Holy Week in...Tegus

Well, here's my version of events:
First of all, Justin forgot to mention our first screw-up: not getting bus tickets early enough. So we arrive at the bus station early on Saturday morning (the bus was set to leave at 6am..so we get there at like 5), only to be told that the tickets are booked through Tuesday. Yikes. So we quickly grab a taxi to another bus station (one that is more expensive), and they too are booked...but luckily only for Saturday. So we are kind of annoyed we woke up early for nothing, we have to spend another day in Tegus, we have to pay more money for the bus than we had thought, and Justin is especially annoyed because he was supposed to meet up with Nicole...but anyway we buy tickets for the next day (Sunday), and are on our way. Then, as Justin mentioned, everything was going just great (including getting a free Burger King breakfast on the bus...maybe this more expensive bus was actually worth it...) until we reach the border...and, well, you know the gist of what happened there, but I'll give my longer more dramatic version anyway.

Justin and I get the dreaded call that we need to get off the bus and get in that tiny cramped oven of a building where the immigration officers are already sweating and angry that they have to be working under such conditions, and then even angrier that ignorant people like Justin and I are trying to get into El Salvador with invalid visas. Well, as Justin said, they just told him he had to pay a fine, but they told me there was no way I was getting in. Apparently the problem was that I had just switched my visa type from "tourist" to "missionary" (remember I had to spend five hours in immigration in Tegus last Monday and do that), but I didn't actually have that official documentation yet -- I am supposed to be getting it within 30 days, and right now I just have a temporary paper of some sort. (For some reason they didn't make Kim or Justin switch their visa types...I still can't figure out why they wanted me to switch mine when I'm leaving in June.) Anyway, beside the point. So I'm trying to argue with this guy to let me in -- but who am I kidding, I have no idea what the immigration laws around here are! So I'm frantically trying to get ahold of the lawyer (not picking up her phone), while the bus driver is telling me to go get my stuff from the bus. So I go get my stuff (and Kim, who thinks I'm kidding when I tell her I can't get in), and, horrified, watch the bus roll away without me. So I keep trying to call the lawyer (not sure why, because it's too late now), and finally she picks up. Then she starts convincing me that I should be fine to go into El Salvador. Ok, don't argue with me, I agree with you. So I sneak back in the immigration hut and...this is where the whole fiasco might have been worth it...tell the immigration guy, "Here, talk to my lawyer." So getting to say that was pretty great. Not effective in the end, but still pretty great.

So they talk on the phone for like 15 minutes (meanwhile people in the forever long line are starting to look pretty angry at me), and, as I understood it, the immigration guy is telling the lawyer the problem is not me leaving Honduras, but getting into El Salvador (which doesn't make sense, because these immigration people are just the people stamping my leaving Honduras -- they have nothing to do with El Salvador). So I guess this guy didn't want me to leave because he didn't think they would let me in once I got to the El Salvador officials. So he hands the phone back to me and the lawyer explains this to me and is like, "You shouldn't have any problem once you get there I don't think...I don't know why this guy thinks you will." And I'm like, "Well, okay, that doesn't help me." And she's like, "Vaya!" In other words, "Just go in anyway...you'll be fine." Yeah, okay. Now that the bus has peaced out I'll just figure out some other way to get to San Salvador and then Guatemala. I'll be right there. (Although, after hearing what Justin did to get back in Honduras, I guess that actually could've been a valid option.)

So we are sitting there stranded at the border trying to come up with some sort of a plan...meanwhile we sit down on a bench where creepy guys are starting to stare at us and invite us to come in their comedores (little restaurants). Now, the bus driver had told us we could wait at the border until the other bus was on its way back from Costa Rica "sometime later tonight -- we actually have no idea what time" (keep in mind it's like 10am), but as we're sitting there this option is becoming increasingly less and less appealing (why is everyone staring at us? Haven't they ever seen a couple of white people stranded at the border before?). So we start to walk a little bit hoping we can maybe find a family to hitch back with (ok, this is looking like the less dangerous of the options), but then we happen upon a chicken bus heading back to Tegus and hop on. We make it back without any problems and go back to Justin's house where his grandparents can't believe they're seeing us again so soon (keep in mind this same thing happened yesterday when we came back after the bus was full). So Kim and I are thinking of other options -- we look into the beach, but, as Justin said, eeeeveryone goes to the beach. So everything is completely full everywhere we look...finally we settle on the Copan Ruins and find a hotel in another little town about an hour or so away from there (the guidebook: 'something must have gone wrong for you to end up in this town, so you might as well treat yourself to this hotel'), and we reserve it and call the bus station to figure out when it leaves the next day. Well, they tell me it leaves every hour on the hour, but when we get to the bus station the next day they tell me it won't leave until 1 (meaning we wouldn't be able to make the other bus to this other random city we are staying in).

Long story short -- after almost getting on another bus to San Pedro Sula in hopes of connecting with another one there -- we finally decide to cut our losses and hole up in the Hotel Honduras Maya in Tegus for the week (the same one my dad and Jordan stayed at). I mean, at that point I had planned two vacations that didn't happen, was still angry about not getting into El Salvador, and just wanted to lay by the pool. So that's what we did all week...and, even though I was a little disappointed about not being able to go to Guatemala (especially since this time I thought I had planned everything so well and had figured out all the buses we needed to take and reserved hotels) I really can't complain about a vacation spent laying by the pool. Plus the hotel was having a special discount on rooms since no one in their right mind goes to Tegus for vacation during Semana Santa. We did try a day trip to Valle de Angeles -- but almost died in the taxi on the way back (it started pouring really hard and hailing and suddenly the taxi was in a flood up till the tops of the tires...stuck halfway up a hill in the middle of an intersection. He tried to back up but crashed into a bus...then the taxista yelled at the bus driver to push us with his bus the rest of the way up the hill, which actually sort of worked. Then the taxista dropped us off downtown -- we had unknowingly gotten into a collectivo -- a taxi with a designated route -- and we ran around in the rain like chickens with our heads cut off until we found another taxi. Eventually we made it back to our hotel looking like drowned rats. After that we decided not to leave the hotel again except to eat.) So, all in all, not quite what I had expected (although when have things in Honduras ever been?), but fun and, well, adventurous, just the same. And, as Justin's grandma here says, "Regresa a la realidad manana." Back to reality tomorrow.