Ceramics

We were all on the bus at 7am for our long day of driving. Our first stop, after a very twisty road up and down forested hills, was Ilobasco, a town famous for its ceramics. We had a wander round and visited a women’s cooperative. Further on we had a comfort stop and then a quick lunch at a service station (steamed veg and chips $2 l - El Salvador is cheaper than Guatemala and Honduras) before we reached, once more, the Honduras border. (We had to re-enter to get to Nicaragua). First queuing to get out of El Salvador, a quick one as they didn’t stamp the passports. Then it was the Covid pass check for Honduras, and a queue again for passports and $3 to pay. This time it took longer as one of the systems checking us in or out previously had not updated so that had to be sorted out. The whole crossing took about an hour even without queues. We had been warned it could take 3. We were over at around 2pm. We saw a few volcanos in the distance and fields full of solar panels.

Getting out of Honduras was fast but unfortunately we met with difficulty getting entry to Nicaragua. The Covid pass was quick but the next bit took over 2 hours. Miquel took our passports and the $17 and waited in an office for ages waiting for things to be processed. We followed the driver to the scanners with all our luggage and that went well. We waited for the passports and eventually all was in order for us to get into the bus. However the driver was missing. They had said the payment for the bags was incorrect and they needed another $100. Some spurious inconsistency had been found with the documents. He returned and opened the bus but we sighed with relief too soon. We were directed round the back - apparently some official had missed a letter off the bus registration so we had to wait for that to be rectified. We then moved to another holding pen.

Finally arrived in Leon hotel 9.45pm. Only 14.75 hour journey. Hotel basic but clean. Out at 8 tomorrow for a volcano climb. Not sure I’ll cope in the heat and steepness but I’ll have a wander anyway.