That Gut Feeling

Off to San Salvador we go, not sure what we'd make of the seventh most dangerous city in the world, but we do it anyway. Researching the area ahead of time, we knew what areas were fine and what areas to avoid, and found ourselves a home stay. It was cheap, the room was okay, and we shared the house with three cute dogs and two other people. One only spoke Spanish and mostly kept to himself, but the girl was sociable and quite fun, often suggesting where to go and what to do. Bicentennial Park was a great place to escape the city, which was the first place she recommended, but we'd already spent so much time in nature, we were looking to see the city like really see it. Not realizing at the time that we definitely would.

After checking out a little of the city centre, we hopped on the bus they told us to get back to the house; it was the correct bus number and it was going in the right direction… or so we thought. It turned and drove and then turned again, each time moving further away from our destination. "Maybe it will turn back soon…" we thought. Unfortunately it never did, and we slowly ended up moving closer and closer to the east of the city - the part you don'tgo.The whole time we were thinking, well we can't get off the bus now, we don't know where we are, or weather it is a good or not so great neighborhood! So we finally thought, we will stay on the bus until it turns around and ride it back, makes sense, right?

Wrong.

The bus soon drove through a very questionable looking neighborhood, pulled into a parking lot with several other buses, before the driver turned it off and exited. Our hearts were racing, our Spanish was not great, and we were nervous. I went to the driver and frantically told him in broken Spanish that we'd gotten on the wrong bus and need to go back on the same route but the other way. The driver was not very happy and told us to follow him while he talked out loud the whole time. We are not exactly sure what he was saying but some swear words and mumbles of 'Gringo' were heard quite clearly.

As we followed the irritated driver down the street, everyone was looking at us with rather unfriendly glares; we wanted to get out of there asap! Two young men gave us a funny look as they passed us walking the opposite direction before the driver brought us to another bus. After the drivers spoke for a moment, the new driver mentioned for us to hop in the back door so we wouldn't have to pay, this was a nice treat, given the mistake had be ours to begin with. Just before the bus left, the two men from earlier boarded the bus and sat across the aisle from us, there was nobody else on board. Mark looked at me and me at him and the bus started driving, the two men turned to look at us and Mark said: "Lets move to the front of the bus". No sooner than we moved near the driver, the two men got off the bus.

I'm not sure what they wanted - if anything at all - but I do know that gut feeling of something is wrong with this picture, and something definitely was wrong. After another hour, we finally ended up getting back to our place and celebrated with a cold beer. While everything turned out fine, it was definitely a good reminder to be sure of your surroundings while visiting a new place. San Salvador is actually a really great city, and aside from our own little mistake, we never felt uncomfortable the entire time we were there.