Saturday must be market day in Santa Ana, because our taxi stopped resolutely at a busy street corner. The implication was that we should get out, even though our destination was about a quarter mile up the road.

Vendor stalls, one on top of the next, stretched down the block as hawkers marketed their produce, coffee, and other essentials. A woman and her daughter churned through pupusas at a remarkable clip — the younger woman prepared the dough while her mother filled and grilled it. Shoes, socks, and t-shirts filled wooden boxes as grandmothers pulled their grandchildren through the throng of people.

We followed the stream of market-goers and ended up, somehow, at the bus station. Colorful school buses, some clearly imported from the United States, emblazoned with their destinations — San Salvador, La Unión, the Guatemalan border — dotted a somewhat empty parking lot, and we found our number, 210, a blue bus headed toward Ahuachapan.

It was far from full, but we paid our fare of about a dollar apiece and waited. The bus attendant, calling out to passersby, eventually signaled to the driver that we should go. It appeared no one else, save the three older men asleep in the rows around us, was headed to Ahuachapan just yet.

We took off, but our journey was delayed by the impassable market. Our bus honked and squeezed through narrow lanes that, on any other day, would have been easily navigable. Eventually we reached the interstate and began flying east. We carefully attended to our Google Maps, ensuring that we didn’t miss our first stop along the way, the archaeological ruins of Tazumal. Not technically a stop on the route, we planned to ask the driver to just let us off on the side of the road. He obliged, but not after lecturing us about the difference between a direct bus, like his, which doesn’t stop at random, versus a commuter bus that picks up passengers along the way. We tipped our hats and hopped off, heading down a suburban road toward the historic site.

Along the way, I found a cross-body bag that served me well for the rest of the trip. Just outside the entrance to Tazumal, we stopped in at a quiet restaurant and ordered fried yuca with chicharron, a Salvadoran delicacy. We listened to a couple from Iowa as they talked with their tour guide, and quickly ate our hearty snack.

Entering the site, official guides offer their cultural and historical insights — but we had no time to spare. We climbed up and down the stone steps of the temple and surrounding areas, often starting with the Spanish plaques before switching to the English in the interest of time… and convenience… and competence.

The site itself is fascinating and well preserved, with a curated museum too. After about half an hour, we decided it was time to continue on if we wanted to make our ambitious itinerary a reality. We headed back down the road toward the highway from earlier, hoping a bus would simply stop and let us on. Of course, had we remembered the driver’s lesson, we might have been less surprised as bus after bus passed us by, apparently the express route. After some time, we lucked out and caught a direct line to Concepción de Ataco, sparing us the connection we had expected to make in Ahuachapan.