Saturday, November 7, 2009

Salud from Santa Ana, El Salvador

We are in Santa Ana and Charles called a day off (thank goodness). Partly it is because we made it as far as we had planned to go today by the end of yesterday. His real reason is he thought there was a football (soccer) game on today which is actually tomorrow. I am not sure if this means we travel tomorrow or not...we shall see. Yesterday was a bit gruelling (sp?). As I mentioned we started out at 7 am from Choluteca, Honduras. We made the El Salvador border by about 9 and got through no problem. We ate breakfast before we crossed and then walked over. As I have mentioned before, borders seem to be peopled mainly by rip off artists. We were lied to yet again but not too badly this time. A man helped us find a bus (I was skeptical). I believe we were ripped off and he got a kickback but since the fare to go from the border halfway across the country was only $6 each, by our terms the rip off was not much. They did lie when we asked at about 10 o´clock when they would be leaving. They said 11 o´clock but it didn´t leave until closer to 11.30 and they were blaring music and we were sucking in diesel fumes the whole time. They also said the connecting but was across the street in San Salvador but it was actually a city bus to another bus station. I guess maybe it was our fault for not speaking spanish. It worked out and the city bus was interesting.

I like to sit near the front of buses because that is where the action is. Charles likes to sit at the back because there are less people there. We have started to sometimes sit separately since we don´t talk much to each other constantly anyway. No real need to be joined at the hip. Anyway, I was at the front of the city bus, mainly because a nice stranger had told the bus driver to tell us where to get off for our next bus, so I thought it best to sit where he would remember us. On the bus there were turnstiles to get on and off. The bus driver was the only employee on the bus and he had to make change as well as drive. The fare was 20 cents. The passengers and the driver seemed choreographed. It must be when you see how it works. The passenger gets on and gives the fare to the driver. The driver immediately starts driving while the passenger moves through the turnstile. The driver must grab a nickel, then shift gears. If he got a quarter, he hands the nickel to the passenger before shifting gears again. If he got a dollar he grabs three quarters then shifts gears again before handing the change to the person. If he gets bills, it takes three gear shifts before the transaction finishes. This must happen thousands of times a day and it is just part of driving. I guess it becomes second nature after a while but it must take them a while to get it all coordinated at first.

So far we have spent about $30 each in total to travel from the airport at San Jose to where we are now, a distance of about 750km through 4 countries and on many,many different buses and two taxis. You can´t even get from Ottawa to Brockville on a train for that money at home. It is less than the price of gas but it must work out because the buses are always full. They basically don´t leave town until they are and constantly pick up people on the way. Like India there is always a parade of sellers that get on the bus whenever it stops in a town. They sell all manner of food and drink. You can get home made sandwiches, meals, cashews, all kinds of fruit both fresh and dried, etc. In the cities there are snake oil salesmen. They get on and make a big, long pitch then sell their cream or their set of 50 pens or whatever. It is really convinient, you never have to leave the bus on a long journey. I am always a bit worried they will leave without me if I do. One thing they seem to also sell on every bus are the cd´s they play. As I mentioned they blare music constantly. Inexplicably there always seem to be takers for what seems to me to be unlistenable. No accounting for taste I guess.

I have always been amazed in the past how the conductor manages to keep track of who has paid and who hasn´t as the passengers flow on and off a bus. Yesterday I realized that they don´t always manage at all. The kid (about 19) yesterday had a really off day. In fairness it may have started when two people tried to tell him they had already paid when they hadn´t. There was a lot of back and forth and discussion and eventually they were kicked off. By the looks on their faces when they got off, they had been caught dead to rights. After that he seemed to be second guessing everything. He woke one guy up who had been on all along. The guy was understandably pissed. He asked several other people that had already paid. By the end of the trip, the poor kid was visibly trying to wrack his brains after every stop as to who was an old passenger. I hope he has better luck today.

Enough for today, you are probably sick of reading if you haven´t given up already....tomorrow is another day....

1 comment:

  1. Are you going to see CD FAS play football?
    What's the weather doing? There are reports on the news of flooding in the wake of Hurricane Ida?

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