El Salvador II – Santa Ana and surroundings

Busing in and out of Salvadorian towns is a mind opening experience. The chicken buses are not as fancy as in Guatemala but, once you have managed to secure your big backpack and cosily sat or stood next to a lady who is twice your size, you realise how full of life the bus is. You can’t help but to compare the continuous buzz, animated chats and laughter with the Western, monotonously quiet, face-on-the-phone public transport. Despite the poverty level, it makes you wonder who has richer lives.

Did we say that Salvadorians are nice? Even in buses they started random conversations with us and gave us advice on things to do and visit. Driving the 500m street where the market is located took us 20min, and a minimum of 20 street vendors got on and off the bus offering from frescos (fresh juices), to fruit, icecreams, chicken & chips, chewing gum, plantain chips, nuts, toothpaste, antifungal cream, newspapers, waterproof sealants, rat poison, arthritis medicine, vitamins, socks, batteries and torches (yes, we took notes).

Salvadorian currency is the American dollar but we kept wondering what the meaning of “cora” was when they shout the prices of things (2 coras! 2 coras!). A local cleared things up for us when she explained that a cora is 25 cents, basically a spanified pronunciation of quarter.

We picked Santa Ana as our base for the next 5 days. The reason was its proximity to the Volcano Ilametepec and Lake Coatepeque we wanted to explore but also the amazing reviews of the Casa Verde hostel. We don’t normally talk about businesses on our blog but this spot is worth mentioning as it has been, by far, the best place we have stayed in the entire trip so far (considering our max $15pp budget for accommodation). The owner, Carlos, just goes out of his way to make your stay a pleasure. Free coffee beans to grind, fresh avocados from his family farm, fresh-made popcorn brought to us while we were watching a movie in the TV room or even offering us his own car for rent because the rental company didn’t have any available on the day we needed it are just some examples of his hospitality… thanks Carlos!

And finally some adventure. With travelmates Dori & Andrew,  we headed to the base of Volcan Ilametepec (aka Santa Ana) where the police decides every day if the weather conditions are suitable for the hike. The cloudy sky and dense fog wasn’t inviting and we were close to take the bus back to Santa Ana…

… but we decided to risk it and stay for the police verdict… and it paid off! The walk to the top was done at a quick pace to reduce the risk of rain turning us back… but the police guys confesed that it was their favourite way to stay fit as well. When we got to the top the sky cleared up and the impressive views of the turquoise boiling waters appeared from the bottom of the crater.

At 2,387m. it’s not the highest volcano we’ve hiked but definitely one of the prettiest. Its last eruption took place in 2005, making the crater sink deeper and, with a circumference of 2km, the echo was lots of fun to play with, it kept bouncing around and around.

The day ended up being so clear that we could also see the Coatepeque lake!

Back to Santa Ana, a catalan girl told us about a free concert (es gratis, no?) at the national theatre. Carlos gave us a lift there to make sure we got a spot, and we enjoyed 4 pieces from this German string quartet. So there you go, a classical music concert every few hikes is not bad!

After a day resting at the hostel, we took Carlos’ car with Dori and headed for a daytrip to Suchitoto, a charming colonial town north east of San Salvador where locals spend their weekends.

This town was the only one that wasn’t devastated during the civil war because both sides agreed that it was worth saving. We visited the market,  found the local cornflour mill, we ate more pupusas and wandered the streets.

5kms down the road there’s the Embalse Cerro Grande, a pretty, green landscape where Suchitoto locals escape to when the people from the city visit their town.

After lunch we headed to Santa Tecla, a popular suburb in the outskirts of San Salvador with a pedestrian avenue packed with food stalls and artisanal markets. We felt really lucky to see these couple of local destinations in a single day (it wouldn’t have been possible without a car), and driving around and finding our way with screenshots from google maps was just fun.

When we couldn’t justify more time to be spent at casa verde we decided to pack and head towards Honduras with Dori, our travel buddy in El Salvador. Ahead of us was a double border crossing (back through Guatemala to enter Honduras) in order to get to Copan Ruinas, the last Mayan ruins to be visited in our trip.

We’ll tell you all about it in our next post!

El Salvador I – Ruta de los Flores

El Salvador was another unexpected addition to our itinerary until we heard some glowing reports from other travellers and friends (thanks Janis & Florian! – www.blog.michellod.de). It’s the country home to the infamous gangs “Las Maras” and like in Guatemala, the first half of the newspaper seems to be full of reports about recent murders and gun fights etc which had us a little worried. However, true to what we heard from other travellers, it really is a beautiful place and more than anywhere we’ve been so far the people were welcoming, friendly and would go out of their way to help us.

Our first destination in El Salvador was La Ruta de Los Flores (the Flower Route) and in particular a little town called, Juayúa, which is famous for its weekend food fairs. The central square transforms every weekend with food and drinks stalls, a throng of people and entertainment in the form of a Latino singer.

Parque Central Juayúa

Snowcone machines Central American style!

We sampled a variety of interesting local cuisine including grilled frog, beef fajitas, nuegados (fried cassava in syrup), horchata that tasted like peanuts and chicha, a local alcoholic drink made of fermented rice and fruits.

Grilled frog anyone?? It was surprisingly good, and tasted kind of like rabbit.

Xavi made some local friends at a bar and after chatting with them for a while about local traditions, wanted to shout them a round of the local shot (chaparrón, made of fermented corn). The bar had run out and, imagine how nice they are, one of them went to his house in the rain just to get his bottle for us to try!

The following day we headed out to the local waterfalls for a sort of abseiling / swimming trip. As we walked trough coffee plantations, the guide, Carlos, explained details of work on the coffee fincas, $4/100Lb for collecting (2 sacks max per day) and $56 in 2-3 weeks for pruning the wind blocking trees – tough and dangerous work!! He also encouraged us to try guamita (or paterna) beans from the tree, a perfect snack for the road.

Learning about the coffee plantation work

Guamita pods

The best part was the waterfall at the end, Los Chorros de la Calera, where we had a swim and then also walked/swam through some tunnels that connected through the rocks to another waterfall. Inside it was pitch black, with little room to breath and a slight current in the water pushing us to the other side (you wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic!).

No waterfalls can be left unconquered!!

Here we were also introduced to the El Salvadorean specialty, pupusas, which are a corn tortilla pocket filled with all sorts of interesting fillings although the basic ones are usually pork crackling and cheese or beans. We made a point of trying as many places as possible and our final verdict for the tastiest went with Doña Cony’s! (el nom en català no sona tan recomanable!), Mrs Cony even allowed us to get our hands dirty and prepare a couple of pupusas ourselves.

The next stop on the Ruta de Los Flores was Concepción de Ataco, a quiet little town with very colourful wall murals. The murals all have a social content, promoting the values and culture of the town, children’s rights, environmental conservation, gender equity etc.

A sight we’ve seen in many small Central American towns…drunks passed out on the footpath in the middle of the day (usually pay day)…it’s a shame alcohol is so cheap

Our last stop on la Ruta de Los Flores was Tacuba to visit El Parque Nacional el Impossible (The Impossible National Park) named due to the treacherous nature of crossing it (many donkeys and villagers fell to their deaths in a gorge!). However luckily for us, the government made the impossible possible by building some roads to make it accessible.

We ventured into the national park on a tour to Las Siete Cascadas, starting at a point about 40mins by 4WD from Tacuba. To get to the river, we walked along very thin trails cut by machete, passing armadillo holes and trees with the guam seed pods (or guamita). Once at the first jump point, the guide tossed a rock into the water to show us where to jump and then the fun began. One was particularly scary because he told us to jump out and then bend the knees upon entering the water because it wasn’t so deep (loving the safety standards of Central America!!)! He then walked down the edge of the slope and didn’t jump…

We stopped for lunch in a beautiful spot at the top of the highest jump. Some farmers still have coffee and corn fields in the National Park, the government tried to buy it back to extend the park but some didn’t accept so they are allowed to stay on the condition they don’t cut back too many trees (or more than necessary) – still they look like big bare scars on the side of a beautiful green mountain! It’s a very steep & dangerous place to be sowing corn but apparently it delivers the best corn due to the fertility of the soil.

We continued our quest for the best pupusas here too and while they didn’t beat Doña Cony’s, we did get entertainment from next door, an evangelical church with loud karaoke style bad singing into microphones!! We also made an excellent discovery at the local bakery…Budin!! Essentially a bread and butter pudding – it was amazing!! So good, it got our return business the next day to stock up for the bus ride to Santa Ana!!

It’s been a week since the last volcano climb, so time for another one!

Hope all is well with everyone, sending big hugs your way!