It was cold at 6:15 am when the van arrived at Burkhard Posada. We were the first two passengers of an eventual six who made the trip to San Salvador this morning. We rode the bumpy stone streets picking up others and headed straight for the border. We figured this choice was better than waiting until nine but having to go back into Guatemala City to catch a big bus. We drove to the southern of the two main borders into El Salvador on a fairly good set of highways . The van driver didn't stop for breakfast so it was good that we had brought along a large raisin cake and big bottle of water for the road.
We quickly went through the first border side but had to wait about a half an hour at the El Salvador side. They officials didn't have the equipment to swipe the passport as I assumed all countries now do. We were with an older (than us) American couple from North Carolina and a young new teacher originally from Virginia working with six graders in Antigua. Off internationally after student teaching sounds like me exactly 30 years ago, although at different points on the compass. The final rider was perhaps Hispanic and on a longer trip with full backpack. We crossed the border by 10:00 and made it into town here, at about 11:30.
The van stopped at the Tica bus stand rather than coming into the Centro area. So, we had to walk down the road to catch a taxi. He was a very helpful guy giving us lots of information in broken English which was about a million times better than our Spanish. We checked into Hotel Passadena II. It's simple but clean and $17 night. I am positive about the price as El Salvador doesn't have its own currency. It simply uses American bills and coins.
The walk to the busy shopping part of the downtown seems a lot like a market in India. Really, we keep making mental connections to places in Sri Lanka or even Cambodia. The physical environment and standard of living really has a lot in defining the characteristics of a society. The culture, religion, and language may be vastly different but surroundings have a remarkable resemblance. I love the tropics for all the potential hardships of life here.
