Alegria. In Name Only...

One more stop in El Salvador... Alegria is a pretty little village perched on top of a mountain with a great vista on the valley below. All the streets are VERY hilly, San Francisco style. There can't be more than a few hundred inhabitants and I'm the only tourist in town.

View from the main square.

Commemorating local bigwig...

View on the valley. I had a chat with this old boy and he just started talking for about 20 minutes straight... Didn't really matter whether I was really listening or indeed understood...

If you ask me the face below does not say Bienvenidos... In fact, the people here are not exactly big smilers and don't seem that open to outsiders. Maybe a result of being a somewhat isolated mountain village. For example, you can't walk into most of the shops. Instead they have a metal bar door and you give your order from the outside to a, mostly, unsmiling old woman.

Yes, it's that hot...

So hot that I decided to take a hike to a local laguna in an old volcano crater.

Another ''unwelcome'' anecdote on the way... I met a group of local teenagers on a school trip on their way back from the laguna. As I passed them, one of the boys shouted out What are you doing here. My quick answer was The same thing as you! While he′s just a teenage kid showing off in front of his friends, I cant this is exactly a welcoming part of the world. Nicaragua here I come!

A few more pictures HERE.