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Home  Travelogue Personal Travelogues El Salvador, Part 1: The Trip
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El Salvador, Part 1: The Trip |
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Written by Alex Welsh
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Out of the way, with nothing extraordinary for the camera, and with a marred reputation, El Salvador remains one of the least travelled Latin American destinations. A perfect place to go off the beaten track?
San Salvador immediately charms you with its phlegmatic and strong presence. For a capital, and after Guatemala City, there is quite a sense of order, a sense that things have a direction and are more or less under control. Although it is a city where edges are in all respects sharper, a city that may show you teeth from time to time, chaos definitely would not be part of the description.
If you stay in El Salvador for a while, you do tend to spend a lot of time in the capital. It is not that San Salvador is that fascinating. It is quite low on things to see, in fact, seeming more residential. Particularly unpleasant is the stuffed centre, which has turned into one dirty market. But the country is so small and the travel arranged in such manner, that it is much more practical to venture to and fro the capital, wherever you go, unless you get far East. However, the city is fairly pleasant and has decent places to go, both in the day and at night, and a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. Besides, tourism there is still new and it is mainly the capital that can offer decent hostels (even there you will find only a few).
The most travelled route here is south to the coast. Beaches like El Zonte and El Sunzal are considered the best surf in Central America and it's such a large chunk of the (tiny) tourist economy that you are likely to be approached in San Salvador with "Are you a surfer"? La Libertad is the coastal hub town that serves as a portal for the string of those beaches. By day everyone in that town looks like a pirate and by night they still do, but spun out on crack. It was a hot and stuffy town and, to be honest, only good for buying some fruit, so there's just no reason not to make the extra 10km down the line, where the pleasant places to stay are abundant. I say this because I met a few people who didn't bother. Those beaches are not great but they are ok and convenient so most Salvadorians from the capital go there. Entirely volcanic, they make you totally black. A storm in El Salvador, viewed from those beaches, is really something special, with spectacular thunder and lightning.
My friend Maria also took me to El Cuco beach, in the East of the country. Another popular spot, it was again ok, but nothing fantastic. The amazing thing though was that this well-known beach was entirely domestic, with no thought given to (non-existent) tourists. To get there we had to cross river Lempa on a newly constructed bridge. The previous one was destroyed during the war and a third of the country had been almost entirely isolated for many years. The East has always been poorer and suffered more in that war, it is still slightly more edgy. San Miguel, the major city of that area, is a Dusk till Dawn haunt. Once the darkness comes people seal themselves in and the beasts walk the streets.
Maria gave me a little tour of the country, through places like L'Herradura, Zacatecoluca and Usulutan. It was an off the beaten track dream. The little tourist awareness that the West of the country has was entirely absent here. A virgin land, free of any pretence. A pure and genuine welcome.
The centre of the country, around the capital and to the north is very cosy and modestly lush. There are some very pleasant routes amongst hills and lakes. Then, there is Perquin - a place scarred by the history of the war. Ex-guerrillas will show you around the civil war museum.
El Salvador is not famous for any of its attractions. It doesn't have anything particularly special but it does have the usual set of things that could occupy you. Bohemia and nightlife in San Salvador, acceptable beaches with a famous surf, volcanoes (one of which is a pure mountain of ash) where you can do scuba diving in the lakes, a national reserve El Impossible with rich wildlife, colonial towns like Suchitoto, Mayan ruins like Joya de Ceren. It is a pleasant, aesthetic country to see from a bus window, with many charming corners.
El Salvador doesn't have Machu Pichu or Foz de Iguacu. You can easily skip it if you are after high impact photos. But for someone who just wants to get away from the industry and wander around an unpolluted social landscape, this is one of the last places in the Latin America. I didn't want it to be great, just genuine and good, and it was really good.
As for the safety, I found nothing out of the ordinary (by Central American standards) apart from a few more shotguns than in Guatemala. Normal precautions apply. Buses don't go after dark, guns are not allowed in bars and everyone talks about violence. On that last point - myth or reality? I would say that some bodies have now become ghosts.
Click here for El Salvador: Part 2
About the Author
Alex is the webmaster of Valencia City Guide - an independent resource on travelling in Valencia, Spain. |
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