Vagabond and Beyond: Football, Riot Police, Food Festivals, Waterfalls, Chicken Buses, Pupusas...'The Saviour' provides all !!!

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!