I’ve written extensively about our adventures in El Salvador over the last couple of weeks, and have enjoyed hearing from others who have ventured to this small and much over-looked country. Before I move on to the many other highlights of our Central American journey I wanted to collate some of our best memories into one photo post.

So here, after a very careful selection process, is a selection of our highlights of El Salvador:

Santa Ana

One of El Salvador’s biggest cities, Santa Ana is a very pleasant place to explore on foot. The most impressive building in the city is surely the Theatre, with its immaculately restored lavish interior – we oohed and aahed our way around the cavernous interior of this 100 year old architectural masterpiece, built on the profits of the nearby coffee plantations. The cathedral in the main square is also worth a look, while most visitors to the city will enjoy getting lost in the narrow alleys of the street market.

Parque Nacional Los Volcanes

The best day hike on our whole trip, this 4 hour walk took us to the crater rim of a volcano that last had a major eruption only 5 years ago. The effort is rewarded generously by the incredible view into the crater when you reach the top. More on our climb in my Volcan Santa Ana post.

La Ruta de las Flores

We could have spent much longer along the Ruta de las Flores. Dotted with pretty villages and a gentle laid-back vibe, it is a part of the country that really does deserve many more visitors than it currently receives.

Our no. 1 highlight was without doubt the swim in the cascading waterfalls of los Chorros de la Calera, a easy and pleasant hike from Juayua.

Beyond our fun splashing in the waterfall, the pretty towns along the route make for a very pleasant day of hopping on and off the regular buses, and in and out of the many cafes along the way.

San Salvador

The big uncompromising capital lived up to its name, and while it will never be described as an attractive city, there is enough here to warrant a visit for at least a day.  Perhaps the most famous stop in San Salvador is the tomb of Archbishop Romero, assassinated at the start of the 12 year bloody civil war and now buried below the city’s cathedral.

The central municipal market is well worth exploring. It’s hard to pinpoint where it starts and where it ends, as it seems to spread without any sort of order throughout the city’s streets. The noise and the smells of the market compete for your attention at all times.

Suchitoto

Our home for Christmas, this picture-perfect colonial town in the north of the country will surely become the hotspot of El Salvador’s nascent tourism boom. Small enough to cover on foot in a short gentle stroll, peaceful and safe, Suchitoto is set above the wonderfully picturesque Lake Suchitlan. The town also has arguably the best hotels in the country, with a handful of high quality yet affordable boutique hotels.

For hikers Suchitoto offers some great trails. One walk (more of a scramble) is just out of town at Los Tercios, a geological oddity that consists of a wall of strange hexagonal rocks. It’s an impressive waterfall in the summer by all accounts, but for our arrival we were able to admire the rocks without the distraction of running water.

On Christmas Day we hired a motor boat to take us across Lake Suchitlan and over to the tiny village of San Luis del Carmen. A quiet lane winds its way along the hillside, and we followed this for around 5km until we reached San Francisco Lempa from where a car ferry took us back to Suchitoto. Not a long walk, but in the intense heat of the day it was enough.

Other images of Suchitoto:


La Libertad
On our way out of the country to Guatemala we stopped briefly at the Pacific port of La Libertad. Once a very rough town at the centre of the gang wars, there is a real effort here to spruce the place up and create an environment that is more appealing to families and tourists.

El Tunco
Further along the coast are the surf beaches. Here we stopped briefly before catching a shuttle to Guatemala. We saw more tourists here in an hour than we had seen during the previous week – so this is where they hang out!

We left El Salvador with many happy memories and with a feeling of satisfaction at having taken the opportunity to spend some time in this little visited corner of Central America.

15 good reasons to visit El Salvador is a post from: 501 Places

If El Salvador has a bit of an image problem in the international community, those negative perceptions nearly always centre on its capital city San Salvador. The common perception to those who haven’t been to the city is one of a crime-ridden lawless place where citizens risk their lives on a daily basis. Guidebooks give added credence to these stories, ensuring that any first time visitor to San Salvador arrives on edge and in a state of certain fear.

While San Salvador clearly has an undeniable edginess to it, provided you go downtown in the daytime and avoid displaying your flashy gear to any interested thieves you will be as safe as anywhere else. We had a full day in the capital and chose to arrange a guide to show us around, partly because of that aforementioned sense of fear but mainly because we wanted to make the most of our single day in town.

Fernando met us at our hotel in the suburbs for breakfast and soon enough we were heading into the centre of the city. He is a locally-based tour operator and had offered us the option of travelling around the city on public transport ($35 for the day tour) or in his car, allowing us to extend our tour to include places out of the city ($65). Having spent the last four days on El Salvador’s finest chicken buses the chance to sit a comfortable car with AC was too tempting to refuse.

San Salvador is lacking in world famous sights, but perhaps the one spot where visitors are most drawn to is the metropolitan cathedral. It houses the tomb of national hero Archbishop Romero and as a result draws crowds of pilgrims who come to pay their respects. The cathedral was actually built since Romero’s assassination and its modern design is a colourful contrast to the more austere Palacio Nacional that spans the adjacent side of the Plaza Barrios.

Away from the Plaza, the central market spreads in what seems to be a chaotic sprawl through the city’s streets. Pretty much anything you can think of is for sale in these streets, and while fresh produce and household items fill the majority of the stalls, Fernando also led us past the sorcerers, the live animal stalls and the chocolate sellers. It was a real blast of the senses, yet this was no place to drop your guard as I found when a trader’s trolley rammed into my ankle when I stopped for a brief moment to admire a stall.
After a couple of hours in the centre we edged out to the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (words and images), one of those rare little gems of a museum that told the story of Radio Venceremos, the pro-guerrilla radio station that managed to stay on air by constantly moving its broadcast equipment while being chased down by the army.

We stopped briefly at the Botanical Gardens, a pleasant respite from the city’s fumes and endless noise, before heading into the surrounding hills. The road climbs steeply to Los Planes de Renderos, passing the impossibly large American embassy before eventually emerging at the Devil’s Gate (La Puerta del Diablo). From here, a short climb to the nearby summit provides spectacular views to the Pacific Ocean to the south and to the city and the long chain of Salvadorian volcanoes to the north.

A day is not long to visit such a large city, but given El Salvador’s many natural attractions it was as much as we could afford given our limited time in the country.

San Salvador: noisy, dirty and well worth a visit is a post from: 501 Places

The civil war in El Salvador passed me by in the 1980s. Despite lasting 12 years and costing the lives of 75,000 people it made little more than occasional news on the BBC. Maybe this is because it was so far away and besides, there were no dramatic stories of trapped British holidaymakers to feature. On our recent visit to Suchitoto however, we did gain a powerful first-hand insight into the brutal reality of the war that plagued El Salvador for so many years.

Our friend Miguel, who owns Suchitoto Tours and who I met via Twitter, drove us the short distance to the village of La Mora, at foot of the Guazapa volcano. A few modest homes litter the side of this quiet road around 10km out of Suchitoto. We pulled in to a dusty driveway and we soon introduced to Candelario Landaverde, or Don Cande as he is known in these parts.

Candelario was a key figure within the Marxist rebel guerrilla forces during the 1980s conflict; the front line ran through this area for much of the civil war. In recent years along with other villagers he has started a tourism initiative that aims to show visitors the old guerrilla hideouts and to share with them the stories of what really happened during those traumatic years.  We would hear several times that day about this burning desire to keep the memories of the past alive.

While now well into his fifties Candelario has retained his natural charisma. His softly spoken voice and smiling face contrast with the more typical picture of a guerrilla fighter. While we sat on plastic garden chairs in his unassuming home, barely decorated apart from the picture of Archbishop Romero adorning the grey plastered walls, he told us of the war years. He recalled living in hiding on the mountain, of trying in vain to make peace and of secret meetings with American politicians that took place in the room in which we were sitting.  He spoke with hope about the current political changes and of the FMLN, the former rebels who formed a political party that in 2009 won the election and gained power for the first time.

We were then introduced to his nephew Alberto, who would take us on our hike onto the mountain. Armed with his machete, Alberto led the two of us through the lower slopes in the early morning sunshine. Miguel had stayed behind, which left me scrambling with my limited Spanish to decipher Alberto’s vivid recollections and descriptions. While I did get the gist of his stories, not for the first time on this trip I was frustrated at not being more proficient in Spanish.

The community had lived in hiding on the slopes of Guazapa during the war years, and many had died during the relentless attacks by US-funded government forces who were determined to eliminate the rebels from this area. Alberto was only a child at the time, but he spoke with raw emotion as he spoke about his mother who was killed here when he was only four years old. Pointing out her graveside, we stood back while he paid his private respects. For him this will clearly always be a sacred mountain.

As we climbed, Alberto showed us the ruins of the old school, the church and the cemetery, which was far too full for such a tiny community. He also stopped by and described for us many of the tatus, or hideouts, where people would dive for cover when the planes were dropping their lethal cargo onto Guazapa. Bomb craters were everywhere, and we even saw bullet cases on the path, still there after many years of quiet.

The views from the look-out point at the top were spectacular, and we watched in silence as a pair of large birds of prey circled lazily over our heads, riding the morning thermals that rose from this beautiful hillside.

As we slowly made our way back to La Mora in the midday heat, we reflected on the horrors of life as it would have been in that very place a mere 20 years ago. The visit to Guazapa was a sharp contrast to the peaceful natural wonders we had seen elsewhere in El Salvador. Yet it is an essential part of the recent history of this nation and a history whose legacy is still shaping the country today.

The cost of the three hour hike was $25 for the two of us ($10 for our guide Alberto and $15 that goes to the La Mora community).

El Salvador: the ghosts of war on Guazapa volcano is a post from: 501 Places

If you take a look at any of the promotional material produced by the El Salvador tourism officials, the chances are the pictures that you’ll find are going to focus heavily on La Ruta de las Flores. This small stretch of road in the west of the country has been promoted as a tourism showcase and it’s easy to see why. Being close to the Guatemalan border it’s also an attractive first stop in the country for travellers who come into El Salvador from Antigua.

So what does La Ruta de las Flores offer to the visitor?

The route essentially covers a handful of small, attractive colonial towns along around 40km of winding, relatively quiet road. The natural surroundings offer many outdoor activities (hiking, swimming, camping) while local businesses have set up other attractions for visitors, notably quad-biking and cycling options. Here are just a few of the highlights that we found:

Juayua

Juayua was our first stop on La Ruta de las Flores. Small and formed as a perfect grid, the centre of the town is very easy to negotiate. It boasts an attractive central square in front of a whitewashed church (impressively decked out for Christmas when we arrived). It’s a pleasant place to stroll around, and as with most of this route it is safe to wander the streets even at night. In fact we spent a pleasant half hour after our dinner at around 9pm, watching families with small children playing in the square and taking pictures by the Christmas tree.

Every weekend Juayua hosts a national food festival. Sadly we arrived on a Monday, when not only the festival had gone but most of the restaurants are also closed for the night. We did enjoy a simple meal in a humble pupuseria: more food than we could manage, a beer and a soda, all for under $5.

Juayua’s greatest attraction is a couple of kilometres south of the centre, along a well signposted track. Los Chorros de la Calera are a series of waterfalls that tumble over the old volcanic rocks, forming pools that are perfect for an afternoon dip. We had a great time swimming in these falls, and were able to swim under the waterfall itself which had a sensation similar to that of an extremely powerful shower. We had a group of curious and very friendly local teenagers for company; it’s a place I would have loved to have on my doorstep while growing up.

Ataco

We took a bus on our second day to visit Ataco. It’s a 30 minute journey from Juayua and the buses run every 10-15 minutes (cost of bus journeys is very cheap in El Salvador – most journeys cost around $0.50).

Ataco is a small town well known for its brightly coloured houses. It looked as though there were a few more tourist-focussed business here than in Juayua, although we didn’t actually spot any tourists. We didn’t stop long here, but did venture towards the only hill in town to an attractive looking church. A further climb would have taken us to a cross on the top of the hill, but the heat of the day made this a less than appealing idea.

Apaneca

We next headed for Apaneca, a sleepy village around halfway back to Juayua. Again the possibility of hopping on and off buses with little or no wait to travel between villages would have had anyone in the UK who has to contend with our rural public transport network green with envy. Efficient, coordinated, drivers who are polite and friendly; proof that it can be done is alive and well in western El Salvador.

We made a stop along the way for a brunch at El Jardin de Celeste, a wonderful cafe that had been recommended to us by a local family. Set in a very attractive garden and surrounded by brilliantly coloured flowers, we enjoyed an excellent traditional breakfast with the sounds of nature for company. Well, that and the chatter of the local business folk who clearly use this spot for a bit of networking.

It’s easy to understand why the Ruta de las Flores is used as the poster child for El Salvador. It has natural beauty, quaint towns and plenty for the visitor to enjoy. But for those who are worried by the region’s promotional efforts and who think that they will come to a place overrun by tourists, you needn’t fear. In most places along the route, you’ll still be the only foreigner in town.

El Salvador: La Ruta de las Flores is a post from: 501 Places

That view above? I’d seen a picture like this while planning our trip, and on the strength of the picture alone we’d made Santa Ana our first stop in El Salvador. With us both having a thing for staring at and scrambling over any volcano of which we get within a 100 mile radius, there was never a question of not visiting the Parque Nacional Los Volcanes. Yet getting there would prove our biggest challenge.

Getting there

It all sounds so easy in our Lonely Planet guide. “The easiest, surest route is to get the bus 248 which runs all the way to the entrance (of the park).” And they were right. Finding the departure point of the bus however was anything but easy or sure. In fact, I strongly doubt that the writer of the guide ever caught this bus or they may have chosen their words more carefully.

We knew there was only one bus, leaving at 8am. So by 7.45 we were at the area from which we thought it would depart. No hint of a bus departure in sight, I started to ask different people about the mysterious 248 bus. Some sent me north, some south, others shrugged and others still told me to catch a different bus altogether (that could be my poor Spanish to be fair).

By 8.15 we’d given up all hope of catching the elusive bus, which by now should have been well on its way. Just as we were resigning ourselves to having to hire a driver for the day, what should come down the road on which we were standing? We accosted the driver of the 248 a little too eagerly, and slumped into our seats with some relief.

Choosing our hike
As in many parts of El Salvador it is advisable to hike in the park as part of a guided group. Two groups leave every day at 11am, led by National Park volunteers. One group heads for the harsh cone of Izalco and the other for the greener slopes of Volcan Santa Ana.
We opted for the latter option as the guides told us that it offered more varied landscapes as well as that spectacular summit view into the bowels of the volcano. We were joined by five Salvadorians, our cheerful young guide Elisa and our very own police escort.

The climb
The ascent of Volcan Santa Ana took around 2.5 hours. I should use the word ascent carefully as we actually went downhill for the first 30 minutes; never a good sign when your ultimate aim is to reach a summit.

The climb was easy with a good path, and along the way Elisa pointed out the remains of a village that had been destroyed in the last big eruption of the volcano as recently as 2005. It was hard to reconcile the peaceful surroundings with such a major recent event.

As we walked we chatted to other members of the group, a little in broken Spanish and a little in English.  Our police escort Daniel was keen to share stories of English football and we shared a joke or two at the expense of the England team and their poor World Cup performance earlier in the year.

Daniel also spoke about life in El Salvador and his own hopes and aspirations for himself, his family and his country. He was clearly pleased to be practising his English, but for us it was great to get an honest and deeply personal insight into Salvadorian life. His passion to see El Salvador develop and solve its many problems, and his obvious commitment to doing his part in that change was truly encouraging to hear.

The views
Soon enough we had reached the summit. It hadn’t been a strenuous climb, although the midday heat was strong and we needed all of the water we’d chosen to carry. The sight of the beautiful Lake Coatepeque accompanied us for much of the walk. It looked so inviting that I was tempted to change our plans and head there the next day for a swim, only to be advised by others in the group that the water would be bitterly cold at this time of the year.

The top of the volcano is a long flat ridge, and rather than standing on a clear summit point the reward for reaching the highest point of Santa Ana is that first glance into the volcanic crater. The sheer size of the walls within the crater are hard to appreciate with a single picture, as is the brilliance of the colour of the water within. This video may help a little (if you can ignore the rattling crisp packets):

As we descended the temperature slowly cooled and by the time we had arrived back at our starting point it was nearly 4pm. We exchanged contact details and said goodbye to our new friends; the end of what for us was a highly enjoyable first full day in El Salvador. We headed quickly for the last bus back to Santa Ana, mindful of getting there before darkness when on the previous evening the town seemed very suddenly to lose its charm.

El Salvador: a day hike in Parque Nacional Los Volcanes is a post from: 501 Places

I’m going to write several posts about El Salvador in the coming weeks. We only spent 9 days in the country but the warmth of the people and the variety of natural attractions made a very strong impression on me, and perhaps of all the experiences we enjoyed in Central America it is the ones here that will linger longest in the memory. But as soon as I mention El Salvador to almost anyone there seems to be an instantly burning question that springs from their lips. So let’s start by dealing with this issue that, in my opinion, is more than any other factor holding back a potentially significant tourist market.

Is El Salvador safe?

Nothing happened to us. I can’t even claim that we had a near miss or a remotely scary experience. We were greeted, helped and befriended by some of the kindest and most hospitable people we’ve met on our travels.

But that does not make a place safe. Yes, the country does have a serious gang problem and guns are widespread. Some Salvadorians we met spoke of muggings and robberies that had occurred in their lives as we might speak of a bout of flu or a sprained ankle.

But there are two facts that made me feel comfortable and secure while travelling around El Salvador. Firstly, the gangs that are responsible for the majority of the crime tend to be more concerned with each other and so stick to their own neighbourhoods. As a tourist you will have no reason to go anywhere near these places.

Secondly and more crucially there are around 500 members of the national Tourist Police in El Salvador. These are very friendly, helpful and in our experience highly trustworthy officers who patrol the streets and trails where tourists are most likely to go. As a result, we were happy to wonder along even remote trails, knowing that officers were close by and in some cases would even walk with us. One particular officer who accompanied us on a volcano hike was keen to practise his English. As a result we gained a valuable insight from his stories of Salvadorian life while he enjoyed a three hour language lesson. The presence of the Tourist Police seems to act as a deterrent, as according to all local sources who spoke to us, crime directed against tourists is extremely rare.

Are there some restrictions? Sure, you wouldn’t want to walk the streets of the big cities at night (not so different to many US and UK cities). We took a taxi after dinner back to our hotel through San Salvador and the streets were deserted; similarly in Santa Ana, where we were amazed to see how quickly the city emptied after sunset. Yet contrast this with the smaller tourism-focussed towns such as Juayua and Suchitoto; there we could walk around freely at any hour of the day or night and it felt completely safe.

Of course as with anywhere sensible precautions go a long way to ensuring safety. If you don’t carry wads of cash, avoid the expensive flashy cameras and keep any personal items hidden in inside pockets, you will reduce your risk of crime. But don’t those rules apply equally in London or New York?

So is El Salvador safe? I would say yes, providing you follow local advice and take sensible precautions. If you do this, travelling through the country will pose no more dangers than visiting anywhere else.

Now that we’ve got that elephant out of the way, I’ll be focussing next on just why El Salvador is such a great place to visit.

El Salvador: dealing with the elephant in the room is a post from: 501 Places