El Salvador

Playa El Zonte
It took us awhile to exit Guatemala, but when we entered El Salvador we knew right away we were going to like this country. Everyone was super mellow and friendly, even the police officers. The empty scenic coastal road wound us through tunnels all the way to Playa El Zonte. Once there we were flagged into a hotel where they agreed to let us camp in their parking lot for $7 a night. The hotel and restaurant was right on the beach, had hammocks everywhere and the staff were incredibly friendly. We spent the next two nights lounging around, studying our Spanish, chatting with the locals and playing in the white wash. We also had our first meal of cheap papusas (fried tortillas filled with cheese, beans and some kind of meat). We were going to stay longer but we met a friendly local who told us not to get stuck on the beach and that we needed to explore more of his country.

Lago Coatepeque and Cerro Verde
Lago Coatepeque is a crater lake surrounded by nice homes, hotels and restaurants. We camped in the parking lot of a restaurant, relaxed on their giant dock and swam in the refreshing water. While hanging out here we met a ton of very friendly locals, at one point our van was surrounded by an El Salvadorian family who was very interested in us and our trip. The next morning we drove a long way up out of the crater and continued up to Parque Cerro Verde, a group of three volcanoes clustered together. The tours up to the top didn’t start until 11 am so we had time to join a group of police officers for some breakfast. We had the choice of hiking up to Santa Anna which was the highest of the three with a crater lake on the top and a 360 degree view, or Izalco which wasn’t as high but offered a more difficult hike. We opted on Izalco because it was a lot cheaper and our police escort said it was his favourite. He turned out to be a great guide with lots of information on the area, and stories of the civil war. At the top there were many steam vents which could quickly burn you if you weren’t careful. The only disappointing thing about the summit was that it was lower than our starting point so we started the hike with 1300 steps down to the base of the volcano, then a hike up and back down the volcano meaning that the hike ended with 1300 steps back up. That evening we relaxed at a beautiful campsite overlooking Volcan de Izalco and enjoyed the cool mountain air along with 100 city church kids camping for their first time.

Ruta de las Flores and Suchitoto
We left our campsite early and made our way to Juayua, a small town originally known for its coffee culture and now for it’s crazy weekend food fairs. We got there on Saturday so we parked the van on the edge of town and wandered around until we discovered an awesome hostel that was just opened by a guy from France. He let us camp in his beautifully tiled, open air garage, perfect! Then we went to the food fair and indulged in a couple of meat platters and some fresh fruit shakes. When we got back from the food fair we ran into a Peace Corps volunteer and two engineers without borders that were staying at the hostel and were going to some local waterfalls so we joined them. At the end of a long dirt road we arrived at a beautiful wall of waterfalls that fell into a big fresh water pool. The water was almost cold! It was heaven for our hot bodies. That night we drank an entire bottle of wine while chatting with the owner of the hostel and a Swiss guy and then went out to a bar for some food and conversation. The next day we had a bit of a late lazy start and then we started doing some much needed work on the van. We installed our thermoswitch and fixed the relay for the 2nd stage fan that the Guatemalan mechanics had messed up and finally got our horn working!! Now we can honk at everything! Then a whole swarm of Peace Corps volunteers arrived at the hostel for a game of basketball with some locals. They invited Pete along so we went into town and Karen cheered them on. No one kept score, but they were all dripping with sweat and had smiles on their faces. That night we were exhausted so we went out for dinner and then hung out at the hostel, attempting to get caught up on our journals. We left the next morning and followed La Ruta de Las Flores through a few small coffee towns where we stopped and overindulged in sweets and coffee so that the rest of the day we felt ill. We finally looped around to Suchitoto, a small colonial town that we’d heard was the heart of El Salvador. It took us awhile to find a place to stay, but we finally found a local piscina down by the lake that was more than happy to let us camp on their property. We were super hot so we quickly hopped in the pool to cool off. Then we spent the evening chatting with the family and went to bed early. The next day we set off to explore the town, but everything seemed closed. We wandered around in circles for the day and then finally made our way back to the pool, did some laundry and had another quiet night. The family there was so sweet that when we went to pay for the night they gave us a framed picture of their church as a gift. The people here have such warm hearts and really love people visiting their country. I guess to them it means that the civil war is finally over.

Santa Rosa de Lima
Travelling in El Salvador was an unexpected surprise. We thought that we would pass through in a few days, but ended up staying for over a week. We wanted to stay longer and return to the beach, but something was telling us to keep moving south so sadly we left Suchitoto and headed to Santa Rosa de Lima to spend our last night in El Salvador before our day of border crossings to get into Nicaragua. After turning down one pay by the hour hotel that had a jumbo roll of toilet paper and a mirror above the bed (need I say more? There were also condoms on the nightstand) we found one that seemed half decent, had wifi and air conditioning. That evening we blasted the A/C, finally worked on the blog and went out for awesome and cheap papusas at a local papuseria and went to bed to rest up for our big day.