Honduras to El Salvador, Santa Ana & Lago Coatepeque

---

I had been told that there were buses leaving Copán to take me towards the Salvadorian border at 6.00, 6.45 and 7.00am and everyone seemed to think these were the only ones until 2pm. So it was another early start for me. The 6am was out of the question, but I managed to get to the bus stop for 6.45 and hopped on a colectivo. The journey was taking me to Santa Rosa de Copán, a couple of hours away and where I'd have to change to get another bus to the border. The journey was uneventful and when I arrived in Santa Rosa at 9.45 (yes, that's 3 hours, not 2) I was pointed to a car park and told to wait for the 10am to Nueva Ocotepeque, the nearest town to the border crossing I was aiming for (called El Poy). Talking to some random bloke while waiting, he told me I would never make it to Santa Ana that day, explaining the 10am probably wouldn't leave until 11am, then I'd have to get a taxi to the border (no buses and the taxi should be L14 he said), then a bus to San Salvador where I'd have to change bus station to try and get the last bus to Santa Ana at 6pm. This didn't make any sense to me as looking at the map, it seemed illogical to go all the way to San Salvador to then come back on myself for half the journey, but I decided I'd have to wait and see if he was right or wrong.
The bus to Ocotepeque left between 10.30 and 10.45 – not a massive surprise there – and on it I spotted a couple of tourist looking people. They were Germans and heading for the same border, so I offered to share the taxi. But when we got to Ocotepeque, the taxi driver (after haggling) still wanted L14 per person... I wasn't having it and the German guy spotted a colectivo going the same way. After a brief chat, I managed to get it down to L10 each (taking the total spend from Copán to El Poy to L160 - £5.30) and off we went.
The border crossing made me laugh. None of this official red tape we get on our side of the world... Less than 10 minutes and we were through both immigration offices and they wouldn't even stamp our passports for entry into El Salvador (time will tell if that's a problem or not!). From there, I changed my last few Lempiras into 5 US Dollars (the official currency in El Salvador) and we walked the few blocks to the bus terminal. That was the moment of truth... Could I go to Santa Ana without going all the way to San Salvador first?
The answer was yes, but only just. It was 2pm by the time the bus was leaving and it would take a good couple of hours to get to Apopa (which incidentally didn't seem like the logical choice either when I looked at the map, but I trusted the expert bus man) where I could get the 5pm last bus to Santa Ana. Great! When we got to Apopa, at 4.20pm, a guy who was going the same way told me to follow him and got me onto the right bus, where I found out this was the last direct of the day (it was only 4.30). I was relieved to discover I would make it.
It was gone 7pm and dark by the time we arrived to my final destination (and it had only cost me $2.5 from the border to there) and the bus driver pointed me in the direction of my hostel (which the bus had almost driven past on the way to the terminal but I didn't know so I ended up walking it back), taking me through the closing market and looked a bit dodgy, but I made it without problems.

Once at the hostel, I met a welcoming Spanish guest (whose name I can't remember) and then the owner of the place (Carlos) who was super nice and showed me to a wonderful, brand new looking, empty 6 bed dorm with 2 bathrooms. At $9, with free Wifi, drinking water and hot showers, what more could I ask for? As I sat down at the table in the common courtyard, the Spanish guy decided to share half his diner with me and also gave me a beer. This was only getting better! I spent the rest of the evening chatting with him and drinking his beer, until it was time to go to sleep, with the dorm all to myself.
The next morning I went to explore the city of Santa Ana. It was bigger than I expected, a real working city as opposed to a tourist place though. I went through the market and to the main square, which was surrounded by the Cathedral, the theatre and another official building (town-hall or something like that). It was really pretty, especially the green theatre, but I wasn't sure where to go from there as my guidebook didn't recommend anything else. I spotted in the distance another churchy looking building, so walked up that road for a couple of pics, but there was no access into the building so I walked back down. It was only morning but it was boiling hot, so when I walked past a museum, I got tempted inside (mmmm... Air conditioning!). I paid my $1 and got a guided tour of the museum which was about the restoration of the theatre on the ground floor, the colonial buildings of the country on the 1st floor and the history of the currency in the vault (the place used to be the central bank so you had to get through the old vault's door to get to that part). The guide was good and made the visit much more worthwhile than it would have been had I been left to it. I also found out from him that I could visit the theatre, so that was going to be my next activity of the day. However, when I asked him what else there was to do in the city, he wasn't really able to come up with anything... It wasn't even lunchtime and I was starting to think this was going to turn into a boring day...
Nonetheless, I went to the theatre ($3) and was kind of blown away by how nice it was. Having learnt about the restoration process before visiting it definitely made me appreciate it more. The other thing I really liked about it was that there weren't any areas off limits, so I was able to go backstage and up some rickety stairs above the stage lights. By the time I'd finished, I was ready to go for lunch, so after a quick visit to the supermarket, I returned to the hostel.
There, I had a chat with Carlos and asked him what I could do with my afternoon (it was about 2.30pm by that point) but he didn't really come up with anything exciting. He did however say that he was going out to some local bar with live music in the evening and that the hostel guests were welcome. I thought nothing of it (I'm getting used to not relying on anyone and not getting my hopes up when someone suggests plans for later!) and went about my afternoon, mainly chilling and doing some internet browsing and blogging.
By late afternoon, 3 more people had arrived in the dorm: 2 girls (from Sweden and Switzerland) and a Canadian bloke, so when Carlos repeated his offer to join him on his night out, it was starting to sound a bit more promising. After some food and a bit of chatting with the other guests, the 5 of us went to a bar that had a band playing covers. It was rubbish! Thankfully I wasn't the only one to think so and we didn't stay for long. We then moved on to another bar called Trench Town (about 15 minutes drive away – we were in Carlos' car with the non drinking Canadian guy as designated driver). That was a reggae bar, which was a lot more pleasant than the previous establishment and we even got a bit of a fire show from some of the bar staff. We didn't stay out too late but I had a really nice evening, ending with the owner saying I wasn't allowed to leave the following morning as the next day was the day of his birthday party and I was required to attend!
My plan for that day was to go to the nearby lake: Lago de Coatepeque. However, I didn't need to stay there as it could easily be done as a day trip from Santa Ana. This combined with the promise of a fiesta (Carlos had even said he would make pizza) and the quality of the hostel, was enough to convince me to stay for a third night. So when I woke up I got ready and went to the bus terminal. I followed the instructions in my guide book: take either bus 220 or 242. As it happened, the 242 was just leaving as I arrived, so I jumped on and paid my $0.45 (buses in El Salvador are SOOOO cheap!). An hour later, I caught first sight of the lake. It had been compared to Atitlan, where I had been a few weeks earlier and loved. I stayed on the bus a while longer, waiting to see the restaurants and hotels or some form of tourist complex, but all I could see were fences and gates hiding private properties and their restricted lake access. Eventually, we got to the terminus and when I asked the ticket guy, he explained that I was on the wrong side of the lake and had to go back the other way for 20 minutes (just before the first glimpse of the water) and then catch the bus 220 which was going where I wanted to go (Aargh! I love Lonely Planet, but sometimes they could just do with a bit more details!). So I did just that (and paid another $0.25) and finally ended up where I was trying to get to. By that point it was lunchtime and I hadn't brought any supplies with me, as I understood the normal way to access the lake was to eat at one of the restaurants and they would let you use their access for free. I asked on the street where I could find a cheap eatery and was pointed in the direction of a nice-ish looking place a few hundred metres away. I sat down, overlooking the lake and picked the cheapest thing on the menu (seafood pasta and water for about $5.50).
After lunch I went down to the shore, ignoring the man trying to sell me a boat trip and walked along the water for a while. It felt a little bit like I was crossing people's back gardens and even though looking at the lake, it didn't look that much different from Atitlan indeed, the shore was nothing like it. There was seemingly no village or tourist area, just private properties all along. I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not... Eventually, I picked my spot, and went for a swim (another difference with Atitlán being that Coatepeque is clean!). After drying in the sunshine I headed back to the road - or rather dirt track - to catch the bus back to Santa Ana. I started walking up the road and even though it was a long way in the pounding heat, I got to the crossroads between the 220 and 242 routes before the bus showed up.
I was back in Santa Ana by 5pm and as I arrived I bumped into Carlos and got confirmation that we would be partying, eating pizza and probably drinking for a large portion of the evening. After freshening up and chilling for a while, I helped out creating the home-made pizzas (while the other hostel guests did nothing at all but stare, which I wasn't too impressed with, the 2 girls even making themselves some smoothies and not offering to share...). Anyway, I won't bore you with all the party details, but we ended up with about 15 people and ate, drank and laughed lots until 2am (my latest night in 2 months!).
Towards the end of the evening, I was sat down chatting to a couple of Carlos' friends when I noticed there was some water coming down from the first floor into the courtyard. I alerted the owner who went to investigate. When he returned a few minutes later he said something along the lines of “I'm sorry but all your things are wet. Someone broke the toilet in the dorm and didn't say anything so everything is flooded.” Even though I first thought he was joking, I soon realised he wasn't and when I went upstairs, there was about 1cm of (clean, not sewage) water on the whole first floor. Walking in the bathroom was a shock when I discovered the “broken” toilet had in fact been completely ripped off the wall! Accident, I wasn't so sure... Thankfully my rucksack had been by chance resting on its rain-cover and everything I owned was still dry (the same could not be said of the other girls' clothes). This episode also gave me an insight into the Latin American way of dealing with a crisis: turn the water off and keep partying as if nothing had happened. In the end, as our wet stuff had been put on our beds, we just moved to the other side of the dorm and slept above the puddles (no attempt at moping even occurred).
The next morning, I was up early (set my alarm to watch Liverpool/Man U which was on at 7.30am my time – I should have stayed in bed) and had birthday cake for breakfast. I was then off to the beach (on the Pacific coast) for a few days, with my first stop – as recommended by the locals – in Los Cobanos.

---

Photos

Santa Ana
Theatre

Santa Ana
Cathedral

Santa Ana
inside the theatre

Santa Ana
inside the theatre

Santa Ana
Trench Town

Santa Ana
The Birthday party