How transportation compromised my vacation

So I'm back in El Salvador and it's good to be home. This vacation really left me with the impression that El Salvador is not set up for tourism at all, even compared to Nicaragua, which is not exactly what most people would call a hot tourist destination. But there was one problem with the second half of our trip, and that was transportation.

First, we needed to take a ferry to the (gorgeous!) Isla de Ometepe, which ended up leaving earlier than we were told it would, so we had to wait for the next one. That delay, plus rainy weather, cancelled our beach trip that day. The volcano hike the next day was wonderful but exhausting because at the last minute our guide decided to take us on a cow path down the mountain, which was a difficult 4-hour descent, instead of the normal way. But all the resulting soreness was worth it for the beautiful views.

When it came time to leave the island, the ferry we were going to take had broken, so we had to wait another two hours, completely ruining the chances of getting to the Masaya volcano early enough to hike it. Instead we spent a relaxing night in Granada, watched the new Karate Kid and ate at a really nice restaurant that served amazing chicken parmesan.

The next day we went to Managua, where we saw some really cool things, including a huge silhouette of Agosto Sandino where he was killed by a firing squad, some human and animal footprints from 6,000 years ago, and a lot of old animal bones (mastodons and the like) at the national museum.

Yesterday we finally left Nicaragua on a 2:30 a.m. bus, which broke down on the border with Honduras. They tried to fix the bus for about 3 hours before calling for another bus to pick us all up, which took another four hours. Luckily we were stranded next to a restaurant and a bar, and by the time the new bus came to pick us up, I had made friends with some Mexicans who used to live in Silver Spring and spoke perfect English, I was a more experienced pool player and rather tipsy.

We finally got to San Salvador at about 9 p.m., where we ate some pizza and immediately fell asleep. I'm finally on my way back home now. It'll be hard to go back to village life after this awesome vacation!

Paz y amor.