This post was last updated in January 2023 with information from travellers. We did this trip in April 2018, and not much has changed since then. The busses and colectivos still stop in the same places, and even prices remained mostly stable. Thank you to everyone who left comments with new information!
After nine days in Honduras, Copan was our last stop. We had a great day here, exploring the Mayan ruins and observing macaws and toucans on Macaw Mountain. But eventually, the time came for us to leave and that’s when it got complicated.
We knew that we wanted to go to El Salvador next. Ideally, we would make our way from Copan to Santa Ana, but we were also prepared to stop in San Salvador since we knew transport was going to be difficult. There are regular tourist shuttles between Copan Ruinas and El Salvador, but they only leave three times a week, get cancelled often, are expensive and, and that was the main reason we didn’t take one, didn’t leave on the day we wanted to cross the border. So we didn’t have a choice but to do it on our own.
Fortunately, when asking for transport to El Salvador, we came across Josue. Josue was originally from Tegucigalpa but had lived in Copan Ruinas for the past years. He asked if we wanted to go together and we agreed because he seemed to know what he was doing
Not everyone is lucky enough to meet a guy like Josue, so in case you want to make the journey on your own, I have put together this guide for you. This is how we went from Copan to Santa Ana and I hope it can be useful for you.