Blogs from Santa Ana, Western, El Salvador, Central America Caribbean

Santa Ana Central American capital cities tend to be congested urban jungles, brimming with cement and re-bar. The second cities are often less dangerous and more unique.. While this is somewhat true of Santa Ana, it hardly rivals Xela in Guatemala or Leon in Nicaragua. There are signs throughout advertising their 450th anniversary, so there's quite a lot of (colonial) history there, but the town center mainly comes off as being dirty and sketchy. But Peggy and I enjoyed our stay at Casa Verde, essentially a model for what every hostel should be. Lago de Coatepeque This turquoise-blue lake, 15k around and cradled in a vast, forested caldera, is reason enough to visit El Salvador. In fact, it's probably the prettiest lake I've been to. After my experience at the filthy Lago de Suchitlan, I wasn't ... read more

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 ... read more

El Salvador has a very bad reputation, so much so that most people I meet on the road skip it, and everyone I tell I'm going, their first response is either 'be careful' or 'it's dangerous'. I'd just like to say now - they're all missing out! Our first impression of El Salvador was fairly Chaotic - in order to get to Santa Ana we were dropped at the side of the road by our shuttle and put on a chicken bus. Once we got to Santa Ana the bus 'terminal' seemed to be the side of the road, with no taxis. Luckily I have offline maps on my phone and knew we were only 800m from the hostel. On embarking from the bus a couple of locals from the bus insisted on walking us to ... read more

Probably like most people in the world, El Salvador hadn't really entered into my general consciousness, apart perhaps as the title of a song by Athlete back in 2003! (http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858505487/) In my time travelling through South and Central America I had met a grand total of one person that had been there, and so this, combined with the fact it would continue my trip's “achievement” of having visited every South and Central American country (admittedly I have to exclude the isolated Guayane, French Guyana and Suriname from that though!) it seemed just the ticket for a few days of my time! The journey from Honduras took a day and a half, but I arrived in Suchitoto, a small colonial town located on a lake, with seemingly every house painted a different colour, in good spi... read more

So, much time has past since my last entry on Christmas Eve, since then I have left the Akazul turtle project and continued on my travels. All of the Akazul crew minus 1 person left the village together on 8th January at 6am on the first bus out of the village, a chicken bus (old American School bus) we all held tightly onto our seats and held our breath as we went over the sideways tipping, rickety bridge, with the sound of splitting wood beneath,over the fast flowing river below. It took an hour to the border of El Salvador and once through we negotiated the bus to the town of Cara Sucia (which is Spanish for dirty face). They use US dollars in El Salvador and the local buses are normally a few cents each. ... read more