San Salvador

Nicaragua customs

After we got checked out of Costa Rica we got back on the bus and the attendant collected everyone's passports. We got off again on the Nicaragua side to go through customs. We had to take our luggage from the bus and wait in a line. The wheel of our big Samsonite suitcase started disintegrating. At the head of the line was a button to push. If you got a green light you could go and put your luggage back on the bus, a red light meant they would search it. We got the green light. While we were waiting in line I went to the duty free and bought two liters of Flor de Caña 7 year old rum($16).

We got our passports back and got on the bus and were on our way. the whole border process took about 2 hours. They showed a movie, "I am Legend". English with Spanish subtitles.

Managua

We got to Managua about 11:10 and had a 15 minute rest break. We bought some snacks in the terminal($5). They served us a small lunch on the bus and showed the movie "Paulie" about a talking parrot. Dubbed in Spanish. It was pretty bad. I watched the whole thing. After that they put on videos of sappy South American love songs from the '80s.

The bus driver stopped here to buy himself some oranges

We got to the Nicaragua-Honduras Border around 3:15. We had handed over our passports again so we just waited outside the bus while they did the paperwork. The whole thing took about half an hour. We didn't have to stop on the Honduras side. Another movie: "Daddy Day Camp" with Cuba Gooding, Jr. Dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles. What can I say about this movie? It was worse than "Paulie". I watched the whole thing. Alaine fell asleep. I envy her.

We arrived at the Honduras-El Salvador border around 6 and two guys came on and just looked at our passports for the immigration check, but then the El Salvador customs guy came on and spent a long time staring at our passports and looking through people's bags. The whole thing took an hour and ten minutes.

Down the road we had a 10 minute rest stop at a gas station. We bought some food and some beer which we drank outside($8.80). Then they fed us on the bus anyway, which I didn't remember from last time. One noticeable thing about Honduras is the amount of trash on the side of the road. This is true of El Salvador too.

We got to the first stop in El Salvador, the San Benito terminal, around 10:15. We got off there and checked in to the hotel. They had beer there so we bought a round for us an a nice English guy we met on the bus. He told us some good places to go in Mexico.

Market in San Salvador

The next morning we went out to walk around the neighborhood a little. They assured us it was safe. One thing we noticed was that there are a lot of armed guards everywhere. We went to a pharmacy trying to buy Ambien to help us sleep on the bus. They said we needed a prescription but offered us some other pills over the counter which contain 3mg of diazepam (Valium). We bought $10 worth of those. We went to the a market that sold souvenirs and bought a few things($32). trying to find the market we got on a bus and after 1 block we realized we were already there. After that we went back to the Tica Bus station and got an 85% refund for the Salvador-Guatemala leg of our trip since we decided to just go straight from Suchitoto. Then we got a taxi($8) to the Suchitoto bus terminal and caught a bus($1.60).

More later.

Expenses:

	Since last entry	Total
Transportation	-$16	$128
Food	$23	$33
Lodging	$24	$24
Beer (and other spirits)	$28	$33
Activities	0	0
Souvenirs/Gifts	$36	$36
Misc.	$10	$10
Total	$105	$264

Tickets to Guatemala

I was looking on the somewhat useless web site of Tica Bus and I thought they no longer offered the bus service that goes from San José to San Salvador in the same day. I talked to my sister, Selva, who lives in San José, and she said the her boyfriend was coming on the bus from El Salvador in one day. So I called and they said that they did indeed offer it. Selva bought our bus tickets as far as Guatemala city. You have to buy the tickets at the bus station. She was coming down here for a visit anyway so that worked out.

The right schedule

The trip takes a day and a half, with an overnight in San Salvador. We're thinking we might hop off the bus in Granada, Nicaragua and spend a night there (edit: I found out the bus doesn't actually go through Granada). The tickets we have don't have a date yet. We just have to call at least three days before we want to go to reserve our seats.

Tica Bus route map

I was talking with Alaine tonight and we thought it would be cool to keep track of our costs so at the end each post I'm going to put the expenses since the last post and the grand total. The bus tickets were 31,200 colones each, including tax. That's about $63 USD.

Expenses:

	Since last entry	Total
Transportation	$126	$126
Food	0	0
Lodging	0	0
Beer	0	0
Activities	0	0
Souvenirs/Gifts	0	0
Misc.	0	0
Total	$126	$126