SAN SALVADOR EL SALVADOR TEMPLE
The excitement of this temple trip started with the airfare to El Salvador: $58 nonstop from Washington Dulles on Frontier. How do you beat that? I found it back in February, booked it, then started learning about Copan.
Copan is one of the 10 most popular Mayan sites in Central America. If all goes well, I will be visiting it this Friday. I have a reservation to go to the San Salvador temple on Thursday at 5 PM. After that, I spend all day Friday on a tour driving four hours from San Salvador up to Copan in Honduras to visit this historic site. We then come back and I return on a nonstop flight back to Washington Dulles on Saturday afternoon.
Can you believe that? In 72 hours you can fly to Central America, visit a top Mayan historical site, attend one of the Lord’s temples, and still be back for church on Sunday. Is this an amazing age we live in or what?
Well, the “amazing” part of it may have come to a temporary halt. After booking a ticket for an all day excursion on Friday to Copan, the touring company canceled the trip and there isn’t another one replacing it without paying more than double what I first paid. So I’m not sure what I’ll be doing on Friday yet!
I was blessed in the meantime though. Last night I got a call from someone to buy the furniture that is in the back of our truck for $250. We picked this up from a home in Potomac on Tuesday morning. Instead of taking the metro out to Dulles, I just drove the truck and made $250 enroute! Sweet deal! The Lord blesses people who go to temples! Can you tell where the Junk guy’s truck is in this photo at the Dulles parking lot? Ha!
Right now I’m on the plane at Dulles getting ready for the 4 1/2 hour flight nonstop to San Salvador. I paid an extra $24 to sit in the exit row seat so I have plenty of legroom! San Salvador here we come!
The Uber ride from the airport to the hotel was only $2.78! I’m staying at the Hotel El Cantina, only about 2 miles from the airport. The rate is $60 a night! The reason it’s only $60 a night is cause I’m staying in a glorified closet, but I love it! The most important part of this room is the air conditioner in the upper left-hand corner. It’s 90° here! Also say hi to my new friend Juan Carlos, who I met at the airport with his M-16!
After taking a nap for about an hour, I took another Uber ride into the city to the temple. What a spectacular place! The flowers are unbelievable! It’s also obvious from the traffic that I’m not in the nations capital anymore!
The temple is spectacular! We had five of us in the endowment session: three women and two men. They offered me the translation headset for English, but I turned them down and went with the Spanish version to work on my Spanish. I was glad I did!
I met a temple worker from Toronto. He and his wife were on a six month mission here. I told him my planned tour to Copan in Honduras got canceled and asked for some substitute Mayan ruins to go visit locally. He gave me some, but even they are a full day excursion and they were sold out by the time I checked on them.
So today, I’ve made it a day of rest, just sleeping in my hotel room and blowing my nose!
I made a good choice by booking my stay at the Hotel la Estancia. It’s only 2 miles from the airport and about 24 miles from San Salvador and the temple. Last night for dinner I had the club sandwich, a Fanta orange, and some fried cheese sticks. There are three dogs roaming around the hotel grounds and they basically come to the open restaurant and hope to get food from the tables. One of them growled at me and showed his teeth when he first came up, and I just blew him off.
They have some classic old cars here at the hotel, which are on display. Very cool! The hotel cost is only $60 a night compared to $200 a night for some of them mainstay hotels in downtown San Salvador. I’m really glad I stayed here! The air conditioning system is simple and works. Well, the shower is amazing and that it’s big and has forceful flow of water which is great if you have a stuffed up sinus condition like me. The sink is a converted antique sewing machine for the base, a large to handled pot for the sink, and a simple pipe sticking out of the wall for the faucet. Quite amazing! 
This has been a fabulous trip with the exception of not being able to make it to the ruins at Copan. But will try it again in some other way. What a fascinating 72 hours of my life!