El Salvador
Much of our planning is done on the day we want to travel or the day before. With Google and Booking.com you have access to so many reviews and images of places to stay. Daniela carries the Lonely Planet guide to Central America with her. I bought it for her a while ago and though it is a good few years out of date it is full of useful information on places to see and where to stay as well as very good travel advice. We have quite a collection of them now, at home and in boxes, but they are displayed proudly on our bookshelf, when we have one again, a record of our many travels together.
Anyway, I digress, we found a rather well reviewed place on the Routa de las Flores. A worthy trip if you have a car. Beautiful roads and flowers and small towns very welcoming to tourists and safe to walk. We arrived and checked in. It was a very nice little place just outside town. So we went to explore. There were so many smiles and hello’s from the locals we felt right at home. The town isn’t much to speak of but it has a lovely atmosphere. It also has a few good places to eat. It was high time we had the local cuisine so we opted for pupusas. These are like stuffed tacos. You can order what you like inside. They are very tasty and very cheap too. It was a lovely place to chill out after the border fiasco.
Next day and on to the beach. On the way we needed some cash so we stopped at a little place called Acajutla that had the cajero and a really pleasant restaurant overlooking the sea. The food was exceptional. I mean, really good, and very cheap too for what it was. I had great pleasure in congratulating the chef which went down well as I had to use Google translate to say what I wanted to say. Best food I have had since we left LA!
We had another place booked by the ocean. Again found on Booking.com. And so we headed on with plenty of time to spare so we wouldn’t be driving at night. That is something all the guide books tell you not to do. DON’T DRIVE AT NIGHT!!! But as it turned out we did. On our way all the traffic stopped. Everyone wondering what was going on. It turned out a juggernaut had misjudged a bend and gone down a ravine. They were trying to pull it out. I would imagine this is quite common here. The bends are tight, the drivers are reckless and the vehicles don’t need regular checks in these countries. You wouldn’t believe some of the wrecks we have seen on the road.
Any way we were held up for about an hour and a half before the traffic started to move again. And when I say move I mean trundle along very slowly. We were stuck behind a lot of very slow vehicles on bendy roads in the dark. Very slow going. But eventually and with many stressful hours of meandering night time boredom we arrived at our destination. La Guittara Hotel and Surf Lodge in El Tunco. We were very tired and glad to arrive. It was a sweet little place and we had a fabulous terrace overlooking the crashing waves of the Pacific. Very loud. Which was just as well because the hotel next door seemed to enjoy extremely loud music til 1 am. But we slept like logs and woke quite refreshed.
We stayed here three nights. It was great to just chill out and learn about the area, where is the best coffee, where to eat etc. AQ very nice few nights topped off with a band playing in the bar below us. They were very good, sounded a bit like the Buena Vista Social Club. Lovely to drink a cocktail too.
We love El Salvador. The roads are immaculate, the scenery is incredible, the people are extremely welcoming and even the capital San Salvador is a place not to miss for it’s advanced westernised areas and boutique hotels. We love it.
