After breakfast, we made reservations for the group at the Modelo and then went off to find an internet café and a bank. The bank was easy but all of the internet places were closed for some reason. We finally found one a few blocks from the hotel and did our due diligence.

We packed up and left the hotel around noon, heading for Zunil by the road over the flank of Cerro Quemado. It was steep but quite spectacular with excellent exposures of recent volcanism and tracks of Hurricane Stan landslides.

When we got to the highway we stopped to look at a large landslide that came down in January 1991 and killed 35 people. Stan was here then and investigated the slide the following day, publishing a paper about it. A hillside below a geothermal field gave way.

We continued south of Zunil and passed a washed out bridge and pulled into a roadside restaurant for lunch. Afterward, we found the road to Palmar Viejo. We walked out on a foot suspension bridge over a quebrada that had beautiful exposure of the 1902 Santa María eruption. The quebrada formed when a lahar from Santiaguito filled the former stream channel and caused the stream to incise a new channel. The town was abandoned as the stream eroded away the strata below some of the buildings so it was moved to what is now Palmar Nuevo.

We found the entrance gate to the Finca El Faro. The shotgun-toting guard kept Stan's license and gave us directions past the various fincas to the Santiaguito Volcano Observatory. Unfortunately, there were many forks in the road through the coffee plantations so we ended up never finding the observatory. We ended up directly below Santiaguito and felt like we were looking down the muzzle of a cannon.

The clouds were ominous and there was lots of thunder. We headed back down the steep cobblestone roads but got lost. Another shotgun-toting guard at one of the fincas gave us directions to get out.

We got back to the highway and went uphill to get to the detour around the destroyed bridge and continued on toward our hotel in Retaluleu. We entered the bustling town of Retaluleu but failed to find our hotel El Jardín where we had a reservation. A taxi driver gave us incorrect directions so we inquired at a gas station. They had never heard of it so I looked in the yellow pages and actually found it! It turns out it is in San Felipe in the Departamento de Retaluleu at Km 187 on the highway to Xela.

We drove back to the north and found it on the east side of the highway. It is a beautiful 3-year old establishment that has bungalows. Stan and I got a huge place with a kitchen, living room, a master bedroom and a bunkroom. I let him have the master bedroom.

We had dinner at their covered veranda restaurant. Our waitress, Rosario, was delightful. She said that Santiaguito and Santa María were clearly visible from the veranda. Since it was after dark, we would have to wait until morning. We went to our bungalow and talked for about an hour before turning in. Outside, thunder and lightning continued but produced little rain.