Howdy all. If you’re following the blog I’m taking you through the experiences of my round the world trip from earlier this year, and the last couple of blogs I wrote focussed on Panama, the old city and the Panama Canal.

Once our time was up in Panama, Graham and I had a flight from Panama City to San Salvador to catch – the capital of El Salvador. I had taken a hotel organised pick up from the airport when arriving in Panama, but to leave I wanted to save a bit of money. My hotel was in Casco Viejo, and so for a few bucks we took an uber from there to a Metro station.

Took a few minutes to get our heads around what we needed to do, there was a simple change at some point to negotiate, but we got to the airport for a buck or two from that point. The change just saw us get off one train and cross the platform to another that was waiting. It works well and if I had realised how simple it was I would have done it when I arrived and saved at least $20USD. But when it’s your first time visiting a country you don’t know what to expect.

At the airport we hit a snag though, and this is something to keep in mind if you’re visiting the region. We were asked for an onward ticket at check it, we had tickets out of Nicaragua and showed the check in lady these, but she said we needed a flight out of El Salvador booked. I guess it’s a requirement, and I’ve been to countries that want to see an onward ticket before but usually if you can show you are leaving the region that’s okay, show a few hotel bookings etc.

Thankfully after the lady talked to her manager we were told that they would accept a bus ticket, and we planned to go leave the country on a Tica Bus via Honduras we would have been ready to go if we had booked the ticket already. But we hadn’t, preferring to work this out once in El Salvador. Well, we scrambled and booked online then and there and showed them, and were finally checked in.

Honestly, it’s far from a guarantee when you enter a country if you have a bus booked out that you will indeed leave the country, right? If you were for some reason desperate to stay in El Salvador, and I believe this restriction is the same for all Central American countries, a fifty-buck bus ticket (and there are cheaper available) is not hard to organise and then throw away. Hell, you can surely get a cheap flight out of the country and not turn up for that too. The Panama City to San Salvador flight was only $130USD or thereabouts.

At least everything from that point on was easy enough. Immigration quick, and at the exchange booth on the other side I was able to change my Chilean Pesos that I couldn’t before leaving Santiago into USD. We were down the back of the plane, the flight was around 2 hours or a little less and we were soon in El Salvador, which I had been inspired to visit for about 12 months before the trip, maybe more reading blogs on it.

Mass rounding up of criminals and incarnations have turned what was the most dangerous and lawless country in Central America to perhaps the safest. More recently the President did a deal with Trump to take US prisoners, some immigrants and some I heard not, into the prison system. ‘Mega-prisons’ are a thing in El Salvador. An interesting industry to be famous for.

Our hotel in Santa Ana, a couple of hours or less actually north of San Salvador had organised transport for us, this had fallen through so they actually picked us up. We went around San Salvador to the first main stop in El Salvador, arriving around 8pm. Checked in and walked to the centre of town for a bite. Ahead, a new and interesting country waited for us to explore a little of it! But that’s coming up!

Thanks for popping by and visiting! Take care wherever you are in the world and… May the Journey Never End!