El Salvador

To get from Monterrico in Guatemala to San Diego in El Salvador we had a very long day of travelling. This consisted of a boat along the canal, 2 chicken buses (a direct and literal reference to some of the passengers!), microbus to the border, a walk through no-man's land between the 2 countries, 2 more chicken buses (one with a clown on board for entertainment!) and finally a pick up truck that to took us to our hostel.

The hostel we stayed in was a friendly place run by a guy from Ipswich. It was surrounded by lots of green vegetation, had plenty of hammocks, a good swimming pool and lots of games.

The night we arrived it was one of the guests, Ben's, birthday so there was a Piñata. We took it in turns to be blindfolded, spun round and then hit the piñata until the sweets fell out.

We stayed 3 nights at the hostel and spent time relaxing in the pool and on the beach. Each evening there was some entertainment arranged such as table tennis tournaments, killer darts and poker nights.

After San Diego we spent a couple of nights in the capital, San Salvador, which has an underservably bad reputation. The western suburbs where we stayed are new and modern and have lots of fast food chains, shopping centres (including the biggest in Central America) and cinemas. It was definitely the most westernised place we have been to so far.

We then spent one night in Suchitoto, a small colonial town north of San Salvador which overlooks a huge lake - Lake Suchitlán.

It was another long day of travelling leaving El Salvador: 2 chicken buses, a cycle tuk tuk pedalled by an old man across the border with Honduras, a taxi to the nearest Honduran town, a coach to San Pedro Sula (Honduras' second largest city), a taxi speeding across the city so we could get the next bus (no need as we arrived in plenty of time!), another bus to La Ceiba on the North coast (again with entertainment from a clown!) and finally a taxi to a hotel.