Blog 3 - Crazy Buses & Mayan Ball Games

We had an early flight out of New York, and after two quick flights and a short stop-over in Dallas we arrived in San Salvador. From the grey skies, cold winds, and rain we left behind we stepped out into the 30 degree heat and clear blue skies.

We jumped in a taxi to our Hotel: Villa Florencia. While Becki settled into the hotel I took care of the first order of business for English people arriving in a tropical climate: find some sun cream and water. With that out of the way, we went out for an explore together.

So we turned out of the hotel onto the nearest street and to put it mildly; it was hectic. Basically what they decided to do was take a regular sized street with enough room for one lane of traffic and a pavement each side, and instead decided to try and cram in two lanes of traffic, shops and cafes with tables spread out over the pavement, then two rows of market stalls each side, plus a few random people with carts of food winding their way through any gaps they can find. All the while everyone is shouting to get your attention, but curiously it seems no-one is actually buying anything.

We stopped at some guy selling fried chicken and turned down another street to continue our explore, and then another and another, but apparently this is what every street is like in San Salvador.

Day 2 - On today’s agenda; head out west of San Salvador to the visit the Tazumal Ruins.

On our way to the bus station, we stopped at a Cocina. These little half café/half someone’s garage things are everywhere, at least 3 or 4 on every street, they’re pretty strange but the food is pretty good too! We got ourselves a standard Salvadorian $2 breakfast of: a pork stir-fry/casserole, with rice, salad, these corn tortilla things and finished off with some watermelon. Now that’s what I call a breakfast!

Off we went on the bus to Santa Ana, another hectic giant marketplace of a town, before doing a quick change on to the crazy little local bus to Chalchuapa. There are no rules for these local buses, you can get on or off wherever you want, they just keep cramming people in until they’re hanging out of the sides, and any time you do stop people from the nearest load of market-stalls get on, and squeeze their way down the bus selling their wares. Now fair enough, you might be on a bus and think I could really go for a bottle of water, or a burrito, but I can’t say I’ve ever thought “you know what would be really useful on this bus journey, toothpaste”. So all in all, bus trips in El Salvador: quite an experience. But then they do only cost 18p to ride, so I guess it’s all good!

So far, so good, even with our limited Spanish we had successfully navigated the market-mazes and hectic bus system. However we than ran into the first instance of what would be a recurring problem in San Salvador: they don’t believe in any form of signs, directions, maps, or providing information online for anything remotely touristy. For example:

(1) is where the map says the Tazumal ruins are, (2) is where they actually are. Now in my book when the entire town is less than 2 miles across, being over half a mile out is pretty far out. Fortunately a perfectly balanced combination of wise directional deductions and blind luck led us to the Mayan ruins.

There’s no two ways about it; Tazumal ruins – pretty impressive. You’ve got a massive pyramid temple, which used to sit at the centre of a city-state at the Southern edge of the Mayan empire. This is surrounded by smaller temples and alters, one of which I was stood on top of while taking the shot below. Nearby to the temple are the stands for an ancient sports arena. The Mayans’ sport of choice was a ball game that was played with a big rubber ball (think of a cricket-ball sized version of the bouncy balls you used to win from arcades as a kid). The players wore these heavy stone belts, and the idea was to hit the ball using your hips. Apparently it was not uncommon for the losing side to be sacrificed to the sun god. So when a Mayan tells you the game has gone to ‘sudden death’, he really means it!

Headed back to San Salvador, in another instance of the grand Salvadorian joke of information for tourists, the one ‘Tourist Class’ bus, doesn’t stop in the bus station the same as all the others, but rather you have to guess at what random point on an unmarked road it will stop on. It was just starting to get dark and a mild sense of panic setting in, when we spotted it. And in fairness it was worth the wait, you can see Becki looking pretty pleased with her fully reclining air conditioned seat!