Jess and Stacey’s Travels

The 16 hour bus trip on King Quality bus line from Managua brought us through the north of Nicaragua, into Honduras, with a quick layover in San Salvador (El Salvador) and then onto Guatemala City.  We left Granada at 2:00am to get to the bus station in Managua by 2:30am and then left on the King Quality bus at 3:30am.  The bus service was really nice, with air-conditioning, reclining seats, meal service, and movies.  We splurged for “king class” without realizing it and so had the amenities.  (for travelers:  King Quality’s website is all done in Flash so it doesn’t appear when you Google it. (http://www.kingqualityca.com/)  If you’re making the trek from Nicaragua or countries south of there up to Guatemala, you don’t need to stay overnight in El Salvador like you do with Ticabus.) 

It was nice to travel during the day to see the countryside as we passed through each country.  San Salvador looked alot less initimidating than what we expected.  Our 45 minute layover there didn’t permit us to venture out.  But we left in a double decker bus to continue on to Guatemala allowing us to look at the city while we passed through.  We met a woman on the bus who spoke great English which came in handy for us because there was some confusion at the layover about who was suposed to get on which bus.  She was also traveling on to Guatemala and offered for her husband to drive us from the bus terminal to our hotel.  While we appreciated being taken under her wing, we had already arranged to be picked up by the woman, Gilda, who runs the bed-and-breakfast at which we are staying.  She will also take us to the bus station for us to continue on to Xela. That is 4 hours west of Guatemala City and the city in which we will take more Spanish classes.  Everyone tells us that the Spanish in Guatemala is easier to understand than that in Nicaragua.  In Nicaragua, they often cut off the ends of words and slur things a bit. 

Right now, we are enjoying the cool temperatures of Guatemala city and hanging out at the b&b studying Spanish.  Tomorrow we’ll head out to Xela.