When going from Santa Ana to El Tunco your best option is to route through San Salvador. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. Don’t worry, you don’t have to head all the way into the Terminal de Occidente – we know a shortcut.
First, in Santa Ana, you need to go to the Metrocentro and take a Red TUDO bus heading to San Salvador (a/c and a gory movie!). We can’t remember the price but it’s about $1.50 and takes about 1hr since it only makes 1 stop along the way.
As the driver to let you off at the Estación Ceiba de Guadalupe. This is basically a spot on the highway where almost all buses leaving the Terminal de Occidente will pass. Get off of the bus and cross the highway on the overhead walkway and on the other side wait for the 102A microbus going to Sunzal. (passing La Libertad and El Tunco along the way). This bus should pass every 20 minutes or so and if you’re scared you won’t see it, just tell a local that you are looking for it and they will help watch with you (Salvadorians are so helpful!).
Going to El Zonte? Here is what you do. Once you get to El Tunco, wait on the side of the highway for the 192 to pass and hop on for $0.25. El Zonte is about 15 minutes further down the road. ** Be sure that if you are headed to El Zonte you are leaving El Salvador before 4:30pm. The last bus passing between 5:30 and 6pm. Important: there is no ATM in Zonte.
I just did the Santa Ana to El Tunco route by bus today (Feb 3/26) as a solo female traveller. Felt very safe. Total trip took 3 hours from the time I got on the bus in Santa Ana until I walked into my hotel in El Tunco. Total cost was $4.30. Both buses had AC and were comfortable. The instructions from above are accurate. Tell Santa Ana driver you want off at Ceiba de Guadalupe, where lots of passengers will get off. I turned on my GPS once we got close to San Salvador to know when to get ready to disembark. Once off the 1st bus, walk back to pedestrian overpass, cross road on overpass, and then walk about 100m in the direction that the 1st bus was driving to get to where the 102A stops. I was lucky since it was there as I arrived so I had no wait time. Tell the 2nd driver you want off in El Tunco and once you get close, use GPS to know whether you want off at the 1st or 2nd El Tunco stop. Happy travels!
Can confirm this is still accurate! There are several tudo buses headed to San Salvador not just the red one. There was bad traffic due to roadworks which made first part of journey 2/2.5 hours but it was pretty comfy and cool. Second bus was harder to flag down but after asking a local where to stand it was fine. They weren’t stopping at the end of strip as suggested by another comment but more in the middle so I don’t know if there’s any reliability in where they stop!
Just did this route & it was $2 from Santa Ana to San Salvador and then $3 to El Tunco. The 102A was rather hard to flag down so definitely ask the locals to help (they’re all super kind!) and you ought to wait at the end of the bus stop, so right down at the bottom as opposed to the top of where the bus stops starts :). FYI another local said the 107 also goes to El Tunco, so if you struggle to get the 102A, try the 107!
We did the Santa Ana- San Salvador with TUDO bus yesterday and we paid only 1$ pp. There was no AC or a movie but it was the first one coming. Do note that it takes waaaay longer during rush hour.
A heads up my girlfriend and I just completed this route and the buses insisted we paid double because of our large rucksacks. It’s fair enough, but it may be worth noting on here. It was therefore $2 each from Santa Ana to San Salvador and $3 each from San Salvador to El Tunco.
Yeah we found that was a common thing in Nicaragua, I wouldn’t say it’s completely fair as all the locals have so much stuff they take on the bus but they don’t pay anything extra at all. I just think it’s a way of them extracting as much money from tourists as possible, I think it’s disgraceful
You’re a cottonheaded minimuggins and i think youre discraceful for thinking $2 is a lot. Grow up.
Im with oskar on this. You dumb cotton headed ninny muggins.
Go and make an island and charge tourists less and locals more. Then charge locals to use the toilet as well
Im with graham on this. Everyone this dumb old cotton headed ninny muggins is chiming up again! They should just charge everyone to go to the toilet if they are this stupid
Im with grey on this, flip over the eggs love
Def with the mini nuggets here