Planning a trip to Metapan
Visitor Information
Metapán Tourism Office (tel. 503/2402-3123; metapanturistico@hotmail.com) is located on the southwestern corner of the plaza and is open Tuesday to Saturday 8am to 5pm and Sunday 8am to noon. The staff has limited English, but is very enthusiastic and will help book accommodation and transportation in the surrounding area. There's a Scotiabank (tel. 503/2402-0039) at Avenida Ignacio Gómez, with a 24-hour ATM. The Hospital Nacional Metapán Arturo Morales (tel. 503/2442-0184) is on Carretera Principal, 400m (1,312 ft.) south of the town's entrance. For Internet access, head to Ciber Café (tel. 503/2442-4029) on 2 Av. Sur.
Border Crossing
The Guatemalan border is a 30-minute ride north of Metapán. Buses leave every 30 minutes to the border crossing at Ahguiatú and cost 50¢. The immigration office is open 24 hours, and it costs nothing to leave El Salvador or enter Guatemala. Here, you can catch a 1-hour bus ride to Chiquimula with onward connections to Guatemala City and Copa Ruinas in Honduras.
If you have the time, and the stomach, you can cross into Honduras via the border town of Citala-El Poy, 3 hours east of Metapán. There are only two buses daily at 5am and noon, and the trip costs $2. The trip is spectacular as you cross the mountains on an unpaved road, driving through dense forests and over high ridges, but it is not for the fainthearted, as the bus is old and rickety and the precipices high and vertigo-inducing. The border crossing is open 24 hours, and there is a charge of $3 to enter Honduras.
Getting There
Buses to and from Metapán connect at Santa Ana's Metrocentro terminal with onward connections to San Salvador. The town's rudimentary bus depot is located next to the Hotel San José on the main highway and the entrance into the town center, which is a 5-minute walk downhill. Here, you can catch local buses every 30 minutes to the Guatemalan border crossing at Anguiatú or a twice-daily bus to the Honduran border at Citalá, which is a rough-and-tumble 3-hour drive, but with memorable mountain scenery.
The entrance to Parque Montecristo is approximately 16km (10 miles) and a 40-minute drive north of Metapán. Buses don't run to the park, but you can arrange transportation at the bus depot, where you'll find numerous pickup trucks waiting to take you to the park. A 1-day round-trip pickup ride is about $55. Note: There is no point attempting this without a park permit acquired in San Salvador. The park's offices are located at the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Km 5.5 Carretera a Santa Tecla, Calle and Colonia Las Mercedes, Bldg. MARN No. 2, San Salvador; tel. 503/2267-6276; www.marn.gob.sv). The process takes an hour and costs $6 for the entrance fee and $1.15 per vehicle.
To get to Lago de Güija from Metapán, take bus no. 235 (25¢), which leaves about every 10 minutes from the bust terminal. Tell the driver "Lago de Güija," and you'll get off about 5 blocks from the lake, beside a small, bright-blue building and a sign reading PLAYA TURISTA with an arrow pointing to a road on the right. Follow that road to the lake.
If you're driving, turn left out of the Hotel San Jose and for about 10 minutes until you see the PLAYA TURISTA sign. Turn right and follow the road to the water. The pickups that take travelers to Parque Monticristo also run the route to the lake for $10 each way.
