No Rapido Servicio
We travelled on Tuesday to the eastern city of San Miguel and from there to Leon, Nicaragua on Wednesday. We made the whole journey by ordinary bus or collectivo.
It started in one of these
After 6 hours travelling via San Salvador, the capital, we got into San Miguel about 4pm. The journey could not have been any easier and cost us a grand sum of £4.90 between us - £3.00 of this being for a slightly posher direct bus from San Salvador to Miguel. The Rough Guide described the capital’s bus terminals as chaotic so we were a bit concerned about transferring from the western to eastern terminal. These people have surely never travelled in India, or been to Victoria Coach Station for that matter. The western termainl was as tranquil as anything. We headed outside for lunch at a pupusaria and a bakery from outside of where we picked up the 7C cross-city bus to the eastern terminal which was a quick and easy journey. The eastern terminal was a lot more lively and we could have been ushered on to three competing direct buses to San Miguel by very helpful bus conductors within five minutes. It took no longer than visiting the toilets before we were off again.
San Miguel is a sort of nowhere town with some splendidly decaying colonial buildings, a Legoland 19th century cathedral (as Georgia said it looks like a Dreamworks animation of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale) and a sprawling market. Good for a night’s stopover. This was aided by finding our old favourite channel from Copan on the room TV – TCM (The Classic Movie). This time we watched the timely aired, given the day’s US election primaries, Mr Smith Goes to Washington.
Things You See From a Bus
The next day we took 8 hours and £7.90 to get to Leon via two border crossings – El Salvador to Honduras at El Amatillo and Honduras to Nicaragua at Gausaule. We could have saved an hour if we had been thinking quickly enough to get the cross-Honduras collective from border to border rather than an ordinary bus to the city of Choluteca then getting a collectivo. One bus led to another without a wait everytime. We walked across both borders which involved walking across bridges high above dry-period-low rivers. It always feels like the best way to enter a county. The border at Gausule was a long 1km walk, not the 3km that the helpful guides tell you on alighting the bus, slowly trudged in the heat of the day and we could have taken a tricycle taxi which would have made it a lot easier.
Getting There
I’d recommend anyone travelling through Central America to take the local or direct buses, regional cross-border coaches or collectivos for shorter journeys rather than the international tourist coaches. You really know you are in the country you are visiting!
The journeys are ridiculously easy, the fares sublimely cheap, a variety of food and drink never far away when brought onto the bus by dozens of vendorsand the chance to meet people invaluable. We spoke to a retired farmer from El Salvador who travels on the profits he made selling his farm, and international saleswomen from Nicaragua. Dressed in their dirty pinnies they buy materials in Managua, which could be anything, take them in bags by bus to Honduras where they sell them before returning home accounting for their cash on calculators. I think its amazing that international trade can be carried out be individuals travelling by bus – that’s sustainable development!
Anyone we asked for advice, as to where to get off, etc, could not have been more helpful. We even got free sweets from sweet vendor! One of the great things about buses here are the vendors who get on for a couple of miles. Whether peddling sweets, medicines or God, the patter from the font of the bus sounds almost identical – it is only the packaging they bring you to your seat that changes.
Accommodation
In San Miguel, we stayed in a business traveller’s hotel – Hotel de Centro – for a $15 clean, fan room, TV, en-suite, free water and coffee. Helpful and friendly staff.
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