More unplanned activities

We spent more time than we intended in San Salvador. It turned out to be a far prettier, cleaner, friendlier city than we expected; based on previous experience with Central American cities, we had planned to avoid it altogether, but, fortunately for us, logistics dictated that we break our travels there for the night. Our first attempt at lodging was the highly rated Joan’s Hostel (which, of course, we tried first because of the name), but there we would have ended up sleeping in bunk beds. That’s fine for those of us who are twelve, but a middle aged couple who haven’t even had their own private room for weeks on end draw the line at bunk beds.

Next on our list was a budget recommendation from our guide book and bible, the highly unreliable Rough Guide to Central America, in the high-end neighborhood of Escalón. We found the street without incident, signage being excellent in San Salvador. Well, without incidentally getting lost or heading the wrong way more than once or twice. But remember how Rocinante starts coughing and stalling at the end of a long, hot day? Yes, right in the middle of a giant intersection, fortunately only a block away from our destination. We coasted around the corner and parked, planning to walk the remaining block to the hotel.

Except, of course, there was no hotel on the next block. Or two blocks away. Or two blocks away in the other three directions. We asked a couple of people, and they had no idea. Okay, so no budget hotel; the book mentioned a “splurge” hotel very nearby, so we went looking for that. It, too, proved illusory; we asked people, we Googled, we Trip Advisored, but it seemed not to exist. It was starting to get dark, and since we try to avoid hanging out on the streets of strange Central American cities after dark, we were ready to take whatever we could get. Trip Advisor did show us a small hotel a few blocks away, so we set out to find it.

Unlike the other hotels in the neighborhood, Hotel Ataco actually exists. Not only does it exist, it’s lovely and homey: the rooms are clean and spacious, hot water is plentiful, the beds are comfortable, there are several sitting areas as well as a nice little garden, an excellent breakfast is included, and it’s very, very quiet. In general, cities are very loud in Central America; Guatemala is loud even in small towns (viz. the night in Santa Cruz del Quiche when we were awakened at three a.m. by a truck unloading tomatoes right below our window, and right in front of signs stating “No Parking” and “No Loading or Unloading of Cargo”), so a quiet city hotel is like an oasis in the desert. As if all these attractions weren’t enough, there is also a small salon attached to the hotel for personal repair.

As Henry has described, we spent the next day as cultural tourists: First, the very excellent MARTE, then the Guzmán Anthropological Museum. Lunch, then the Mercado Nacional de Artesanías, followed by the Galerías mall, which was built around a stately historic house (now gutted and inhabited mostly by Starbucks). Dinner at the same Taiwanese restaurant we had eaten at the night before, because it’s the first time in yonks we’d eaten anything non-local, and besides, it was great. I had the arroz pegazado.

Henry has described the following day of Rocinante maintenance; I took advantage of the salon and had three months of road scrubbed off my skin. Our plan was to leave in the morning, but Henry woke up with a runny nose and stuffed-up sinuses, clearly unfit to travel. Joe and I hung around and relaxed. The next day, the same, with the addition of a pounding headache on my part and an age-appropriate surly restlessness on Joe’s.

By nightfall, we were chomping at the bit. No matter how pleasant the hotel and how solicitous the hosts (as in this case: tea, soup, a trustworthy mechanic), when you’re in traveling mode, you need to keep moving. In the morning, we packed up and hit the road.

We headed directly east and got out of San Salvador easily, stopping only once for Mexican-style popsicles. (I chose green mango flavor; Joe chile-cucumber; and Henry chili-lime.) The road, interrupted by the city, turned back into the Pan-American highway, CA-1. CA-1 varies from a US-style four-lane divided highway to a two-lane lace of ruts and potholes, and everything in between. It was about noon, and we were tooling merrily along on a four-lane divided section with concrete barriers on both sides when a loud crashing sound emanated from the rear left of the car. Henry slowed to a halt, put on the hazards, and opened the door to check. Yes, we had a flat tire. What’s more, it was a new used tire we had bought in Honduras to replace the previous tire which had been damaged on the road from hell.)

I mentioned that there is a wide variety of road on CA-1; by far the majority of the road is open access, lined with wide shoulders, and easy to pull off of. Not here, of course–not content to do it the easy way, our flat tire happened on one of the few lengths of road where there was no way to get out of traffic for at leasts a half a kilometer. We debated driving on the flat, but as anyone who has passed driver’s ed knows, that’s a bad idea. So, figuring that they would be more effective than those little orange hazard triangles, we set our brightest, most colorful suitcases out as barriers. Henry set to work releasing the spare tire from the undercarriage, while I provided shade with an umbrella and kept an eye on the oncoming traffic.

One thing about drivers in CA: they pay attention to the road. Unlike the States, you seldom see people texting or talking on the phone or eating while driving. Because rules and signs are regarded as suggestions, traffic is not predictable. Therefore, driving is a cooperative, rather than competitive, endeavor; drivers are constantly watching each other and puzzling out the best way to proceed. If an oncoming car is passing and heading straight towards you, you move a little to the right, the car being passed moves to the right, and then there’s plenty of room in the middle. Nobody barrels through intersections; they slow down and honk a little to advertise their presence. I felt a lot more confident that drivers would see us standing on CA-1 than I would have on any freeway at home.

After a bit, a guy walking by hopped over the concrete barrier and came over to help. Soon thereafter, a police truck pulled up, lights flashing. Three uniformed (and, as always here, heavily armed) policemen got out. Everyone admired our tire, which was not just punctured–it was shredded. Strips of rubber and steel belting hung off it like fringe. One of the policemen retrieved the jack from their truck to boost the van higher than ours could. Another kept watch on the traffic. The third chatted in English with me and Joe; it turned out he had lived in the US for a couple of years. With all the assistance, the spare tire was installed in no time, and everybody helped cram the luggage and tools back into the van.

The chatty policeman started to describe the location of a nearby llantería (tire shop), but, obviously picturing us wandering helplessly about the countryside on our tiny spare tire, interrupted himself with instructions to follow them. We all climbed back into our vehicles and they set off at a stately pace–so, for the second time in a week, we found ourselves trailing behind a Salvadoran police truck.

They led us past a couple of roadside tire stands to a small but very well-organized shop with a smiling and efficient proprietor. After examining all the possibilities, the owner, Henry, and the three policemen agreed on the best tire for the job, and the price was lowered from the $35 on the tag to $30. The fact that the tires here were, unlike almost anywhere else in CA, labeled with prices, and reasonable ones, was a huge point in its favor. The police ascertained that everyone was happy, shook all our hands and wished us happy travels, jumped in their truck, and roared away. The tire shop owner and his assistant, meanwhile, double-checked the new tire, prepped it thoroughly, installed it, checked and cleaned the spare, reinstalled it, and saw us off with smiles. And we were, once again, on our way.

(Yesterday, one of the employees where we are currently staying, the Azul Surf Club, pointed out that yet another tire was flat. This is the fourth flat we’ve had so far, all on different tires. The last time before that I had a flat tire was 25 years ago.)