So we made it to El Salvador without a problem & had some very good on-board snacks from the local street food vendors including some pizza which was a welcome chage from chicken tacos.
Were met by friends who then took us to their place in the mountains for a festival of lanterns. All the houses in the village were decorated with lanterns which looked fantastic. The only problem was the relentless rain but a few pupusas later in the local restaurant & a number of rums helped with the evening. There was then some of the most spectacular fireworks I have ever seen so all in all a great evening.
Unfortunately the next morning was horrendous. The "friend" decided that he liked me & despite the fact that my travelling companian was right nect to me , decided to launch himself on me & clearly wasn't taking no for an answer. This prompted me to go crazy, get my stuff togther in record time & flee from the house in well under 5 minutes. That left me in a situation where by I had no way of knowing how to get back to San Salvador where all the rest of our gear was in his apartment.
Got on a chicken bus & eventually ended up in the capital. Was so shaken up by the events of the morning that I said to the taxi driver to take us to the best hotel there was. So spent the next 2 nights at the 5 star Inter Continental!! Was fab as it should have been for the price but luxury (meaning carpets & a bath) dont come cheap!
Got our gear back which was something of a relief & then headed off back on the road with the idea being to get to Belize so the S could get his visa re-newed. This as the guide books assured us was very easy to accomplish with a series of buses so off we set at 9.00am. The bus to Guatemala City left on time & we were going fine until the border crossing where we waited 2 hors for a guy who the authorities then decided not to allow into Guatemala. OK so that was annoying but no worries off we set agian.
This time we waited an hour as there were road works & here they close the road for an hour at a time so that they can carry out the repairs - an interesting & very annoying practice. So after we eventually got going again we had been on the road for 6 hours & should have been in Guatemala City but actually we had only just crossed the border.
An exectutive decision was required at this point so we re-claimed our bags took another chicken bus heading back towards the border to take a different route to Belize. Here's how it went after that:
- More road works for another 45 minutes
- Chicken bus to another town
- Town completely in darkness due to an electric storm
- Last bus had left
- No hotels open
- Very kind man gave us a lift to the bus stop which was 50 kms away for $50
- Slept on the floor of the aisle of the bus as it was completely full
- Cross the border into Belize only to find that our tickets dont take us any further
- Helen completley looses the plot & freaks out much to the amazement of other passengers
- Get taxi to Cayo
- Chicken bus to Belize City
- Ferry to Caye Caulker
- Book into guest house
- Drink buckets of beer to recover
The trip took around 26 hours & it was a nightmare. Oh the joys of travelling!!!
