It was January 24th and Sarah and I had a big problem; it was nearly a whole three weeks since we had last seen the ocean and lazed about on a beach!! We needed to take drastic action, so the morning after the Juayua food festival we hopped on three consecutive chicken buses to make it to Playa El Tunco on the Pacific coast. I forgot to mention in my previous blog but the buses are subsidised by the government so you usually never pay more than a $1 (USD is the currency of El Salvador) to get from A to B. The pacific stretch and especially Playa El Tunco is probably the one place that you will be guaranteed to see a good few tourists, most of them wanting to surf or improve their tan while taking in a fiesta or two.
The majority of beaches along the coast have black sand as a result of the many lava flows that hit the sea from nearby volcanoes so it’s not your typical postcard beach but the black sand and rocky outcrop just off El Tunco beach makes for a beautiful sunset as you can see from our photos below.
Amazing Sunset at Playa El Tunco
One of the highlights of our time in El Tunco was watching ‘El Classico’ between Real Madrid and Barcelona. Our hostel/bar appeared to be a popular hang-out for the locals and San Salvadorians so come game time the place was buzzing. Along with about 50 spectators there were about 6/7 police officers, pretty much the entire El Tunco police force! I’m sure they justified their presence there to a crowd control issue but I didn’t see any of them take their eyes off the game :-)
El Classico, police in the back keeping an eye out for some crime!
Aside from eating some great seafood in many of the ocean side restaurants we spent the majority of our time there relaxing on the beach or lounging in the hostel pool. We left Playa El Tunco having made some new El Salvadorian friends at El Classico and with the terrifying knowledge that it would be almost another three weeks before we would experience the beach life again, this time in the tranquil San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua.
The night after El Classico it was time again for another 3 consecutive chicken buses working our way south towards the Honduran border. Our next stop was to be the mountain town of Alegria, the highest town in El Salvador. Unfortunately none of two hostels had any space so we stayed in the nearby town of Berlin for the first night and got the early bus the next morning.
El Mirador (view) from Alegria town
There was a bit of a lost in translation moment in the nicer of the two hostels in Alegria and we thought the owner said a few people had decided to stay longer so there would be no spare rooms till tomorrow but what he actually said was that they were taking long to check out and would be out later in the day. However, we didn’t realise this until later when we went there for lunch and saw the ‘Swiss United Church of Christ’ group checking out. This holy group of Americans were building a house for the poor nearby and we had the usual American with Irish ancestor’s meets Irish person conversation which goes something like this (I’m sure everyone has had this before but just in case you forgot how the conversation goes here is a short recap);
Loud American from the Northeast or Chicago (LAFTNOC): Oh my god you’re Irish! That’s awesome!!!!
Sarah and I (SAI): Yes we are (Deep sigh knowing the inevitable conversation that is coming as we have had it about a 100 times in the last six months)
(LAFTNOC): I’m Irish!!
(SAI): Oh really : )
(LAFTNOC): Yeah my great grandmother is from Ireland.
(SAI): (Pretending to appear interested) Oh that’s great, what part?
(LAFTNOC): Cork (Note: It’s always somewhere in the West)
(SAI): What’s their surname?
(LAFTNOC): Oh, I think it was O’ Shannon(han) or something like that
(SAI): Oh sorry don’t know anyone by that name.
(LAFTNOC): I always wanted to visit Ireland!!!
(SAI): Yeah it’s beautiful, you really should (Sarah and I look to each other for help out of this Groundhog Day moment)
(LAFTNOC): I really like Guinness and Jameson, what’s the name of that other Whiskey?
(SAI): Yeah we need to go now, nice meeting you (Sarah and I throw money at the waiter and run out of the only place in town to relax and hide back in our hostel room listening cautiously for someone saying “Awesome!!!” nearby)
In the meantime we checked into the less well reviewed La Palma for the night while awaiting the clearly better Entrepiedras hostel. Full of quirky antiques (see the photo below for their collection of 20th century electronics) and statues of animals it seemed like a pleasant enough place. She led us upstairs to two rooms and after opening the doors a flood of smoke came flying out with an odd smell. She casually says “we are fumigating the rooms”. I’m thinking is this one off her rocker or what! “Yeah but this isn’t our room is it?!” I say hopefully… “Oh yeah it’s fine” she says in the casual way that any crazy would put it. “Is it safe?” “Of course” she says. Seeing as these were the only rooms in town we took the room and left the doors and windows open and headed for a long walk about town to let the fumigation take its course. What they were fumigating, we were afraid to ask but in the end we lived and it was a good night’s sleep (we were probably high on some kind of fumes!!). Also, whenever I told her that the internet wasn’t working, she would point at the router and say “it’s good internet” while walking away. In the end I just had to connect everything up again myself knowing that some nephew must have put it in for her and that’s as far as she knew about the internet.
The La Palma Time Machine. Such a random pile of electronics, ya gotta love it!
A couple of days in we took the advice of the hostel owner and did the Laguna de Alegria hike and crater swim, a hot spring fed Sulphur Lake. For an all day hike with one the best guides (Walter) ever, the $5 price was cracking value. The previous day we had read another blog about the hike taken by another couple. It didn’t give us a great sense of security as they had gotten lost for 7 hours with a guide also from our hostel. If you want you can read about their over dramatic adventure here. The first 30 minutes of the uphill hike was Walter filling the two of us in on what animals were deadly that we might meet on the hike; scorpions, snakes, spiders etc. Once at the top we took in the surrounding view and started the real hike which was along the ridge of the mountain that eventually led down to the Laguna itself.
At the top, but it was only the start of the hike. (I think I wear this blue shirt for every hike, it's in every photo!)
At some points there were sheer drops all around us and the only way forward was to jump to the next boulder and keep faith that Walter knew what he was doing. Fortunately it was only the three of us as a lot of the jumps/navigation were a bit, shall we say, above Sarah’s height ability so she needed Walter below to catch her :-) Walter told us one time that he had to carry a girl half the way as she had injured her foot. After I asked how big she was he said with a massive grin “she was tiny thank god.”
Walter helping Sarah navigate the tricky mountain ridge, note the drop to the lake just behind Walter
About halfway we took a break at an overhanging rock point and Walter started telling us about his love of country music and started to sing some of his favourite country songs, I only wish I had the video on for it. He gave a few local bands to find on YouTube when we got back to the hostel as well.
View from top of Alegria mountain ridge
We also took the some time out to give the machete a go, after months of seeing kids to grandparents carying them around it was time to see what all the fuss was about! Practicality or not, it's fun to hack a tree to death, mwah ha ha ha (evil laugh)
Sarah giving the machete a go
The ridge finally started to descend so we took a swim in the freezing (we thought it would have been warm) sulphur lake that we had all to ourselves. It was another 2km walk back to town where the three of us celebrated a good day with a round of Golden beers! We told Walter about the backpackers that had gotten lost on the same hike recently and he said that the guy serving our drinks (Tulio, the hostel owner’s son) was the guide that day and he isn’t the greatest navigator. When we showed him the video they put up on their blog he laughed knowing that Tulio had made a few major accidental detours into the jungle.
The crater lake we swam in, no extra limbs growing yet. Success!
One of the nights we had dinner in a deserted restaurant and a mariachi band started to walk towards us (well we were the only people there!) so I took the opportunity to pay the bill and abandon Sarah : ) This time in Alegria we ended up staying an extra night than planned as Sarah was sick (maybe from the Sulphur Lake) before starting the marathon journey to Nicaragua.
The journey was to start at 6am and end about 13 hours later after about 7/8 chicken buses and 3 rickshaws. After a couple of buses in El Salvador and an hour of trying to find a working ATM (we only realised the night before that Nicaragua’s entry fee was about $15 each, the heftiest in Central America) our bus arrived at the Honduran border. About 15 guys started jumping on before the bus had even stopped and tried to grab our bags so we would go on their rickshaws. Among the confusion they also tried to pick pocket us but knowing how crazy border towns were we had everything hidden so no harm done. At the Nicaraguan border the tip-only rickshaw guy tried to charge us $26 for the ride because he had to wait for immigration (something he knew he had to do) and because $26 isn’t much in Nicaragua! (Bullshit) By the way, $26 was more than what the entire days travel across 3 countries was costing us! I left $2 on the rickshaw and promptly told him to fuck off along with a few other choice words (Screw politeness this guy was trying to rip us off so much it wasn’t funny and after attempted robberies, several long chicken buses and corrupt immigration officials it was not good timing for him to try his luck).
Anyway……2 buses and 1 rickshaw later we were in Leon, Nicaragua, home to the only place in the world where you can board down a volcano at speeds of up to 90km/h!!! But that and other activities will have to wait for the next blog which I hope to get out before we board Fritz the Cat, a catamaran, for a five day trip from Panama to Colombia which we will be getting in 2 weeks (22nd March). El Salvador is on a par with Guatemala for our favourite country, there is so much to do and see and the people are funny, friendly and are eager to show you the best of their great country.
Just thought I'd mention, as I write this blog in the garden of our hostel in Panama a hilarious old New York couple (in their 70's) are telling us about how they recently tried smoking opium in a Thai jungle. As they have being drinking all day at the pool and the wife is right now threatning to beat up some other guy staying here because he's "an asshole" I'm sure they will feature in a future blog post with a few more stories.
Don't get too excited, they didn't jump
Playa El Tunco Sunset
Playa El Tunco Sunset
Some friendly local chicos waving at Sarah
I'm starting to see where the problems with the Internet may have started
Despite its fumigated rooms and "good Internet", La Palma had some great views
And the award for weirdest town square statute goes to......ALEGRIA, for this disturbing figure
Murals of Alegria
View of Santiago De Maria from Alegria
Bullet holes from the civil war
Lantana camara-the Spanish flag flower. Given to Sarah by the guide. Hmmmm....
Laguna de Alegria
Sarah trying to tidy me up, as usual
Halfway there, Sarah and Walter
Mural of Monsenor Romero, his assassination helped kick off the civil war
Honey, pick up some dinner on the way home? Thanks!
The Mariachi band I abandoned Sarah with, Mwa hahaha
Like so many of its neighbouring countries El Salvador (The Saviour) has had an extremely turbulent past that is still fresh in the minds of most of its people. And it’s largely because of this very recent dark past that El Salvador is the least visited country by tourists (A lot of people travelling throughout Central America opt to bypass El Salvador by crossing through Honduras). Only in 1992 did a 12 year civil war that killed 75,000 finally end. However, from what we saw over the next three weeks it is fast becoming a great place to spend a significant portion of any Central America adventure and should not be bypassed. With about 2 million El Salvadorians living in the U.S. there is also a strong American influence throughout the country. For example, a NFL playoff game on at a local bar had most of the locals supporting the New York Giants! Why? It’s because nearly everyone there had a brother or other family member working in New York so this has a big impact on their culture which makes it completely different from any other Central American country.
Our hostel in Santa Ana was Casa Verde, run and owned by Carlos who was the friendliest host you could hope to have and this guy knew how to run a great hostel with everything you could want at hand. Santa Ana itself is nice and a safe place to explore during the day but come nightfall (7pm), every shop, bar and restaurant is closed. The only people on the streets are either the police or people getting searched by the police! After strolling through the markets and getting more banano liquados (banana smoothies), which we have been drinking way too much of since Copan, we headed back to the hostel and Carlos invited everyone to the first game of the season for the local team, Club Deportivo FAS.
Banano Liquado (smoothie) in a bag - our new addiction
He dropped us off at the 20,000 seater Estadio Óscar Quiteño, named after a goalkeeper who died after a free kick hit him in the chest while playing a match in the stadium in 1977. Carlos introduced us to his friend who was our “minder”(can’t remember his name) for the game, $3 tickets in hand we were put smack in the centre of the action beside the boisterous C.D. FAS fans while our “minder” went back to sit with his friends. I couldn’t blame him, who would want to hang out with the 5 gringos during a local football game! The game itself was a poorly played 1-1 draw but throughout the game the crowd were chanting song after song and going crazy for every decision and were up on the fences any chance they could get. At one point the riot police had had enough and came into the crowd and picked out a few ring leaders to beat the crap out of. They just took them to the back of the stands and started laying into them while one of the police continued to film the crowd. The only criminal act we could see him filming was the police beating up a few passionate fans. Chatting to the locals it seemed to be common enough so not to fret or as they would say ‘tranquillo’. The local lad also translated one of the catchy chants for us, the gist of which was that the police were gay! So that might explain why the riot police were eager to get the chance to beat up a few singers. A short video of the C.D. FAS fans:
Riot Police moments away from entering the hard core fan section of Club Deportivo FAS
At the game you could say we were more of an attraction than the game itself with several people asking for photos with us at the end and Moritz being nicknamed Leonardo Di Caprio and myself being called Moses. After we got a lift back in the pick-up to the hostel and we encouraged the others to stay on for an extra night to climb Santa Ana Volcan the next day. You might also like to check out this page to find out about the 'Football War' that took place in 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras.
Casa Verde Hostel crew at the game ( Sarah (England), Ariana (vagabond), Moritz (Switzerland) )
On a quick side note, I don’t think I have described what a chicken bus is yet in the blog so I will attempt to fill you all in now seen as we have been on at least a 100 of them and are a massive part of our travels. They are pimped out former U.S. school buses with a policy of bring whatever you want on e.g. chickens, hence the nickname. We have seen livestock, crates of fruit, a few hundred pounds of firewood and even a motorbike (don’t believe me, see picture below!) get crammed on with us and our rucksacks.The design and policy for the buses can change from region to region with some opting for a hi tech speaker system that will blow your ears off with Latino musica while others go for a crazy paint job with a spoiler attached at the back. They nearly all have a strong religious element though with many references to Cristo (Christ) and El Senor (The Lord). The bus often picks up evangelical preachers who will preach at the entire bus for up to 20 minutes at a time. You pick up random words such as redemption and diablo but we generally try and zone out, not so easy when they're roaring it at you! We have found Chicken Buses a lot more comfortable than the shuttle buses and with their relaxed capacity and baggage policies; you will always get on no matter the situation. If you are lost or unsure you can take comfort that a few locals will shout at you to get off when you arrive at your destination and throw your bag out the backdoor before you know where you are!
Liberal Policy - You can bring anything on to a chicken bus, even your motorbike like this guy did!!
Another great benefit of a chicken bus is that they allow sellers to come on all the time so you can buy nearly everything you could want from the comfort of your bus seat or in some cases motorbike seat. Check out this video we took in El Salvador where they came on to sell cakes, vegetables, ice pops, drinks, belts, locks, hairclips, torches, socks and toothpaste in the space of 2 minutes!
After a painfully slow 2.5 hour chicken bus ride to Santa Ana Volcan we had to wait another hour or so for the security and guide escort as it was not recommended and maybe illegal (can’t remember if it was illegal) to climb without an armed escort. As you can see from the photo below they are heavily armed so you feel very safe even if it is overkill.
Security for the hike with some serious toys
It was a longish but easy enough hike where the landscaped changed constantly. At the top we rewarded with a wonderful view of the surrounding land and an amazing viewing point for the nuclear green coloured Crater Lake. Climbing along the narrow ridge in high wind conditions with life ending drops on either side might not have been the best idea but the views were worth it.
Volcan Ridge
Back in Santa Ana we sampled the El Salvadorian favourite food of Pupusas. They are made of a closed tortilla usually filled with cheese, pork and refried beans. They are delicious and cheap, in fact so delicious that I ate way too many and I was the sickest I have been since I started traveling (I definitely broke a personal record for number of pukes in one night!). We even ended up staying another night to get the energy levels back. I’d still eat them again but maybe in moderation next time : ), maybe!
El Salvadorian Pupusas, up all night after devouring about 5 of this batch
Our next leg was Ruta de Las Flores (Route of the Flowers) which was a route of five towns that are known for their beauty and murals etc. (they are like the tidy towns in Ireland). We ended up staying in Juayua (the largest of them) and visiting the other towns on a day trip. Juayua is well known for its weekly food festival so we stayed longer than planned to get one of these in. The food was amazing and though $5 a plate, which is pricey for El Salvador, the amount of food and meat was immense.
Juayua weekend Food Festival - our massive dinner for $5
One of the days we visited Ataco which is another town on Ruta de Las Flores, it was a really nice town and had some great murals around but other than that it was extremely quiet and we were glad we decided not to stay the night. The Ruta de Las Flores is all beautiful but very quiet so we would only recommend you stay in Juayua for the weekend for the food festival and bus it out to one or two of the other towns.
Murals in Ataco on the Ruta de las Flores
A must do tour while in Juayua is Los Chorros de la Calera, a set of waterfalls about 2km just outside town. A guide out there for half the day was only $1 so no point in going out by yourself as it’s easy to get lost and miss out on some of the best spots. There was only four of us for the tour which made it all the better. After a flat hike through some coffee plantations you come to the very top of a 100m waterfall and the view is spectacular (running out of adjectives to describe scenery). There were no railings or any obstruction, so the guide brought us to the very top where you could lean over and follow the waterfall all the way to the bottom 100m down.
View from top of Los Chorros De La Calera waterfall
Only when we crossed the river and walked downhill could we look back and see how high and close to the edge we actually were. (Don’t worry parents, it was all very safe!).
Just minutes before we were standing on the rock to the left at the top of the waterfall
We continued on to a couple of more waterfalls, crossing horizontal ladders and a bit of climbing here and there. The final waterfall we took a dip to cool off and enjoyed the view before heading back to town.
Los Chorros De La Calera - cooling down after the hike
Juayua had some great restaurants and felt very safe except for the day of the food festival when Sarah caught the eye of guy pointing a sawn off shotgun out the passenger window of his car towards us (We couldn't get a picture of this unfortunately). We continued on walking to the town square and he soon drove off to do who knows what. It only fazed us for about a minute as you get used to the idea of people with shotguns while travelling in El Salvador as the smallest local shop will have a guy with a shotgun for security. The two guys in the car we saw were clearly not security and up to no good but as long as they didn’t bother us it wasn’t a problem. Thankfully, we also never saw any of the infamous MS-13 or MS-18 (MS-Mara Salvatrucha meaning Salvadorian crew) El Salvadorian gang members that are covered in facial tattoos and are up there with Mexican drug cartels for brutal violence and people you do not want to bump into while travelling. If you want, you can read more about them here.
That’s it for now and plenty of details for the parents to digest while we try and catch up to date with the blog. In our next blog update we head towards the coast for some sun before heading to the highlands for more hiking and culture. After that we make the long 1 day trek from El Salvador to Nicaragua crossing through Honduras on the way (2 border crossings in one day is not fun!) So far we are loving El Salvador; it’s up there with Guatemala for beauty, things to do and friendly people. We can only hope that the rest of our trip is half as good!
Santa Ana town square
At the football (Club Deportivo FAS), as you can see we attracted a few stares!
Chicken Buses at Santa Ana Bus station
Start of the hike with the Pacific in the background
Funny/Scary sculpture at Santa Ana Volcan
Volcan Izalco from Volcan Santa Ana
Windy on the top of Santa Ana
Summit of Santa Ana
Casa Verde crew at summit (Sarah, Moritz, Thibault, Emily, Ariana)
Crazy looking crater lake
Windy ridge along the volcan
Thibault towering over our local guide
Los Chorros De La Calera
Los Chorros De La Calera
Los Chorros De La Calera - extreme waterslide?
Hiking back from Los Chorros De La Calera
Juayua church
Murals in Ataco on the Ruta de las Flores
Murals in Ataco on the Ruta de las Flores
Some cheescake and vino tinto in Ataco on the Ruta de las Flores
