El Salvador Trip

Route: NPH Rancho Santa Fe>Tegucigalpa, Honduras (night 1)>San Salvador, El Salvador (night 2)>La Libertad>El Trunco>La Libertad (night 3)>San Salvador>San Miguel>Jocoro (night 4)>Santa Rosa>El Salvador-Honduras border>San Miguel (night 5)>San Salvador>Santa Ana (night 6)>San Salvador>Tegucigalpa (night 7)>NPH Rancho Santa Fe

Once upon a time, two beautiful gringas decided to travel from Honduras to El Salvador…

Looking back, my trip to El Salvador was a great one and without a doubt the most educating of all of my travels thus far. We, Brooke and I, began our adventure with one night in Tegus in our usual hotel Granada. Nothing eventful occurred that night since we both committed the night to one bottle of wine, which we couldn’t even finish (Where did my tolerance go?), and unlimited TV watching. The next morning we took a very early bus out of Tegus that went directly to San Salvador. We were excited to see that there were not many passengers, allowing us our own pair of seats in which to lie down. Unfortunately, the bus ride was a bit turbulent (many winding roads at top speed) making it difficult to sleep. On the positive side, I got a great core workout just keeping my body in the chairs. Brooke actually fell asleep for a minute and was immediately thrown to the floor.

Surprisingly, we arrived in San Salvador safely. We questioned a very well fed woman (aka obese) if it was possible to walk to the center of the city and she told us that we were skinny enough to do it, so we walked the 5 min (!!!) to get to the center. We found our hotel and were told that we could take a bus to get to the very popular restaurant/bar area, Zona Rosa. About 3 blocks from where we boarded, we saw what looked like it should be Zona Rosa, but figured it couldn’t be that close if we were told to take the bus. Thirty minutes later and fully sweat soaked, we arrived back at the original stop having gotten the cheapest (20 cents) tour of the city of San Salvador. We went to one of the many roadside restaurants and refreshed ourselves with a bucket of beer. For dinner, we finally settled on “American” quesadillas (Does anyone else see the irony here?) because the waitress repeatedly told us that they did not have the ingredients to complete each menu item we attempted to order.

Brooke woke up the following morning with what seemed to be a bad case of pink eye. Because her eye was very swollen, I asked the hostel manager for ice. Without even questioning the reason, she handed me a very dirty plastic ice pack. (Don’t people usually ask for ice to put in their drink? Oh well, worked out in our favor.) After Brooke finally pried her eye open, we left the hostel to find medication and the bus to our next destination, La Libertad (the beach!)

When we arrived in La Libertad, we walked around the city looking for a place to stay. Of course we were attracted to the shady Hotel Surf. We thought we were getting a great deal when the owner told us we could have a room with air conditioning, private bathroom, 2 double beds, microwave and fridge for $15. Little did we know that the toilet didn’t flush because the handle was broken, the sink and shower didn’t work because the plumbing system couldn’t get the water up to the second floor and the foul smell was a result of the bathroom not being clean, which the owner promised she would clean while we were out (!?!?!) We took a walk down to the pier where the fisherman were selling raw fish and shrimp. This is where I had the best food of the trip. I paid $2 for a big bowl of fresh ceviche made on the pier! It was delicious. We met some guys from San Salvador in for the weekend to surf who told us that we should really be staying in El Trunco, which is the touristy beach town where all of the extranjeros go to surf. (We later learned that La Libertad is dangerous enough that the Peace Corps volunteers are prohibited from staying the night there.) We took a taxi to El Trunco and immediately fell in love with the small surf town. They even had a great coffee shop that had soy milk (unheard of!). We spent the rest of the evening drinking beers on the second level dock and watching the huge waves soak the dock below. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped into a small convenience store/home to buy one more beer. Inside, the family (mother, father and 2 small children) who owned the store were having a nice quiet dinner, which we very definitely interrupted. There was a time when I would have thought this odd, but it is the case in so many shops that I didn’t even blink.

The next morning we found that the only way to bathe in the hotel was by bucket, so I took my first bucket shower. I was relieved to see that the water in the bucket was crystal clear, which is more than I can say for the water we typically bathe in on the ranch. After the “shower”, we attempted to go to the beach, but found that there really wasn’t much of a beach as we know it, so we took the bus back to San Salvador. We traveled from San Salvador to a small pueblo near the Honduran boarder called Jocoro, where we had made arrangements to couch surf with Brian, a Peace Corp volunteer. Jocoro was great and Brian introduced us to many of the local people. It was here that we finally ate pupusas, the national food of El Salvador. It is a cheese filled tortilla that typically comes topped with a slaw of cabbage, onions and carrots. Delicious and perfect for the vegetarian diet. We spent the night in Brian’s room on a mattress. He lived in a single room with a back porch and outdoor bathroom and shower (again, by bucket, but thankfully not the same bucket used to flush the toilet). We were feeling very thankful for the “luxurious” living conditions we have on the ranch.

The next morning we hopped on a bus that took us to the border. When we handed our passports and residency cards to the immigration official he asked us if we were aware of the political state of Honduras. We quickly assured him that we were aware and that we lived in Tegus. He confirmed that we knew that the previously exiled President Zelaya had returned to the country and that there was an indefinite curfew throughout the whole country prohibiting any kind of travel, including the buses across the border. I am sure our shocked faces were somewhat comical. We had heard nothing of the sort. As we debated our next move, he processed our return to Honduras. When we decided it would be better to stay in El Salvador, we had to walk around the building and enter the country all over again. I had noticed a nice looking hotel when passing through San Miguel, about 2 hours away, and we decided to go back there and wait for news. It was a bit expensive, but had a pool, so we were finally able to get the sun that we had been deprived at the beach. We constantly checked the TV news and internet for any information we could find about what had occurred and what was happening in Tegus as a result. Of course, the news made it sound like Tegus was being burned to the ground.

The next morning we decided that we couldn’t stay in San Miguel another night because it was expensive and we weren’t feeling very safe walking around the small and boring city. Since we had no idea how long the curfew would go on and when we would be able to return, I decided that it would be a good idea to try to find the NPH El Salvador house where we could sleep and eat for free. We took a bus to San Salvador then another on to Santa Ana, which was the city address of the NPH house. When we arrived in Santa Ana, we learned that, like NPH Honduras, the El Salvador house was in fact about 1 hour outside the city. Nobody knew where the house was located and there didn’t seem to be buses that passed the house. It was getting late and we decided to find a place to stay in Santa Ana. Luckily, we decided on a hostel that was nearby the mall where we were doing our hotel research via internet. The hostel was, in fact, a large, beautiful home owned by a single man, Javier. There were 2 large rooms with single beds (usually they are bunk beds) and because there was only one other girl staying there, Brooke and I were able to have our own room and bathroom. The house was decorated very well with objects from all over the world. It was very clean and I was even able to take a hot shower without my shoes! (Most people know that this is unheard of in a hostel.) We spent the evening talking with Javier and catching up on the news. I think that he was disappointed when we all decided to go to bed early.

The next morning, we learned that the curfew had been lifted and the bus would be running between San Salvador and Tegus. We quickly packed up and headed back to the city. The bus ride back to Tegus was uneventful until I got a call saying that they had just announced a curfew beginning at 7 pm. This was the exact time we were supposed to arrive and there was no way we would be able to travel the 45 min back to the ranch. I was even worried that we would not be able to find a taxi to take us to a hotel and the bus station is in one of the worst areas of Tegus. Luckily, a friend offered to pick us up and we spent the night back in the Granada right where we had started.