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Buses in Central America have been interesting experiences in particular because of the people who sell things on them. Usually in a town or village, at least one person- usually more- will quickly hop on the bus shouting very loudly and quickly what they are selling and then will either get off quite quickly or stay on the bus until the next place. The usual things they sell are drinks, sweets, fried plantain crisps, cut up fruit in bags but occasionally we've seen whole small meals of chicken, rice and pickled vegetables and more recently they've been selling pupusas, the stuffed corn tortillas. We don't normally buy anything for several reasons: it's normally really unhealthy; it looks of dubious quality or in the case of the fruit we're not sure how much handling it's had; and we've normally come prepared with enough water and snacks.
In El Salvador the selling has reached a new level with people selling all sorts of things and some of them giving very passionate talks at the front of the bus. Mostly the ones who give speeches are trying to sell vitamins or some other health-giving pill (a notable one was for cleaning the colon which I imagine you might need to be near a toilet shortly after taking) but we've also seen them do it for sweets, belts, wallets and bookmarks.
On our journey to Alegría in the mountains on one of the four buses we took (the journey also involved a taxi and the back of a nice pickup truck) we saw the best bus seller yet. He got on wearing white trousers, large trainer boots, a dark t shirt and a pirate hat and proceeded to talk at length about the chocolate bars he was selling before walking down the bus to get people to buy them. What he did next had us giggling away on our seats at the back. There was music playing quite loudly on the bus so as he walked back up the bus, he did a slow little dance with some very camp bum wiggling. When he got to the front he did a bit of pole dancing by where the driver was sat. I suppose it must make the job more enjoyable! We presume he was from the nearby town which holds gay beauty pageants - something that normally wouldn't be accepted in Central America.
When we reached Alegría we found a small festival going on in the park with lots of people selling snack food. We wandered round and sampled elotes with cheese which are a bit like pancakes with sweet corn in and something sweet and fried that everybody else was eating and we didn't discover the name of. There were lots of El Salvadorans visiting for the day and we managed to chat to one in Spanish who recommended a beach (see next post).
The town is really small so it didn't take long to look round but it was quite pretty with some more art on the walls and lots of plants outside people's houses. As it's high up on the side of a volcano there were lovely views across the countryside. The whole time we were there we didn't spot another backpacker.
The next morning we walked, very slowly due to the heat and both of us feeling very tired, up to the volcano crater lake which is a beautiful green colour but smelt quite strongly of sulphur. There was a little school right next to it. On the walk back down we ended up talking to an old man walking in the other direction. Unfortunately we couldn't understand too much of what he said partly because he was missing several front teeth but he was very friendly and gave us some bean things to eat that he'd picked. They were a bit weird so most of them stayed by the side of the path. When we got back into town a man stopped his pickup next to us and talked to us in English for a bit. He thanked us for visiting El Salvador.
The afternoon was spent internetting and reading and planning our journey to the next destination, El Cuco beach. On this journey we met yet another person who wanted to talk to us: a university student studying English and we were the first native speakers he'd been able to practise with on the bus. We also found out he's on a programme similar to X Factor.
Katy
- comments
diane malone Love your bus story. Local buses are always such a fun way to travel Alegria sound like it is the size of Hopkins. Stay cool if you can. djm