18 hours and 4 countries later

Spending one week in Belize and two in Guatemala when I only have 5 in Central America was always going to mean lots of long distance bus journeys at some point. That point is now. I write from Granada, in Nicaragua. To get here, I left Antigua, in Guatemala, at 4am, getting to Guatemala City for my 6.30am bus to San Salvador, in El Salvador, where I changed to the 12pm bus to Managua, in Nicaragua. As any of you with a world map will see, going from El Salvador to Nicaragua also means going through Honduras. That´s 3 whole border crossings in one day, and believe me, with corrupt officials that bribe westerners entering countries, and nurses that check you for swine flu, it´s not a whole lot of fun.

The bus was quite empty, and I was the only tourist on it until some others joined in Honduras. I chatted to a Nicaraguan girl (she can´t have been more than 21 yet had her 7 year old son with her) for most of the journey when I wasn´t watching Zoolander on my iTouch or sleeping. She was amazed that I was a) 30 b) not married and c) childless. The look of utter pity on her face when I told her I didn´t have children yet was a sight to behold!

Bus journeys of this sort are a rare opportunity to actually meet locals. The problem with Central America is that the capital cities, where the young, cool people are who would want to talk to backpackers and have some interest in us besides our money, are horrible places that you just can´t spend any time in, so we´re stuck in beautiful tourist towns and isolated beach or lakeside villages with amazing scenery but few locals. It´s not something that bothers me unduly right now, as South America beckons so soon, but it did get me thinking. I´ve met lots of female solo travellers that will happily talk to and go for a drink with local males on their own, with no intention of letting anything happen other than having a nice chat and practicing their Spanish, and they´ve all been fine, but for some reason doing that holds absolutely no appeal for me. I just can´t be bothered spending my time explaining where my boyfriend is and making things up in order to have a conversation. Machismo really does rule the world!

I´m going to the Isla de Ometepe tomorrow for a couple of days, and would be very surprised if there´s anything more than the most basic internet access available there, so probably no updates for a little while...