We had a surprisingly comfortable night, the noise of trucks did not disturb us, and our $9 Wal-Mart fan kept the climate tolerable.

On the road by 7:00am we discovered that Salvadorian roads seems a little better than their Guatemalan counterparts, and that even the road side huts seemed in somewhat better repair.

Yesterdays news about the Honduran border is going to change our plans and today was the first evidence of the change. Since we have an indefinite time to spend in El Salvador we decided to go and visit a local national park. El Cerro Verde, an area with a couple of volcanos. It turned out that the park was at an elevation of about 6000 feet and as you might expect the altitude gave us a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the border.

The road to the park entrance wound its way up the side of the mountains, through jungle, with huge trees beside and overarching the road, and coffee plants beneath the larger trees.

On arrival in the parking lot we were welcomed by the contingent of police that are stationed there.

Nina and I hired a local guide and walked a couple of the trails, to look at an extensive display of orchids and a nature trail that had signs in English and Spanish explaining the impact of the volcanoes on the local plant and animal life. Interestingly the guides are mandatory, as they hold the keys that unlock the gates to the walking trails. Apparently had we decided to climb one of the volcanoes we would have needed both a guide and and armed policeman to accompany us.

After our walk we spent the day talking, in very limited Spanish, with a couple of teenage boys and a group of young adults who had come to see the park for the day. Nina showed them some of our photos, a DVD on Australia and generally chatted with lots of sign language.

About 5:00 pm everyone started leaving and we were pretty much alone in the car park for the night. Norm, Nina and I cooked dinner with the cloud misting around us.

By 7:30 we were in bed. We are finding the shorter twilight at these lower latitude something of a surprise.