Advertisement
I heard El Salvador is a dangerous place. Should I go there or better not? I was debating with myself for a while and being just by me I probably would have skipped it. But I was still with Mitch and Justin. So, destiny had different plans for me and we decided to give it a try. How bad could it possibly be?
From Guatemala City I took the chicken busses to the border, had an easy border crossing and got a ride from a Guatemalan father with his two kids, all the way to the first destination – Santa Ana. This was an awesome start and it was just the beginning. We went for a coffee and I got to know a father who does everything to get his daughter out of the endless circle – few education, early marriage and five children.
I arrived at the Hostel Casa Verde in Santa Ana. Are you planning on opening a hostel? Go there and get advices, host Carlos is running the perfect example. His place has nothing extraordinary special but everything usual is great and close by is a Pupuseria, which sells the typical El Salvadorian food, PUPUSAS. Pupusas
are corn flour mixed with manteca (palm fat) and water, stuffed with beans and cheese (regular) or carrots, pumpkin, zucchini, garlic, chicken, beef or jalapeno (fancy) and always cheeeeese! DELICIOUS!! Each for about 75 ct … and I had to be be really hungry to eat four of them! Pupusas are delicious but you better don’t get sick of them, because you can choose basically between pupusa, pupusa and, guess what – pupuuuusa!
In order to keep up our recent motto “Once a week, climb a volcano!” we signed up for the hike to Volcán Santa Ana. The señora at the pupuseria lent me a helmet and I could join Mitch and Justin on their bikes. This saved us from the terrible timing of the Santa Ana transport (waiting three hours for the obligatory tour start). Santa Ana was an easy hike with a stunning reward – a huge crater with a white, greenish looking acidic lagoon. Couldn’t all hikes be that easy?
Next stop was Juayua and the Routa de Flores. Spontaneously we joined a water fall repelling tour. Couldn’t we do that without a guide, too? Yes we could, if we wanted to stay forever in
the maze of coffee plants. That was not our intention, as they pay a pittance for a pound of the picked coffee beans, so 20$ for some beautiful hidden waterfalls were totally fine.
Juayua is a sleepy little village until it awakes on the weekend, when the food festival rises in the center. We visited another small village named Ataco, 20km North of Juayua. Colorful painted walls with poems, a few handcrafted souvenirs and the lady selling tasty fried yucca balls with honey AND not a single tourist. This little town is a hidden secret I immediately fell in love with. I asked the people “Why did you paint all the walls?” “Because it makes the village beautiful” What the simple and amazing reason!
When you ask people where to go in El Salvador, they tell you – Playa El Tunco. Why? I don’t know. If you’re not surfing – like me – there is nothing else to do then sweating your *** off. Luckily we found a cute waterfall, which looked like an oasis in the brown and dry landscape and practiced cliff jumping. An 18 year old girl guided us. She is still going to school
The Black Pearl
Photo by Justin Lewis like her sisters did until they married with 19 and got kids. Now they stay at home. For her, this was the most normal thing in the world – it twists my heart to see and hear again and again about young mothers who are still children themselves.
The last days we rented an Airbnb in La Perla for just 15$ a night. Quickly we were dreaming about opening a hostel in this beautiful beach village, off the beaten track. We already found the perfect name for it:
The Black Pearl. But again the visa limit of 90 days (for Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicargua together) was calling and with a crying eye we left this little paradise at the coast of El Salvador.
Without a plan, I hopped on the first bus to the Honduran border. I asked my neighbor which way would be the best and soon, half the bus tried to help me.
My conclusion after two weeks in El Salvador: I am in love with this country. Maybe we were simply lucky that we could leave alive and with all our belongings. Maybe it was because we did not go to San
Salvador, crossing the territory of MS-13 and M-18. Maybe, maybe, maybe… I met in El Salvador incredibly heartwarming people who showed me a very beautiful and peaceful side of their country.
(I am not writing about the terrible trash situation again; unfortunately it is the same as in Guatemala).
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0482s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb