• Florin PaunPan-American JourneyFlorin Paun
    Playa las Hojas: camping under palm trees, right next to the beach.
    2Playa las Hojas. Hotel Eco Villas.Sunset at Playa las Hojas.1The unpaved road that runs parallel to the beach, after a storm during the night...Typical Salvadoran landscape: high, forested hills, many rivers.Driving to Perquin.Photos and items used by communist guerrillas during the civil war (1979-1992), Perquin.1Restaurant Torolomo. They let us spending two nights free on their areal.1We haven't eaten such a good tomahawk steak since Argentina. Only 1050 g. To share. Cooked rare.Santa Maria Mizata. Free camping next to the beach.On the terrace of a restaurant located on a cliff at the Pacific, a lemonade with herba buena.

    Hills and Pacific beaches

    July 11, 2025 in El Salvador ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    On July 8th, we crossed the border into El Salvador, the twelfth country on our Pan-American itinerary, relatively quickly and without complications. Despite the civil war of a few decades ago and the more recent and much-debated interventions against organized gangs, everything seems calm now, the inhabitants we interacted with are welcoming and happy to meet travelers and it is, of course, with the necessary precautions, absolutely safe to travel as overlander. According to Wikipedia, since 2022, thanks to the crackdown on Salvadoran gangs, the crime rate in El Salvador has dropped sharply, becoming the safest country in Central America.

    We spent the first few days in the high hills around San Miguel and on the Pacific coast. We took also a trip north to Perquin, a village where communist guerrillas had a stronghold and fought decades ago during the civil war. There we visited a museum with weapons, artifacts, and photographs from the civil war (1979-1992). On the Pacific coast we spent one night each in two locations right on the beach, near local communities, for free.    Read more