Santa Ana

With limited time to get through Central America I headed onto El Salvador. All I knew about El Salvador before going there was that for a long time it had terrible gang violence problems and one of the highest homicide rates in the world. In 2022, President Bukele declared a state of emergency and had a massive crackdown, imprisoning 72,000 people with any association to gangs. As a result El Salvador is now a much safer place.

First up was Santa Ana, a colonial town but without the sheen of more popular colonial towns like Antigua or Oaxaca. In fact you saw very few tourists as you wandered around, most just went straight to the natural sites nearby. But I loved exploring Santa Ana, it felt very local and was the perfect antidote to the popular tourist towns of Guatemala. There were some stunning buildings from the gothic cathedral to the national theatre to the abandoned art school, and a range of architectural styles surrounded by the more traditional grid-like streets. And one thing you have to have when in El Salvador of their famous pupusas, a cheap street food of a thick maize tortilla stuffed with various meat, cheese or veg, and grilled until they're crispy. My favourites were bean and cheese, or jalapeño and cheese.

One of the main reasons to visit Santa Ana is to climb the nearby volcano. We hiked up the side through the jungle and then breached the tree line to reach the top. As I was there in the wet season it was an overcast day so we had no view of the surrounding countryside and volcanoes, we just kept hiking towards a wall of cloud. But luckily the view of the bright turquoise crater lake was clear, making it all worth it. There were even some people selling ice lollies out of a cool box on the top, so it seemed rude to say no! After coming down from the volcano we visited the nearby Lake Coatepeque in a huge caldera 26 km across.

Next I headed to the Ruta de Flores (route of flowers), a scenic road in the north of El Salvador that is lined with flowers. The road is also lined with small towns that are nice to visit. I stayed in a pretty town called Ataco and used it as a base to visit the other towns via the chicken busses. Chicken busses are the main way to get around in Central America, they are repurposed American yellow school busses that get packed full and wizz around the roads, often belching black smoke! The towns on the route usually have nice central plazas with some nice cathedrals and buildings, and a mix of local and tourist markets to browse. One of the towns Juayua holds a food market on weekends that I had to check out, mostly consisting of stalls selling barbeque type food. I have to admit that it was kind of hard to enjoy the food when you had several very skinny dogs watching you, I ended up giving most of my food away to them! I also visited the nearby Santa Theresa Hot Springs, a series of pools of varying temperatures from tepid to scorching! A perfect way to spend a day.

With only one night spent in the capital San Salvador, I headed on to El Cuco, a small beach town in the south of El Salvador. El Cuco has a large black volcanic sand beach which was pretty striking. However it was so hot and humid in this part of the country that I mostly only wandered along it in the late afternoon as the weather got more bearable! Luckily I had treated myself to a room with air conditioning so I just enjoyed my time doing not a lot for a few days before heading off to the next country...Read more