Howdy all. Well, today’s blog is one of adventure on the buses of Central America! Well, on one of them at least. Most backpackers have heard of the Tica bus, which at first I thought was a backpacker bus, but it’s not really. It is a reasonably comfortable bus in Central America which I believe can take you through every central American country from Guatemala to Panama.

Graham and were heading from the El Salvadoran capital of San Salvador to Leon in Nicaragua. We knew we’d be travelling at night as there were a few options, all of which left between 1am and 4am in the morning, so we decided to book the night in San Salvador so we had access to a room and a bed and could sleep a few hours before heading out to the bus station in the middle of the night.

The decision of which bus (and in fact there was one option I think that was bus and boat!) we would take was made in somewhat of a rush in the end though because we were at the airport in Panama flying to El Salvador and they wouldn’t let us check in without onwards travel booked. So we scrambled to use our phones and book huddled in a corner of the airport. Originally the lady at check in wanted us to book flights, which was not the plan and so I am glad she spoke to her manager who said bus would be okay. Also, we did have tickets out of Nicaragua booked but that was not enough apparently by itself. If you are travelling to the region it might be an idea to book cheap dummy booking out of countries that you don’t necessarily intend to use if you are travelling for a long time and have no definite plans. Having said that no such checks flying INTO Panama so you could cross the land border to Costa Rica PERHAPS without. I’m not sure to be honest.

The Tica Bus website is confusing and difficult to navigate and I was lucky because I had looked into it in the planning stage of the trip and had worked it out. The drop down menus are the issue, you look for your destination but it lists the destinations in Nicaragua all under Managua, the capital. You want to choose Managua and Leon as the bus stop, it’s very weird. It reads in abbreviations – MNA – Leon from memory. It makes it seem like Leon is a stop in Managua, when in fact it’s a few hours away closer to the Honduran border (so it’s well before Managua).

The cost was $47USD for the ticket. Keeping in mind the distance is around 430km and it takes around 13 – 14 hours, the seats are comfortable enough if the bus is a little… ‘used’ I would say. The price I think is pretty good. They do take the bus through two different border crossings too on this journey.

We took an Uber at 1130pm or so for our 1am bus to the little Tica bus office where we filled in some customs forms and waited for the bus. Someone there was telling about how the bus can be 3 – 4 hours late (it started in Guatemala and goes down to San Jose, Costa Rica) so we were pretty relieved when it arrived shortly after 1am.

We boarded to find it less than half full, and so we were both able to take two seats. There were TV screens in front of us and each seat, but nothing to display and I had one that was bright blue so I covered it with a piece of clothing from memory otherwise it would have been super annoying.

The sun was coming up when we hit the first border – El Salvador and Honduras. The border formalities here weren’t too bad from memory. Note that my travel companion Graham is from the UK and he needed a visa to enter Honduras which he got beforehand. Australians don’t need one thankfully as we were only spending a few hours there. They did want to see proof of onward tickets, accommodation at that border.

Then we sped through a short section of highway in Honduras and had a 30 minute stop at a sort of shopping centre. It must have still been pretty early as only a couple of places were open. There was fried chicken as an option I remember but I stuck to prebought snacks. I regretted not using the changers at the border to get some of the local Honduran currency. I wouldn’t need it but nice to have a souvenir.

Shortly before lunch, maybe 1030 – 11am we hit the second border. Entering Nicaragua was slower than entering Honduras. We had to have all our bags x-rayed and then each person seemed to spend a deal of time at the passport counter. Graham was taken away to a room! It seemed he had a similar name to someone they were expecting to pass through that  border, so no issue.

They kept my passport though and told me to wait at the bus. Everyone else including Graham were goo to go, but I was waiting on getting my passport back! As the bus was loading an officer came to see me and asked for my yellow fever certificate, because they had seen I’d been to Africa. Not for two years but that didn’t seem to matter. I shower the certificate, they took it and my passport away again buy returned quickly and I was allowed to board bus and continue.

It was now high 30s and super hot. A few more hours and 1 – 2pm we arrived at the side of the road in Leon, Nicaragua, where we paid much too much for a taxi to our hotel, which I admit proved a lot nicer than we were expecting! Which was great and much needed, shower and rest the order of the rest of the afternoon.

The Tica bus adventure was over! And it was an adventure. And that’s about as good as it’s going to get because I can’t see high speed rail being put in through Central America, as awesome as it would be. It was comfortable enough, but compared to say buses in Peru which are real ‘VIP’ experiences with meals and three seats only across, it’s not as good as it might be. But the price is right and the network is extensive, and it’s also somewhat iconic I would say too.

Travelling by land allows you to see more and get more of a feel of where you are as well as saving money and I guess the environment. And there you go! Thanks for popping by and having a read! Take care wherever you are in the world and… May the Journey Never End!