San Salvador was a bit of a blip on the radar for us. We got into town via Alex, our host from Playa Zonte, and were dropped directly at the hotel we had booked in the previous day. As we were feeling a bit worn from the past couple of days of un-named, but violent "death-stomach illness"; we decided to spring for a nicer spot, with A/C and cable T.V (news in English). This is 'balling' for us.
After a good 30 minutes relishing in the cool air of our hotel, we ripped ourselves from the cozy bed, turned off the A/C, and left to check out at least a bit of the town.
We were staying in Zona Rosa, which was super convenient for us as the bus station was right around the corner, and there were several museums in the area to check out as well. We first hit up the bus station and hatched our plan for our move to Nica.
We settled on the 5:00am departing Ticabus, which is an international busline that services the region. The only hiccup is that it serves capital city to capital city and so the destination for the bus was Managua; a place we had no interest in. After a bit of back and forth, we confirmed that the bus could drop us at San Isidro, a dot on the map, but the spot where we could catch a bus to León, which was our intended next stop. Money was exchanged and we were locked in for our trip.
Next stop: El Salvador National Anthropological Museum...but first, a little stop at the café for a bite to eat. An hour and a half of learning about El Salvadorean and Central American history and a few minutes rocking out to Bossa Nova in the contemporary exhibit left us plane tucked out so we made our way out of the museum and back to the streets of San Salvador. We had to find yet another Pharmacy as although Adrian was on the road to recovery, now Gina was in the grips of her own battle with her digestive system. Her ailment, ironically the opposite of Adrian's, we discovered can be just as unpleasant when extended to the realm of 4 or 5 days...
Finally we had had enough running around the San Salvador heat and took it back to the A/C where we chilled for a few hours. We only ventured out again for some dinner and then some grocery shopping for supplies for the big trip the following morning.
One interesting thing about San Salvador is that there are armed guards everywhere. We've gotten used to seeing security guards strapped with shotguns at banks and such as we've been in Latin America for almost 2 months now, but seriously, San Salvador was next level. There were 3 armed guards at the door of the grocery store. There was one at the pharmacy...hell, pretty sure there was even one at Quizno's which is where we ate dinner. (Stomachs still on struggle street, so don't hate)
On the way back to the hotel we stopped into about the only establishment we saw without a dude strapped with a shotgun out front...the Pupuseria. I've been looking forward to El Salvador for weeks just for the pupusas and I'll be damned if I was going to go right through the guts of the country and not have at least one of their famous offerings to the world of street food.
So, we slid in an I ordered one pupusa revuelta (with everything). It came stacked with pickled veggies and a bottle of hot sauce. I wasn't hungry and I was only 24 hours removed from the worst bout of stomach punishment I've had in a year around the world; but bet your ass I ate that thing. It was good, too.
We tried to go to bed early seeing as we had to be at the bus terminal at 4:15am, meaning a 3:30am wakeup, but that never seems to work. Pretty sure it was past midnight when I looked at my watch for the final time.
Good thing we had nothing to do but sit the next day; yup 15 hours of it.