As part of our Tica Bus ticket we were to be picked up around 11.30am by a taxi to take us to the bus, which was starting from Managua and stopping to pick up passengers in Leon on the way. Around 12:30 we were finally collected and dropped on the side of the road in the heat to wait for the bus. Fortunately we spotted what looked like a small waiting room and we waited in there with a growing group of other gringos who had all been told different times they needed to be there .... one couple had been there since 9:00am, the bus finally arrived about 1.30pm.
Next stop was the exit from Nicaragua on the border with Honduras, where we had to hand over US$20 each to cover our exit and entry. This was higher than we had read about, so we suspect some of the money had made it into someone's pocket. The thing with the Tica Bus though is that the conductor takes care of much of the border formalities, so on the Nicaraguan side the bus conductor took our passports and managed the process for us while we tried to find some shade to wait in.
The Honduras entry a little further on was different again where we didn't even leave the bus this time, is it really that dangerous out there? Honduras isn't classified as a safe country and has one of the highest murder rates in the world, so we just stayed on the bus and drove through some very heavy rain to El Salvador, which has a slightly better reputation than Honduras, but still has issues with violence.
By the time we reached the Honduras/El Salvador border it was dark. Here all luggage was removed from the bus so it could be inspected by customs. They decided they wanted a closer look at K's case - about 40 people on the bus and they chose her, is it because it had a combination lock? After the bag was put through the x-ray machine a couple of times, K and the case were taken to a separate room where they decided to remove everything from the case, finding nothing of interest of course. However they wouldn't let K do the repacking, so the case could barely be closed because of the mess they made. This mightn't seem like a big deal but when you've been living out of one suitcase for nearly six months everything has its place so it was very frustrating.
The scheduled arrival time at our hotel in San Salvador was supposed to be 9pm, but we finally arrived there around 1am. The hotel is owned by the bus company and rooms have a discounted rate if you're on the bus, so that you can have a few hours sleep and pick the bus up again early the next morning. Everyone had to be ready for at 5am departure, but as we thought it was a bit of a shame to be passing through San Salvador and not seeing anything, we had booked two nights. We did however starting to think we may not have made the right decision, as we were the only gringos on the bus that were staying on in one of the murder capitals of the world - everyone else was leaving the next morning.
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