in just 10 days he has learned some Spanish, drunk from a coconut, surfed, eaten cevice in an El Salvadorian cafe and seen countless plastic boobs in Miami... so hopefully it will all be worth it in the end!

El Salvador

We decided to head down to El Salvador to see our friends and looked into ways to travel there from Antigua. There were a couple of options including the Chicken Bus (a reconditioned school bus from the USA which all the locals use to get around), these can be seen throughout Central America and are called Chicken buses because it's not unusual to see people with chickens getting on! I'm not quite brave enough yet to take the chicken bus, apparently people squeeze on and the Guatemalan people are quite small but I think Will and Sam and the surfboards may take up a bit too much space.

The next option was the mini bus - a guy in the square was selling tickets onto this and invited us into his little office to try and sell it to us. I wasn't sure about this - the good thing was that it went to San Salvador directly from Antigua and they didn't charge extra for the surf boards. The bad thing was that we had no idea who would be driving us, if the guy was ligit and where we might end up!

The final option was the Pullman bus, large and air conditioned this sounded like the best plan - the only problem was that we had to take a bus to Guatemala City first and then take the Pull man to San Salvador making a 5 hour journey more like 6 or 7!

So we opted for the mini bus!!

We woke up this morning at 7 and the bus was due to pick us up at 8 . By 8.00 we were waiting by the door with no sign of the bus, by 9.00 Will was pacing and we had asked the travel agent around the corner to call the company and find out where the bus was. At 9:15, the cleaning lady came to the hostel and asked what we were waiting for, we explained that the bus should have picked us up at 8:00 and it was now 9:10...'No', she said, 'it's only 8:10!'. Turns out we hadn't set the alarm properly and were an hour ahead. So shortly afterwards the mini bus arrived and we jumped on along with 2 Americans and 2 Australians and an Italian.

Driving to El Salvador was a bit nerve racking at first, mainly because the guide books tell you it's a bit dangerous, but the people were really nice and crossing the border was really easy. We soon realised that the bus would drop you wherever you wanted so we called our friends and said not to drive all the way to San Salvador and asked them to speak with the driver to arrange a pick up point. We ended up being dropped at a Texaco garage not far from the border with news that our friends were on their way but would be 25 mins... but if we sat in the garage with all our bags we would be quite secure because the garages have armed security!! Anyway 20 mins later in pulled James and Lycenia and we are now sat in their house watching Ice Age, playing cards and this evening we will have a BBQ as it's James's birthday.

Apart from this all else is fine, Sam can't wait to surf and Will is covered in mosquito bites... 3 countries in 6 days not bad goinng but I think we'll settle here for a few weeks now. James knows a guy with a property right on El Zonte beach so we'll take a look at it tomorrow. More updates later.

Guatemala

So we flew from Fort Lauderdale and here we are in Antigua Guatemala. A beautiful place full of the friendliest people you could imagine. We are currently sat with an American called Matt in a lovely hostel with a massive, friendly dog. We have played table tennis, poo head and Sam is about to play chess with Matt.

Mentally we are slightly jet lagged but really enjoying Guatemala. The room is pretty small but comfy, the only problem is that you can't flush toilet paper down the loo and have to put it in the bin...Sam forgot and stuck his hand down the loo earlier to fish out the paper... bleugh!!

He is speaking Spanish to the locals and can order a table for 3 and ask where the toilet is. This morning we walked up the side of a jungle type hill to a big cross (mirador del cruz) and had a wicked view of the volcano which towers over Antigua and the city itself (pictures to follow).

We think next stop El Salvador - possibly on Thursday.

Oh and one last thing - the woman in the hostel thought Will was my son!! I mean I know I look a bit stressed after all the flying and jetlag but surely not THAT old!

I'm in Miami girl....

We set off on Fri morning for the airport and flew through customs and onto a 10 hour flight to Miami. Apprehensive and excited we disembarked and made our way through US customs expecting interrogations and stress, but flew through and Sam thought it was very cool that we had our fingerprints and pictures taken.

We managed to get the surfboards into a taxi with ease and drove to the hotel in about 45 minutes. The hotel is brilliant and I would highly recommend it to any traveller on a budget. The rooms are nice and clean, the staff helpful and friendly and the location is perfect. 2 minutes to the beach (if that) and 2 minutes to restaurants, shops etc.

Miami itself is a nice way to ease into the trip, it's laid back, hot and Sam thinks it's uber cool because there are a billion Lamborghini's and Hummers, as well as break dancers and women with fake boobs!!

Tomorrow we fly to Guatemala - don't know what to expect from Central America, I think an open mind is the best way forward but so far so good.

Countdown

8 days to go and we are swinging between emotions, excitement mixed with fear mixed with sadness. I am amazed by how well Sam is able to cope with the stress of leaving friends and family and how he is able to completely trust us as we take him out of his comfort zone and launch him into the big wild world!

At first I was worried about this swinging between emotions and wondered if we were doing the right thing but I realise that this is just another step towards the journey, learning that the difficult things in life can be overcome and that we grow the most through these experiences. These lessons were the very reason i wanted to take Sam on the trip and I truly hope it will be a great experience for him.

The other day Sam looked a bit down and I asked him what the problem was, 'I just wish everyone would stop asking me about the bloody trip' he said. Of course everyone can see what a great opportunity for him it is, his friends can't believe he has a year off school to travel the world and most adults can see how much he will learn from this year away, so of course everyone asks him about it... but for Sam it's a reality and the reality is that it's scary and exciting and sad and all these emotions rolled into one can be overwhelming for a 34 year old, let alone a 12 year old.

And so we head towards departure, me questioning the wisdom of the whole thing and afraid that Sam will burst into tears any moment, Sam reassuring me that he's not about to burst into tears and could he just get back to watching his programme and Will digging himself out of a pile of work... Hopefully the next update will be from the comfort of a hammock on a sunny beach!