Erich's Photo and Travel

We woke up at 5am anticipating our first full day in Central America. We had a rather nice buffet breakfast consisting of fresh local fruit, eggs, pancakes, cheese, yogurt, juice and coffee. After breakfast, we met the rest of our group. A lot of the members of the group are seasoned OAT travelers and are celebrating their tenth trip or more with OAT. We are on our second trip. We were told that when we book our third trip with OAT we will be elite members of the “inter circle” of OAT. After our meet and greet, we were give ten minutes to grab our carry on bags and get on the bus for our panorama tour of El Salvador. We stopped at a few churches and a military base as well as obtained some insight to the civil war of late ‘70s. One of the churches, the Iglesia El Rosario was awesome to say the least. Very unique art work depicting the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The artwork was made our of cement and rebar. Unfortunately, it was a little too dark to reall...

We made it to El Salvador in one piece and basically on time. We had a slight delay leaving Dallas due to an airline personal change. I guess that they had to get the paperwork straightened out. Well, that was the story that they told us because about fifteen minutes later, three teenagers boarded the plane with bags of McDonalds food. Turns out that one of the kids lives in El Salvador. I found this out as we were waiting to get off the plane in El Salvador when she almost got hit in the head with a suitcase from the overhead compartment. We were talking and she mentioned that her mother is from the US and her father is from El Salvador. I said, “I guess that makes you muggle born” but she didn’t get it (or possibly hear me). I thought it was funny. That was the extent with of the conversation with my first local citizen. After departing the plane, we made it down to immigration and customs. We got through rather quickly. We had to pay a $10 entrance fee but we got a cool ...

I guess that we were a little anxious this morning. We set the alarm for 5am but we woke up at 4:30 and decided to get up. A few cups of coffee later and we were ready to leave. We took showers and double/triple checked the bags ensuring that we had everything we need. After placing the MacBooks in the backpack the true weight was realized. Due to the morning traffic, we took the toll road (E-470). We made it to the DIA in under 30 minutes but ended up in the wrong arrival lane (as opposed to departure) and drove around the airport aimlessly. Poor Travis. He has no idea how to get out of here. I gave him $3 for parking and sent him on his way. Within a half hour Travis posted that he has our house to himself while we are gone. You would think that he would wait until we were out of the country before he posted that. I quickly sent him a response to his post. We are at the departure gate waiting for our plane to land. The flight is on time and we (should) be boarding within ...

I took today off so I could mow the lawn, do some housework (Michelle has to work today) and run some last minute errands. I mowed the lawn. I did manage to leave the house to pick up a Papa Murphy’s pizza. Since it is our last home cooked meal (well. store bought but cooked in an oven in our home) I figured I would splurge. I didn’t know it was “Tasty Tuesdays” at Papa Murphy’s. Any size, any pizza for $10. I opted for the large size but was quickly talked into a Family size. I guess it will freeze well. Considering we will get home about 11pm on the return flight this may be the way to go.

Okay, I can almost taste it now (no, not the Taco Bell lunch doing a reverse osmosis up my throat). We will be landing in El Salvador 48 hours from now. We will be updating our blogs daily when possible as we will have a lot of down time riding in our luxury jungle cruisers going from place to place. When we arrive in Belize, don’t expect too many updates as we will be pursuing employment opportunities.   Adios for now!

Since our days are numbered with American junk food, we decided to go out to lunch at the best Mexican joint in town…..Taco Bell. One thing about Taco Bell, you know the food will always taste the same. No matter which location you go to, it is all the same. Same artwork, same smell, same pimple prone pip-squeak that takes your order. No wonder we frequent the establishment often. Actually, there are quite a few Mexican restaurants in the local area. Armadillo, Burrito Fabuloso (formally, Lolito’s Burritos) and the Colorado favorite, Santiago’s. Santiago’s serves up the best breakfast burrito….period. If anybody else can name a great place, please do. Oh, we have been to On the Border as well. We visited them in California a few times. Just finished watching Life of Pi. Good movie and there was a lot more to tit han the trailers let on. Another movie from India we really enjoyed was Slumdog Millionaire. Man that was a good movie. Nothing like what we ex...

Okay, this has nothing to do with our upcoming trip. I just think that I took one helluva panorama here. I rule!