So after we climbed the volcano and stayed one more night in Leon, we took a bus to the capital - Managua. The way partly led through non paved roads which was a pain in the ass. Nevertheless, we arrived in Managua safely and took a cab to a hostel next to the bus station.
Next day we somehow managed to wake up at 3:45 am and took the ticabus to San Salvador. The air condition was proving that it worked well - in another words, it was freezing. Really cold. Luckily I was kinda expecting things and I took some warm clothes and I was fine. Still, I was pissed of by the fact that the staff didnt care about it even when I told them and they kept the engine (and the air condition) running even when we were waiting at the border for about 30 minutes. The bus was empty and just standing still on the parking lot, with the engine running.
Incidentally, not many people here care about nature. You could see it anywhere. The land is full of litter and various garbage. Wherever you look you could see plastig bags, plastic plates, plastic bottles and so on. Also, people often burn leaves that had fallen down from the trees and sometimes even some garbage they collected at home.
We spent the night in a hostel in El Salvador in a hostel owned by the bus company. The funny thing about this hostel was that the shower was in the same room as the toilet. Ok, this wouldnt be that much of a surprise but the mouth of the shower was almost right above the toilet itself so when I was taking shower, the toilet was ´taking shower´ too. Also, there was no sink.
The weirdest thing was yet to come: It was about 2am, I was asleep and there was a loud knock on the door. And it repeated. So I woke up and walked over to the door. It was the two guys from the reception. They had waken up Vaclav (who was in a different room), too, and claimed that we paid just for one room. We, of course, insisted that we paid for both of us. They talked between themselves in quick Spanish and I had no idea what was going on. After about 5 minutes, another hostel guy appeared and got involved. God. After another five minutes they let us go back to the beds. We didn´t have to pay anything, so it was okay but their manners made me wonder.
The bus from Salvador to Guatemala was different from the one by which we came. At the beggining the temperature was promising. But as the time passed by, we got to 15 degrees celsius (there was a thermometer) so it was all the same. I didnt even bother to complain. Some guys from Israel told us its always like this in Ticabusses). There was one unexpected stop - one of the two staff persons somehow misused the fire extuinguisher and the front part of the bus was hidden in a white powder for a couple of minutes. There was no fire - they just somehow must have pushed the valve on the extuinguisher. After the driver cleaned his stuff from the powder, the bus kept on going. There was no apology, we just kept on going. I guess this was normal... I just shook my head in disbelief.
From what I have seen from the bus, Guatemala seems like a nice country. The nature and landscapes I saw from the bus were really nice, even with the plastic bags. We arrived in Guatemala at noon and decided to take a van directly to Antigua. We shared it with the Israeli guys and girls from Germany. We normally don´t do this but the price was ok and it was far more convenient than taking a taxi to the bus terminal and then a chickenbus.
The driver was crazy. It was a really fast driving AND the driver even crossed himself (pokrizoval se) a couple of times before the fastest parts. Anyway, we arrived ok and I got to see some fun stuff, among other I took a video of a guy who was mounting the luggage on the roof of the chickenbus and than climbed down the ladder and entered the bus by the emerency exit as if nothing ahappened. Funny.
So, after all of this we arrived in Antigua. It seems to be kinda different from the other towns we have seen so far. There will be more to Antigua in next article... :)
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