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chicken with rice , black beans , and salad .
The market was covered with black plastic sheeting , but the weather held until we got back to our bikes . Suddenly the heavens opened . Like everyone else , we ran for cover and watched the torrential downpour from the safety of the nearest tienda . Waterfalls plunged over the edges of corrugated iron roofs and rivers ran down the street , tearing with them vegetable offal from the market . The shop owner curiously enquired about the laden bikes , and we chatted away until people began venturing into the street again .
A short ride took us to our hostel in Santa Ana . No sooner had we sat down for dinner and a drink in the pub next door , than one of the regulars popped over from the bar to introduce himself and welcome us to El Salvador .
“ Did we like the music of his country ?”, the bar was playing a
popular Mexican song that had followed us all around Central America , but he hummed a much livelier tune , boogying suggestively to its rhythm with a bright glint in his eye until we could just imagine the local fiesta around him .
My partner-in-crime Aidan wanted to see about getting his disintegrating boots fixed - he had been holding the soles on with zip ties for the past week . We dropped them off in a tiny shoe repair shop and wandered past a vegetable market into the colonial old town that had seen better days . There is no money for restoration here and the buildings are used as needed for daily life .
I spotted an old lady sitting on a ledge , reading a newspaper in a beautifully absorbed pose . Tempting as it was people here do not like being photographed by tourists and so I went to ask if I could take her picture . To my dismay she folded the paper away and rearranged her traditional red apron for a posed portrait . When I showed it to her , her surprise at my strange request gave way to a delighted smile .
Aidan ’ s boots were ready in the afternoon . The old man had skilfully stitched them back together . Now they were no longer waterproof , but at least Aidan would get a few more miles out of them .
As we were leaving town , a couple of workers pulled up next to us on their dilapidated 150cc machines . Their weathered faces and rough hands betrayed a lifetime of hard labour . They obviously did not have much but said to reach out if we needed a place to stay or anything at all and left us a sticker of their motorcycle club . Over the next couple of weeks , we would receive messages from them to see how things were going , renewing the offer of any help needed .
The road to the Santa Ana Volcano wound its way through green hills
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