El Salvador

Trip Start Apr 07, 2006

Trip End Aug 18, 2006

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Flag of El Salvador San Salvador, El Salvador
Sunday, June 11, 2006

How quickly things change. Within hours of mapping out my route to Honduras I changed my mind about going there but to El Salvador instead. And no, it wasn't because of a girl. Basically when we arrived in Leon it resembled Venice, with the roads turned to canals by torrential rain. And it didn't really stop for the 3 days I was there. The rumour was the whole of CA was experiencing heavy rain, so it didn't make much sense to go to a Caribbean island when it was most likely raining. I checked the internet and the Bay Islands had 70% chance of rain for the next ten days, as well as whether I needed a visa for El Salvador (50% yes, 50% no). The logical thing would have been to book the 12 hour bus for $28 straight to San Salvador. But why do it the easy way when you can save $13 by doing the bus-bus-pedillo-border crossing-bus-border crossing-bus-bus-bus and save $13. Call me an idiot. So at 3:55AM the next morning Zack and I started out for El Salvador. I was slightly concerned when the local drunk came out the pub and helped us to the correct bus and then promptly got into the drivers seat and proceeded to drive us (safely and quickly) on our first leg. The only other worries were the border crossings. The Honduran official just shrugged her shoulders when she couldn't find South Africa on her list, and let me through. The El Salvadorian border was a bit more difficult. After 15 minutes of every official looking at my passport, I had about 5 officials pointing at me and waving their finger saying �No passar� and only one (the guy holding my passport) telling me to go through.

01_Crossing into Honduras on pedillo

I decided to listen to him and made pace across the border and into El Salvador....

El Salvador is a country I never even considered going to. Perhaps because the book says I need a visa, perhaps because Peter Moore bagged it particularly badly in The Full Montezuma. I cant remember. The first thing I noticed about El Salvador was how friendly and helpful everybody was. The bus conductors made sure we got all our connections and even helped us chase down a couple buses with our luggage. Not bad for a people who fought a bloody civil war that only ended in 1993.
After 11 hours (note 1 hour less than the expensive bus - with all our connections we waited a total of 5 minutes between buses) we arrived in San Salvador, the capital. 4 words: Latin America meets America. Dotted amongst the shambolic bus stations and ramshackled houses are massive shopping malls that would rival any first world shopping centre. Every block seems to have a Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Burger King etc. So for the next couple days I ate pizza, fresh muffins and bread in big shopping centres while watching the world cup.

I then headed up north for a day to Suchitoto with a Canadian girl (Zack departed to sell his surfboard at the beach - tearful goodbye) and loved it. Its my favourite town in CA so far. Great atmosphere, friendly people, lots of local art hanging up everywhere and beautiful surrounds. I spent the day wondering around marvelling at the art (REALLY wanted to buy a painted door but sense got the better of me) and a stroll down to the lake. That night Zack miraculously turned up (he sold his surfboard and hopped on the next bus) and tried to convince me to go to the Bay islands with him, but I decided to Guatemala. Tearful goodbye #2 the next morning.

Erin and I carried on to Lago de Coatepeque in the north of El Salvador the next day. Its a big lake in the middle of a volcanic crater, but wasn't as nice as Apoyo so I left for Guatemala this morning...............