Read on for how I got from Antigua, Guatemala to El Tunco, El Salvador by land.
As I’m sure many of you have noticed, the warmer a climate, the more approximate time becomes. It’s as if people actually run their daily lives according to the position of the sun in the sky, so little details like minutes become irrelevant.
So at some point where the sun was about a quarter of the way up in the sky, or otherwise known as 9.30am, I climbed into a minivan in Antigua, Guatemala and set off for El Tunco, El Salvador. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling too wholesome. I was hungover, flustered and tired of waiting. The shuttle was meant to leave at 8am, and at 7.40am I realised I had to catch the bus at another hostel across town and I wasn’t yet packed. I threw all my things into my backpack in ten minutes (the old grab and stuff technique) and sprinted into the streets towards the main square. At this moment I realised I wouldn’t make it in time, not least because I didn’t actually have the directions saved on my phone. The taxi stand on the main square was empty – it was far too early for them to start work. Obviously I knew it would be highly unlikely that the bus would arrive on time, let alone leave at 8 on the dot. But the London in me, used to dealing with time as we know it, urged me to hurry up and find a way to get to the hostel within 7 minutes, as opposed to a 20 minute walk. Luckily for me, a policewoman was standing by the side of the road, talking to a driver in a beaten-up maroon car. I explained my situation and the policewoman kindly offered for me to get in her friend’s car, saying “puede traerte”. My new plains-clothes police officer mate/chauffeur brought me to my destination in 4 minutes and I gave him some quetzales for his troubles. Interestingly, he said he often did this to earn earn extra $$$ on the side. Anyway, as it turned out, I could have saved my efficiency, speed and sweat as the bus didn’t arrive for another hour and a half.
At the exit border in Guatemala we had to get out the van and hand in our exit forms, along with the departure tax. Like at all Central American borders, there were plenty of money-changers with pretty decent rates, handy for taking your extra quetzales off your hands. This didn’t take too long and we got back in the van to drive to El Salvador immigration, a quick and casual affair. This lasted about 10 minutes and only involved an immigrations officer casting a glance over all the passengers in the car and our passports, asking a few cursory questions more for the illusion of officiousness than serious immigration control. By the time he got to me, the 8th person in the van, he barely even flicked open my passport before welcoming me into El Salvador. Sadly though we didn’t get stamps.
By the time we crossed into El Salvador, due to our delayed start, it was already midday and the sun was high up in the sky, and ferocious. I was squished in the front seat of the minivan between the driver (a nice but rather large man) and an older Irish man, essentially with the gearbox brushing my left knee. There was no space for my legs in front so I had to bend them round the side to the space built in for the person riding shotgun. As it was uncomfortable to sit like this with a straight torso, I also had my head on the driver’s chair, so a viewer from the front would have seen an “N” shape built out the combination of mine, the driver and the Irish guy’s seating arrangement. Not ideal, to say the least.
This wasn’t even the last inconvenience of the journey. Somehow, a loose rock on the ground had gotten into something important in the van. The exact mechanics of what happened next escapes me but we, a bunch of gringos, ended up broken down by the side of the road, in a country often known as the murder capital of the world. Of course, like many of the stereotypes associated with the larger region of Central/South America, we really weren’t in any immediate danger at all. The only threat was what felt like potential death from heatstroke and dehydration (it was the hottest part of the afternoon, there were no shops or houses nearby and the AC had stopped working). A group of local men came by to help and everyone was suddenly a mechanic, peering into the hood. Unsurprisingly, nobody could work out what was wrong. Eventually, 2 hours later a replacement van arrived and we bundled back in for the last leg.
When we finally arrived in El Tunco, the sun was just about to set. I dumped my bag at the hostel and went straight out to the beach to watch the atardecer. Sitting there with a pupusa dripping down one hand and a paper plate of fresh caramel-drizzled banana bread in the other, a multi-color sunset directly ahead, the difficulties getting to El Tunco made me appreciate the moment all the more.
Go back to Central America here
