Don't trust the *** front desk

When I travel for fun, I rarely book any hotel or activity ahead of time. Adventure is just more fun and sometimes getting lost leads to great surprises. However when I travel for work, my hotel is pre booked, and luckily, it's usually a very nice hotel.  But staying in a nice hotel doesn't meant I cannot get my adventure, unless I follow the front desk's advice, that's usually when all goes wrong, in my opinion.


So why did I go to the front desk for advice while in Salvador? I am not sure. Maybe I had overtired and not thinking straight. Perhaps also because my Spanish is really limited and it was already 1 pm and I was leaving the next day at 5:30 am. It just seemed like they would know how we could hit a few fun spots in about 12 hours of time. Yeah I know that left me about 4 hours of sleep but I was ok with it.

Unfortunately the front desk promised us a hike to the Santa Ana volcano, which not only we could barely see, but we couldn't hike to. The guide explained to us that the only tour was at 11 am. We were also promised a walk around the lac, but instead we were brought to the lookout of the lac, so yes we saw it, but from super far. And all of that took 4 hours we could have spent at the beach sipping on margaritas.
Our faces when we realized that the front desk had totally misguided us!
the little we could see of Sant Ana
how close we got to Coatepeque lac 

Fortunately both Samantha and I had seen volcanos before and have hiked around beautiful lacs, so our disappointment wore off a bit when we were able to find our way to the cutest fishing little town just on time for an amazing sunset.


After that, we even got our dose of adventure by riding the local bus from Puerto de Libertad to Tunco, a short but very intense 15 minute ride where a man let people in and out by manually opening and closing the door while the bus was still in motion, banging on the bus for it to either slow down or pick up speed. We truly thought we might just go flying out of the door since we were standing so close to the exit.

Exhibit 1: the bus doorman
Exhibit 2: Samantha questioning my choice of  transportation

But we made it, and the cute surf town of El Tunco was well worth it. The fresh fish and m very tasty drink, which was fusion of a mojito and a Margarita, were the added bonus.
El Tunco

If we had not chosen to follow our gut instinct after the volcano fiasco, bye bye adventure. Salvador wouldn't have been that fun, so again don't  ever trust the front desk ...talk to the locals, get a map, and get lost a little ...

Who do you trust for good traveling advice?

Friends, Family, TripAdvisor or your gut?

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Read Articles

Joshua Tree: the perfect spot to DISCONNECT

Image
Joshua Tree has always been on my list and by always, I mean since last August when I moved to Cali and started mapping out mini adventures in my new home state. So I guess always might be an exaggeration, but I get a little anxious and impatient when it comes to traveling and exploring.  So after cancelling Joshua Tree in November because of an ear infection, and December being crazy busy, I was super hopeful for January. But my hopes were shattered, and Joshua Tree started to become more and more like a dream that would never come true.  Perhaps another person would have thought it wasn’t meant to be - but like i said before, when it comes to traveling, I am pretty tenacious. So finally on the last day of February, with much juggling of my work schedule and some crazy luck, I made it to Joshua Tree and woke up to this beautiful sunrise on the 1st day of March.  The perfect way to start the month, don’t you think?  We entered the park t...
Read more

Imagine dating your computer

Image
Saturday night I went to the theater and saw the movie " HER " by director Spike Jonze and I have to say, even though I liked the movie, it could have been better if someone had introduced us before hand. I could have made it better because we could have used stuff from my book . This is the part where you think I am super full of himself for saying that a Hollywood director should collaborate with me. You might even wonder: did she really write that and go back to read the paragraph again. Don't bother. I did. You didn't misread. But I promise I am not full of myself. I loved the movie. It was brilliant. If you don't know what I am talking about, here is a quick synopsis: a lonely almost divorced guy writes love letters for a living but cannot seem to communicate with the people around him. He then falls in love with his OS. Sadly OS is not some sort of code for Obnoxious Secretary, it is an operating system. The man falls in love with his computer, who ends ...
Read more

Rude or not?

A few weeks ago, a flight attendant working with me on a flight to India approached me and asked if she could ask me a personal question. "Sure," I replied. "Don't get me wrong, you are beautiful," she said. I remember thinking "wow it is starting really good - what will follow is going to be really bad." But it wasn't. She noticed I had acne and knew of a treatment to fix it. I laughed and told her to relax. Why would I be offended? I was thankful, and if you ever had acne, you can relate because you probably tried a million of creams and lotions, which all failed, so even a glimpse of  hope meant something. And that's exactly what Carmen gave me: HOPE. However when a stranger approached me yesterday with his business card and said to call him because he had something that would fix my skin, I was a little annoyed. I felt that it was out of place for a stranger to mention anything about my skin or anything else for that matter....
Read more