Waiting for the Bus

Pupusas to start the day

I really wanted to spend a night on the El Salvador coast, we rose early and departed from Raul’s house, he was a very informational host, we enjoyed having a place to stay with someone who was very knowledgeable about El Salvador. After catching a couple busses and fight to get on a bus with our giant bags we made it to the town of La Libertad. The connecting bus was not showing up so we headed west to El Tunco, along the coast. El Tunco is home to one of the most popular hot spots in El Salvador for surfing and is world renowned for its waves, we didn’t know this until we showed up.  Eventually the bus showed it’s carnival painted face, it was a fight to establish ourselves on the bus, eventually two seats showed up with the rotation of people. The bus caddy had us get off in El Tunco, we then walked some more and finally came to the driveway of our hostel. It was simple with just the necessities but it did have hammocks and the beach was a five minute walk. It was nice to play in the waves and get sandy.

Hammok hour

We have always tried to keep a couple meals on hand in our packs, and this time it came in handy to cook up some ramen and hit the hay. Our trip to the coast only took us two hours so we spent the morning slowly departing and cruised down the beach to find something to eat. I decided to go for the lobster, thinking it was fresh and would be like the lobster at home. To my dismay it wasn’t tasty, just had a yuck taste, I can only hope it won’t make me sick. We soon discovered the surf town that was hiding this whole time, I was a little bummed out we didn’t stay in one of the sweet little hostels there, I didn’t know that this town existed or I would have made the choice to stay in El Tunco.

Water in a bag

We ventured back to San Salvador and found the TicaBus station. It was in the shady part of town. After reliving our stomach of hunger with some papusas we quickly returned to the station. From what we have experienced, TicaBus stations always have a hotel conencted to them for convince. The hotel would be $12 per person, or we could just stay up in shifts until we met that 4:30am mark for our departure to Nicaragua. As we were deliberating the guy said he did have one with a single bed, Mateo went with him to see the room and I watched the bags. The station itself didn’t feel too creepy but we knew that staying in after dark would be a good idea. The room was number 412 and it was somewhat of a maze to get to, it felt much like a jail cell that was located on the roof.

Economy Suite Views

Literally on the roof, it did have a fan in the concrete room, and good ventilation. I slept well after I watch “how to train your dragon.” 4:30  came fast and then a knock on the door with a little voice saying Nicaragua, we reply with “Si” and pack up and head down our little rat maze to the lobby. The bus ride is long and tiering but comfortable. Mateo has really developed his skills of sleeping on the bus (probably why I have so much blogging done as well) no one to talk to and I’m not at skilled in bus sleeping.  Little to our knowledge the bus also stopped at the other nicer bus terminal, we would have stayed there over our little shady one if we would have known. Since we have traveled with TicaBus most of our border crossings have been so easy. Our bags have not even been searched yet. I would like to come back and visit Honduras, we have heard it is beautiful, we skipped through Honduras to save time. We will be back.