Greetings from Usulutan

Well I´m in Usulutan El Salvador. A nice little city. I got here yesterday and decided to spend an extra day here today. Mostly to wash clothes, work on the bike and let things dry out. Yesterday was a number of firsts for me. It was the first time I´ve been rained on this trip. It lasted about an hour and then I was able to ride through to the other side where the sun was shining. It was also the first time I had to run off to the side of the road with toilet paper to take care of business. coincidentally right about the time the rain started. Ya know I do like the Salvadorans overall but I´ve had some individual experiences that have just set my teeth on edge. For instance yesterday as I was about to get started for the day I stopped at a store to buy some bottled water. I carry a small machete in a pack behind my seat. There was a couple across the street and the woman asks in english please mister just one dollar, I´m getting sort of sick of that, the fact that people see me as the gringo bank, and I ignored them, well when I came out they had stolen my machete. At least they didn´t get the camera. And then later on there is a guy on a motorcycle on the side of the road waiting for a clearing to cross the road playing chicken with me. Then another occasion a kid is approaching me in the shoulder lane and starts moving his front wheel back and forth like he is trying to take up the entire lane and run me off the road. I´ve never encountered this type of behavior anywhere else. Well so much for that, moving right along as I seldom do (d.damron) next stop is La Union El Salvador which is a port town. I understand it is possible to get a boat from there to Nicaragua for aobut $20.00 so I´m going to look into that because that would save me about 1 days riding. I´m a little nervous about Nicaragua as one person on my touring list was robbed there about a year ago. Apparently it is only a certain part of the country so before I leave that part I will check with the police and see if it is still a problem. Or perhaps just take a bus through it as it is only about 30 km from the Costa Rican border. Right now my feeling is that all the towns I´ve gone through are almost exactly like Mexican towns. And although the area is lush and green instead of desert they all look the same, for the most part the people look the same the buildings are built the same lately I´ve had the idea of just saying the hell with it and just flying to Ecuador and going to the equator and then going to Peru for Machu Pichu and then moving on. Of course that would throw me off seasonally because the next stop is supposed to be New Zealand. I know enough about New Zealand that right now as we are going into summer they are going into winter and I also know that they ski there but is that just on south island and is North Island close enough to the equator to be temperate this time of year or not? This will require some research. But at any rate that is how I feel right now tomorrow may be different. All for now.
hasta la vista baby