Saturday, January 28, 2006

Lazy as usual. Today we planned to get to Perquin, close to the Honduran border. This was to involve a bus ride to San Miguel and then either a transfer to a direct bus to Perquin, or if we were too late, a transfer to a bus to Gotera and then a ride to Perquin in a pickup.

But by the time we finished eating our leftover Tony Roma’s ribs and pulled our packs on, it was after 11:00. Remembering the fiasco of trying negotiate the city busses when we arrived, we decided to take a cab to the bus station. At four bucks, it was well worth it the speed and comfort… we spend enough time on busses as it is.

The Lonely Planet likes to give departure times for various busses, but we’ve found that there is always a bus leaving, always a shouting ayudante (or cobrador, as a Peace Corps kid told us they are called here) trying to shoo us onto a bus leaving at that exact minute. This time was no exception. The bus was different from any other we’ve taken, not a school bus, but not a Greyhound type eather. It had three divided seats across on the left, and two on the right and an eight-inch aisle between.

Michael and I got aisle seats across from each other, which was nice because we both had that one unsquished shoulder… when we weren’t being battered by vendors entering the front door and exiting at the rear. Everything was for sale – snacks, drinks, children’s polyester shorts, ice cream cones.

A plump old lady with a white lace headscarf pinned like a nun’s squeezed into the middle seat in the row in front of me. The woman in the aisle seat did not stand up to let her get in, but the old lady managed anyway. Her daughter or maybe granddaughter took the middle seat in front of her. The old lady pulled out a thick, hardcover, bright pink Bible. The cover had manga-style cartoon children on it and a brown-haired Jesus with his arms spread wide. The edges had been decorated like the edges of a math workbook – pink magic marker hearts and flowers, and somebody’s name.

She flipped through the Bible, revealing more colored illustrations of Jesus ministering to large-eyed Powerpuff Girls and found a wallet-size studio portrait of a teenage boy posed on one knee. She examined it, put it back, and flipped some more until she found a heavily underlined page to peruse.

We missed our stop. San Miguel is El Salvador’s third largest city, so we were still well within city limits when Michael spoke to the driver, but it was a long, hot walk back to the bus station. We got into a big fight. It usually happens that way, that we fight during the most stressful moments. We don’t know where the bus station is, we still can’t interpret the pointing styles here, we’re hot, it’s dusty, we don’t know if we’ll be able to make the bus we want, etc.

We were still fighting when we got to the bus station. And man, if folks like to stare at gringos doing shocking things like eating in a restaurant or walking down the street, they love to stare at two extra-sweaty gringos yelling at each other in front of the frozen drink stand at a bus station.

It didn’t seem there were any more direct busses to Perquin, and we didn’t feel up to negotiating our first pickup ride, so we decided to spend the night in San Miguel. There was a hotel right across the street called the Monte Carlo, a vivid yellow and purple concrete edifice with crazy modern angles. I was sure it would be too expensive for us, but a room with purple and yellow walls and gold painted headboard and matching gold desk chair, bathroom and TV with cable, was $8.

The shower was cold water only – they didn’t even bother with the farce of a second tap – but it was so incredibly hot in San Miguel that we didn’t mind a bit. In fact, the water even seemed warm, which can happen when it’s kept in one of those giant black thingies on the roof and simmers in the sun all day.

We didn’t see much of San Miguel, beyond the walk of sheer misery to the bus station and then the more pleasant but shorter walk we took to get some dinner. Tomorrow we’ll go on to Perquin, and then I guess we’ll be saying goodbye to El Salvador soon.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 135.75

 

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Volcan de San Miguel in the early morning.

Closer view of the volcano. Yes, it is still active.

Our first bagged water.