We met our guide (Jorge and his assistant Carlos) at 7am along with our friends on Moody Blues. We would be in for a 2 day adventure that would take us through 3 different countries. The goal for the day was to hike a volcano near El Salvador's capitol - San Salvador. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating and we bypassed the hike and drove directly to an archeological site that is called Joya de Ceren. Dubbed the 'Pompeii of the Americas' as it is a 1400 year old village that is preserved under 3-6 meters of ash thanks to volcano Laguna Caldera erupting in 600AD and preserving this Mayan village. It is the only excavated village of its kind as it allows archeologists an opportunity to observe what the daily life of the Mayans was like (the volcano blew and everyone dropped what they were doing to flee to safety). The first structure found was in 1976 when a construction bulldozer doing work in the area accidently stumbled upon these now famous ruins. Since 1976 there have been 18 structures fully excavated and preserved with 1000s of other mounds in the area identified as potential Mayan structures. The structures we viewed included adobe houses, a steam bath and a shaman's home (shaman�s home is what you see in the picture).

Jorge then pointed the van north and we headed out of El Salvador (which is about the size of the state of Massachusetts) towards Honduras. The hours spent on the road were filled with historical stories and facts about the country we were in by Jorge. He has a passion for history and his home country of El Salvador. He explained to us that over 80% of El Salvadoreans have family that live in the US - something we were surprised to learn. Despite the rather turbulent years from 1980-1992 El Salvador today appears to be heading in the right direction.

We stayed our first night in a town called Copan Ruinas (population 6,000), Honduras. Copan Ruinas is a small tourist friendly town full of color and tradition. It would have been easy to spend more than just one night there exploring the area and what it had to offer. Our hotel was $15US/night and was clean, surrounded by a beautiful garden and even had such amenities as hot water and a TV!