El Salvador - Ruta de los Flores and Tacuba

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Hola, Muchachos!

Sorry for the long posting delay. Internet is slow down here and I’m just, well, lazy. Susan and I are alive and well. We've picked up a pet - a hungry kitty we call 'Tacuba'. She is one of the compartments in my small wallet that we 'feed' every morning with money for shared expenses (bus/cab fare, entry fees, bribes, etc.). She’s really hungry. Sometimes we have to feed her two or more times a day. But, it does make life easier for us as we are not scrambling to find equal change for shared services. The idea was mine ... Susan claims it is brilliant! Which is good. Because, she doesn't realize she is really the smart one and is actually doing most of the work. Sometimes I feel a little guilty. While I may keep the kitty, Susan is responsible for fixing the problems I get us into due to my bad Spanish language skills and being both calculator and currency converter. I wouldn't really know how much to take out of the kitty if it wasn't for her.

Susan has also started me on the Spanish palabra del dia (word of the day) program to help me learn more Spanish. Actually, depending on the complexity of the word and number of syllables, it may actually take me more than one day to learn the word. She wanted to do word of the hour, unfortunately, I simply don’t have the facility for learning new languages. So, we’ve settled one word a day. Any other odd words I may learn are just bonuses.

OK, you are probably are thinking “I really could care less LuAnne, tell me more about the cool places you are visiting” so I’ll get on with our journey ….

June 18th - Ruta de los Flores

I had been pestering Susan to go to Parque El Imposible so we looked at the guidebook to determine the best way to get there was the Ruta de los Flores. We decided to go for one night only so left our big bags at the hotel in San Salvador packing only what we needed in our little backpacks - toothbrush, sunscreen, change of underwear and raincoats. It´s amazing how much easier it is to travel this way!

We caught a bus from San Salvador to Sosonate where the route starts. It then meanders through several towns for about 50 kilometers. The towns specialize in different arts and crafts. We picked two to explore - Nahuizalco (specializing in weavings and wicker furniture) and Ataco (advertised as a colonial town similar to Antiqua, Guatamala, before it became overrun by tourist.)

We enjoyed Nahuilzo. They had some beautiful furniture. Also as a bonus, they were in the middle of a weeklong confredia (not sure about the spelling but it means 'celebration') for Saint San Juan Batista. There was a small fair going outside the main church. They also had a parade through town followed by a party with music and food at the church. Que divertida!

Next stop was Ataco. Susan's altruistic nature emerged as soon as we got off the bus when she noticed a very elderly man in a broken-down wheelchair struggling to go uphill on the cobblestoned street. She wheeled him several blocks to the main church across the central park square. We gave him a dollar and went on to explore the beautiful church and the rest of the town. Ataco was definitely a charming, colonial town, although there were not many artisan shops around and the people seemed more reserved. Maybe because they didn´t have a party going on.

We’ve noticed how great rapid transit is here and throughout El Salvador in general. Throughout this day, we never waited more than five minutes for a chicken bus to come along and take us to our next stop. I wish transit was this convenient in Sacramento …

June 18th - Tacuba

I wish we had a little more time to explore the other towns on the Ruta de los Flores, but, the next stop was the end of the ruta at Ahuachapan. There, we transferred to a mini bus to take us to Tacuba - the backdoor into El Imposible. We stayed at Hostel de Mama y Papa, home of the Gonzalez family and the famous Manolo of Manolo Tours. Manalo, well, let me just say you need to experience him to believe. Being the only guests at the hotel, Manalo showered us with attention taking us on a tour of the town and to find some rum. We returned to the hotel where Manalo played bartender making us very fine Cuba Libres and serenading us with his guitar. A little later, a very entertaining guest showed up who was a travel writer, and we all sat in the treehouse overlooking Tacuba chatting away the evening. We selected our hike for tomorrow into El Imposible, one advertised as a 17 km ‘moderate’ hike and retired to our room for the night blissfully unaware of what adventure awaited us the next day.

Before going to bed, Susan decided to shower to wash off the day’s sweat and grime. An unexpected guest joined her in the shower. (I know what you are thinking and it was not Manalo). A little rat came up through the drain and ran over her foot, out of the bathroom and into our bedroom. I earned my keep that night as I slammed the door to the bathroom shut so it couldn’t run back in. I then opened up the main door and called the hotel´s fearless dog, Rex, into the room. Both Rex and Mama Gonzalez, who was alerted by the noise, ran into our room. It was quite comical. Me in my bath towel pointing to Rex to get the little rat under the dresser and Mama moving the dresser around to scare out the rat. Rex quickly ferreted out the peeping tom rat and chased him outside! What happened after that was between Rex and the rat. The other charming pet included in the hotel is a very mean, angry duck that tried to bite us every time we passed by.

Word of the day: Desvio - Split in the road, where the road divides

June 19th - El Imposible

The next day, our guide, Abel, took us on the ´moderate´ hike. He had a machete with him, but I´m not sure why he bothered ... he didn´t seem to use it much, preferring to guide us through some imaginary path known only unto himself. We slogged through the mud and jungle. I was the slow one since I only had my Tevas to hike in and was trying desperately to avoid biting ants and stinging plants. Many times I found myself out of sight of Susan and Abel without being able to find a trail guided only by their voices in the distance.

Abel was a patient teacher pointing out and naming about 1,000 plants, insects and animals to Susan, which she, of course, remembered them all. Susan and Abel became a bit enthusiastic this day thinking they could teach me two words. They patiently repeated my words of the day - hormiga and liso/a ad nauseam. The entire day.

Abel finally employed his never used machete to hack some Cana de Cristo for us to suck on - a refreshing and tasty cane that you can suck the juice out of to relieve your thirst and harvested some leaves from some plant he said they add to pupusas to make them even more tastier than they already are, if that is possible.

Abel got really excited when we spotted some turkey birds. Other than some amazing views, armadillo tracks and a few little birds, we saw little else. We hiked about 13 or 14 kilometers, mostly downhill and got our reward - a large waterfall that ended in a refreshing swimming hole. After several false starts, I screwed up enough courage to dive from the cliff into the pool. Then we swam and ate lunch. When it started to cloud up, we decided to pack up and finish the hike, a brutal, arduous, grueling, muddy, steep (practically vertical), wicked, evil one hour slog back up the mountain. Because the road was washed out, we had to hike an additional 45 minutes to where are driver waited to rescue us from this torment. Fortunately, the rain held off, although it really wouldn´t have mattered. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe. I was actually quite disgusting really. Except for my pedicure which stayed intact through the mud and biting ants and looked fabulous. Note to others considering this hike - Wear good hiking shoes, not Tevas. Susan somehow stayed dry and looked gorgeous. Sometimes I hate her …

Utterly exhausted, we returned to the hotel. Wet and weary, we quickly realized our packing light mistake. My clothing was drenched (how Susan remains so dry I’ll never know). I was forced to go down the street to a little store and buy a dry skirt to wear that night. Not much of a selection, the skirt was made for dancing. It looked really stupid with the rest of my wardrobe, but, at least it was dry.

Manalo was ready to dance. We declined, but, Susan agreed to go ´watch a movie´ with him up in his room ;-) She returned to our room a few hours later with a big grin - guess the movie was pretty good, huh?

Word of the day: hormiga - ant; liso/a - slippery. Bonus words: piedra - rock; camino - trail. Hay hormigas en mi pie. Corre mas rapido! Las piedras son lisas … El camino es liso.

June 20th - Back to San Salvador

We woke up the next morning and caught the bus back to San Salvador ... happy but very tired and knowing our legs would punish us for the insult we gave them the prior day …. we rewarded ourselves by returning to the big mall and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken for! Que Rico! That evening, we hobbled around our neighborhood and found a fabulous pupuseria and wolfed down the last El Salvadorian pupusas. Then, in an effort to numb the pain we felt in our legs, we found a Mexican restaurant where we savored a couple of margaritas. We had earned them.

We leave the next day to meet up with Susan's friend in Honduras. As we reflect on our time here in El Salvador, we both agreed it seems to be on the top of our list of favorite Central American countries. Despite the natural disasters (earthquake 1986, Hurricane Mitch 1998) and internal civil war (1980-1992) it had to overcome in recent history, it has done a remarkable job of recovering. It is definitely a step above other Central American countries. Everywhere we went, everyone was very friendly and helpful. Transportation is reliable. The country is beautiful. And, there were very few foriegners around. We saw less than a handful our entire visit. While more expensive than any other central american country I've traveled through (except, maybe Costa Rica), it is still relatively cheap. And big bonus - they converted their currency to the US dollar so you don't have to do any currency conversions! Yay! I have a feeling this amazing country will not remain undiscovered for long. I know I'd love to come back and explore some more!

Word of the day: picar - to itch. Me pica la pie porque de picaduras de las hormigas.

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Photos

View from Mama y Papa Treehouse
You can see all the way to Guatamala from here!

View of Parque El Imposible
This was the view of the park at the start of our hike. We passed in and out of several coffee fincas during our hike. On some of the overlooks, you could see all the way to the ocean!

Hiking through El Imposible
Susan and Abel hiking up one of the nicer sections of the trail.

El Imposible Waterfall
Susan enjoying the waterfall reward!