San Salvador (El Salvador):
From Leon, our next stop was San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. The boys were already in El Tunco at the beach (Pacific coast of El Salvador) so we wanted to meet them as soon as possible for some surf. Two options to reach San Salvador:1/ take a direct "gringo" bus from Leon for $25 and 10hrs but at 4.30am, 2/take local buses from Leon for a cheaper price and at a unknown travel period but later in the day. Well you know now that we don't like taking "gringo" buses and we find it more funny and more interesting to meet locals so we choose the second option.
Ha, Ha! How exhausting was that!!! We reached San Salvador after 11hrs spent in 6 buses, 3 taxis and 1 taxi-bike!!! But we saved $10 and we spent only 1 more hour than the direct bus! Summary of an epic journey: -first taxi from the hotel to the bus station,- first bus: Leon to Chinandega, - second bus: Chinandega to Guasaule (border with Honduras), - bike-taxi to cross the border, -third bus from Honduras border to El Salvador border, - fourth bus from the border to Santa Rosa, - fifth bus Santa Rosa to San Miguel, -second taxi from one bus terminal to an other bus terminal, sixth bus San Miguel to San Salvador (we caught the last bus for San Salvador 5 min only before it left!), -third taxi from the bus terminal to the hotel!!! Departure from Leon at 8.15am; Arrival at San Salvador 7.15pm!!! Nice time spent in Nicaragua, nice people and superb cities and landscapes!
El Salvador was a fascination for Lee since he saw the movie "Salvador" relating some stories from the civil war which occurred between 1980 and 1992 (I will give more details of the civil war commenting the pictures). So he was particularly excited to visit this country which is the smallest but the most populous country of Central America.
We stayed 2 nights in San Salvador, the second most populous city in Central America, with a full day visiting the city and the town centre was like a 1970's city. Nothing charming...So we head off the next day to El Tunco beach...
- Lee was happy to cross the El Salvador border. Since 4 countries, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala had decided to deliver only one entry stamp and one exit stamp, we could not get a entry stamp to El Salvador (as we got the entry stamp in Nicaragua). We were only controlled by 2 policemen who were chatting in the road and who, we thought, were only 2 guys like others!
- The cathedral of San Salvador whose tiled facade was done by the Salvadoran Master Fernanado Llort. The cathedral is home to the tomb of the Archbishop Oscar Romero who was killed on the 24th March 1980 during the civil war (see next post for details). The cathedral is facing the Parque Barrios which was the theater of gunfire from members of security guards (but that has never been proved) killing 44 people who were attending the funeral of the Archbishop Romero (31th March 1980),
- Have you ever seen a similar church? Neither have we! What a bizarre (and awful personal view) architecture!! El Rosario church,
- The National Palace is situated also on Parque Barrios. I did not take any picture of this park because it was not particularly nice,
- The Parque Libertad was nicer than the Parque Barrios. More green, nice lamps, a little more charm...
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