Back in Paradise

Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador

The mad dash across Central America is done!

We left Belize City behind on Wednesday morning, on the Maya de Oro bus (Yes, it showed up this time).  We crossed into Guatemala around noon, paying the $18.75US (each) Belize exit fee and getting a fresh 90-day visa stamp for entry into Guatemala (for no charge this time).

In the afternoon, the bus dropped us off at the bus terminal in Santa Elena so we could buy tickets for the bus to San Salvador the next morning.  We then took a taxi to a random hotel in Flores for the night, having another great super at La Luna restaurant.  Since we wanted to leave early for the bus terminal in the morning, we took the precaution of pre-booking a taxi for a 5AM departure, since we noticed that they don't usually start circulating around Flores quite that early.

On Thursday morning, the taxi was right on time, whisking us to the bus terminal for our 6AM departure on a first-class, direct, bus to San Salvador.  This one bus goes all the way from Santa Elena to Sal Salvador but it is anything but a non-stop ride.  For the first half of the trip, we were backtracking the route we took from Rio Hondo to Flores (via Rio Dulce), then we started cross-country for the El Salvador border.  This journey should take, at most, 9 hours, even in a slow-moving bus.  However, due to the many stops along the way, it took almost exactly 12 hours.  Note: Exiting from Guatemala and entering El Salvador was all done for no charge this time.

All in all, it was a very nice ride.  We had good seats, the bus was air conditioned, and we really enjoyed just watching the scenery pass by - it almost seemed like home as we started to see the familiar hills and volcanoes of El Salvador again.

The weather was great until just before we pulled into the bus depot in San Salvador, when the skies opened up and dumped rain on us for about 15 minutes.  Fortunately it had pretty much stopped by the time the bus was parked at the terminal.  We caught a taxi to a hotel (which was full) and then another taxi to another hotel, where we crashed for two nights.

Our hotel was in a great location, close to a major mall and lots of restaurants, etc.  We were able to make use of the ATM's in the mall to replenish our supply of US dollars (the official currency of El Salvador) and we did a little shopping for a few things we thought we could use on the boat.

On Saturday morning we had our favorite taxi (thanks Jose) take us to a Super Selectos grocery store, where we bought a few supplies, then drive us to the marina at Paradise Fishing Lodge.  Here we found Sine Timore resting peacefully, none the worse for wear for our absence.



Tennis anyone?

The marina here is very picturesque but desperately isolated.  And man is it hot and humid!  I'm not sure how long we can stand it here before we will just have to get out.  Susanne is busy checking airline schedules and such to see what our options are - we could conceivably by back in Canada very soon.



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{GMST}13|42.1237|N|89|13.6933|W|San Salvador, El Salvador|San Salvador, El Salvador{GEND}
{GMST}16|55.7274|N|89|53.4318|W|Flores, Guatemala|Flores, Guatemala{GEND}
{GMST}17|29.769|N|88|11.0214|W|Belize City, Belize|Belize City, Belize{GEND}