We arranged a shuttle bus to take us to San Salvador ready for a flight to Miami the next day. We travelled in complete comfort with air conditioning and comfy seats via Guatemala and northern El Salvador. Even the border crossings and roads were painless.

We were short of dollars for Salvador so we took out lempira from the ATM in Honduras in the safe hope of seeing a money changer at the border. That failed so we decided that we had to ask the driver to stop at an ATM in San Salvador to avoid drawing out cash alone and at night in a very dodgy city.

The driver who was from San Salvador took us to a petrol station in San Salvador that had an ATM inside. However I couldn't get any money out. I am at a loss at how crap ATM's are here. They bother to ask you what language you want but when you select the language displayed it says that the language selected is not availiable (but in Spanish). Luckily by now I knew enough Spanish to figure out what to press. This does not protect you from the ATM repeatedly saying that you cancelled the transaction when you havn't. I am sure that these machines try and give you the run around whilst you are being filmed for a local version of candid camera.

We passed a few other ATM's before stopping at one that was open to the deserted main road. The driver pulled the mini bus up right outside the ATM so that I only needed to make two steps from the mini bus. I stepped out to the words "be careful" coming from the driver.

Thankfully this ATM worked a lot better but it still had it's niggles. It says select amount in multiples of X that you want to withdraw. You do exactly that, but it then refuses to give you the money. It indicates that you have entered an invalid amount and then repeats the message of valid multiples. What it should have said is that the machine has a dispensing limit that I exceeded. Indeed putting in a lower amount worked a treat. With no delay I dived back into the bus and we headed off.

With the added confidence of having money we were ready to tackle the other (possibly bad) assumption of room availability at the place I requested to be taken. I broached the subject by asking the driver if it was safe here. I wouldn't have bothered asking this ten minutes earlier but since then things didn't look too bad. Sure there was a couple of prostitues just outside where we were staying but there were also lots of people eating in fast food places. The driver clarified: at night, walking - there is no where safe in this city.

Casa del Sauce is a very unaposing place from the outside, just a simple wooden door and a sign above. There was no signs of life and even the door buzzer had two buttons with no indication of which one to press or whether it worked when you pressed it. Giving up on that I asked the driver to stay until I could figure out if everything was OK. Eventually knocking at the door resulted in a small old man peering cautiously round a slightly ajar door.

Luckily there was a room in fact it appeared that we were the only people there. From the outside it may have been nothing special but inside it looked like an artists home with unusual contempary architecture and fine art paintings and sculptures. We were led to possibly the largest bedroom I have ever stayed in and decorated with large stylish oil paintings.

I was keen to get the nuptials out of the way. Giving him what I thought was the right amount and asking for change ended with a lot of Spanish I did not understand. After a long game of sharades it transpired that he did not have change. I relunctantly suggested going across the road to a garage, whilst jokingly making a gun out of my hand and putting it to my head. I went out with the owner keeping watch at the door. Needless to say I made it back alive - it cannot be that bad can it?

Liz by this time had settled into a film on cable TV and with bread, salad cream, beer and crisps from the garage we didn't need to go out again.