So we jump in a shuttle bus at 6am and wave "Adios" to Antigua and head for our next boarder crossing into El Salvador!

We meet an awesome Australian couple on the bus that put our travel journey to shame, they have been travelling for 20 months and trekked the world! I am pleased to be reassured that getting "used" to hostels and horrible showers takes time but in the end you love it... We will see!

This was another interesting boarder crossing, the teachers were on strike and that means they get to hold their march of protest at the boarder crossing which closes it to tourists!! Our smart thinking, fast talking shuttle driver makes us all pile and "rapido, rapido" walk across through the protest to the El Salvador immigration. We wave goodbye to our shuttle and and our backpacks and hope for the best. We are told the wait for our driver could be up to 3 hours, but within 10 minutes him and our van, and more important our packs are just behind us! I have a feeling Mr Shuttle Man has encountered this once or twice before, or is married to a teacher - whatever the case, we crossed and continued for another hour or so to our destination of El Tunco, El Salvador.

El Tunco is a hugely popular surf break and we found ourselves surrounded by a huge amount of American surfer boys - this was ok, I dealt with it... The beach however was off limits for Matt and I as the break was HUGE and everyone we met was shocked that we were Aussies who couldn't surf, we opted instead for a pool with a view!

In short neither of us really loved El Tunco or El Salvador for the brief time we were there. It was ridiculously over priced compared to Guatemala, the service was terrible, the hostel was pricey and horrible so we moved to a hotel which was even more costly but at least I didn't have to share my bed with scorpions, and after a couple of days we decided it wasn't worth the trouble so jumped on a bus to the next country, Nicaragua!

The bus ride was evil - from start to finish it was a bloody nightmare! However, as the great Buddah points out from every nightmare there is silver lining and our silver lining was our new group of mates.

Two Aussies brothers from Melbourne - the Fergo brothers, a lovely chico from California - Kate, and a Kiwi bloke - Rana (we just call him Kiwi), and two gorgeous girls from Argentina - Luci and Paula.

We spent the last few days together, hiking, swimming, partying and causing a bit of havoc - especially us Aussies!

We all decided to do a full day tour and took off piled in the back of Troop Carrier at 6am to hike a volcano. We arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed until we saw the monster and then all wondered what we were in for.

The volcano we hiked is still active and the last show she put on for the Leon locals was as recent as 2009!! The sulphur still smokes and it was pretty hot to touch and a moderatly difficult climb - I was b*****ed by the top!!

The crew did volcano boarding down the steepest point (like sand boarding on gravel) and Matt and I piked - once I heared you could get up to 80kms per hour I just couldn't deal with the gravel burn that could have happened! Turned out only pro's go 80kms and we were spewing as the others were lucky to hit 40kms per hour and it looked like fun!!

We then trekked off to a fresh water lagoon that was created by a volcano and you now swim in the dormant crater left behind! It was stunning, and the water was just like a bath - then it was lunch, a tour of the old city, and back to the hostel.

Matt and I finished up our day with a back massage from a clinically blind Leon local at a place that donates all the money to the center for the blind. The fact the massuse can not see you means that he uses only his sense of touch to work on your body and the experience was pretty awesome - he quickly found the sore spots!!

This leads me to right now as I write this blog entry - sitting in the Bigfoot Hostel cafe typing, chatting to the other backpackers, laughing at the volcano boarding "heroics" of some other dudes, and just realxing as we plan a massive night out to say goodbye to Leon tonight!

Tomorrow our little crew continues our journey together and we head to Granada for more shenanigans!

Looks likely that we will sail the San Blas Islands from Panama to Colombia in the next few days with the Aussies brothers - this could be a very funny week, so much fun to be had!!

And for those of you who sent messages about my Mum thank you so much, she is on the mend and has been out of hospital for a few days now. We got to Skype and it was amazingly reassuring to see her face for myself - Matt was proud as there were no tears when I said "see ya" and I made her promise no more hospital while we are away!!

Peace xxx