El Salvador and Semana Santa

So a lot has happened since my last post and i'll try to recap it all. Monday morning we got up around 8 to go to the surf shop where we would be taking a van to El Salvador. We decided to go and buy a camera we had been looking at before we left because mine broke and Billy lost his or it got stolen. We did something that we are now doing quite frequently now is saying that we are volunteers and lots of places have discounts. I got about a 60 or 70q discount on the camera. So we left Antigua and it was a much much smoother ride than any of the other times I have gone out of the city. It took about 2 hours to get to the border of El Salvador. There we just had to go to a window and get our passports stamped and that was about all the border security there was. It took another 1.5-2 hours to get to El Zonte, the beach we were staying at. The hotel we were staying at was really nice and beautiful. I have some pictures that i'll post at the end. We stayed in a little bungalo type room that was really nice. The beach right near the hotel was for more experienced surfers so we walked about 5 minutes down the beach to start our lessons. The lessons were alright, but once we learned the basics the teachers basically would say go out and practice it. There were 3 teachers, Ga, who was the most helpful one, and to others who would really only say "dale dale dale!" (go go go) when it was a wave they thought we should go on. We only really went on the white wash the first day and didnt get much bigger the second and third day. It was a little disappointing because the waves we went on werent big enough to be able to ride across so we would really only be riding them in straight towards the beach. It was pretty hard but I kind of got the hang of it after a while. While we werent surfing we would hang out on the beach throwing the frisbee or chill in the pool at the hotel. The food was amazing and all in all we had a great time. We came back on Wedensday afternoon and I was tired and sunburnt so I had a relaxing night. The same for thursday as well, I was still tired and sunburnt so I relaxed a lot of the day but I did do something really fun and interesting. I went with my friend Billy and there was a procession near our houses so we walked around and looked at the alfombras. Then we saw some friends we had met earlier in Antigua and they were helping create an Alfombra and invited us to join. It was outside one of their host families houses. For people who dont know exactly how an Alfombra is made I can now tell you. First a frame is laid out on the street in varying sizes, the one we helped with was maybe 6 feet wide and 20 or 30 feet long. Then sand or plain sawdust is put down as a base for the color to go over. After that using a sort of siv, they evenly spread whatever the base color is going to be, usually there is a main color in the middle and another one as a border. Then they have wooden or cardboard designs that they carefully place on the base color that are filled with many different colors. They have boards that go over the alfombras so that the workers can reach the designs. I have lots of photos of this to that I will post at the end as well. All of this takes the whole morning and into the afternoon, and the end product is a beautifully designed carpet. Then when the procession comes they people walk over the Alfombras and the remenants are swept up when the procession has passed. I went to sleep early on Thursday night because Alicia, my host mother, had invited me and the other volunteers at my house to go out at 5 in the morning and see the alfombras before one of the main processions. It was very interesting, there were tons of people out that early in the morning and there were some incredible Alfombras. There were ones that had little detailed models of churches on them, huge ones 40 or 50 feet long made completely of fruits and vegetables, and really detailed ones with butterflies and birds. Everything is going great, my week of vacation and Semana Santa are coming close to an end. I don't have any plans for this weekend so we'll see what comes up. Here are the photos of:
El Salvador - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100574&id=516009306&l=d32e1548e9
Alfombras -http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100584&id=516009306&l=06e347d22f