Four Days in El Salvador

The drive from Honduras to El Salvador goes via Guatemala due to road and border limitations. That made it a fairly big drive day to get from Copán Ruinas to Suchitoto next to Lake Suchitlan in the heart of El Salvador.

With a reasonably smooth journey we made it to Suchitoto in time for lunch and I was excited to get out and see the town, which is relatively obscure from a tourist perspective. Lunch at El Harlequin was a great option and we sat out on the terrace with beautiful views of the lake in the distance.

El Salvador uses US dollars and lunch set me back about $10 for a churrasco steak with chorizo, potatoes, rice and salad, plus another $2 for a delicious watermelon juice. Not bad all in all and I think in general that using dollars would put the price up but I reckon this place was also one of the better restaurants in town so it was a treat. I had a bit of time to mooch around shops which is always nice. I bought a small hand-painted pretty wooden Lessons Motmot (bird) souvenir for $5 which seemed like an ok price.

And the next stop on my coffee adventure was Casa de la Abuela on the main square where I had a lovely cappuccino for $1.50. Sadly no time to sit and enjoy, so no chance of good artwork. It was nice enough coffee, not a special cup.

Our next adventure was a boat ride around Lake Suchitlan with an incredibly cool guide called Danny. We were given the history of the manmade lake – fairly simply a dam was built and without any real consultation, the government flooded miles of lowland territory, displacing a large number of families. Nature inevitably made the best of it and now the islands in the lake offer good nesting grounds for birds and a nice stopover for migratory species. It’s apparently the most polluted body of fresh water in Central America .

Bird island is home to more than 40,000 birds and Danny rightly pointed out that the trees on the island have more birds on them than leaves!! The trees were packed full of cormorants and we also saw black vultures, a big turkey vulture, a large blue heron, and some egrets.

We stopped at a restaurant on the lake shore to buy some drinks (a local beer, Pilsener, was $1 for a bottle) and were treated to a magnificent sunset from the shore over Guazapa, a mountain which was heavily bombed in the civil war (this is an understatement – the mountain was bombed to smithereens to the extent that it’s a different shape and almost nothing grows on its upper slopes).

For dinner I was pretty excited to try the El Salvadorian speciality called a Pupusa. It’s a cornflour flatbread stuffed with tasty ingredients including frijoles and cheese. I had one with chicken and it cost $2. We had a pretty monumental wait given that almost the whole group ended up ordering at this popular place called Portal El Buen Sabor. When the food finally arrived, we sat in the main square with a beautiful church and the ever-present Christmas lights enjoying our dinners.

At the Pupusería I bumped into our guide Danny and he showed me a craft beer that he started brewing to diversify his business endeavours during covid. His brewery is called Xanadu and I tried a Pale Ale called Elysian from one of the restaurants on the main square for $3.50 and it was really good.

Next morning was an early start so a few of us met in the lobby to head to the Municipal Market at 6am for breakfast. As promised, the food counters were opening up and we managed to get a selection of dishes to enjoy before our hike.

Danny met us again in the lobby at 7am and we drove to the Bosque de Cinquera biological park. At the entrance to the park we sat with a veteran of the civil war, Rafael Hernandez, for about an hour hearing him speak about it. It sounded like a horrific time even though Rafael barely went into the grim details.

The hike was excellent and it was a shame not to have more time to talk to Rafael or to hear more about the pivotal role that the guerillas of Cinquera played in the war.

But we had to get back. Just enough time in Suchitoto to grab some lunch from Las Farolas (I had a daily special of grilled chicken breast for $2.95 plus a drink for $2) and then I ran across to get one more coffee from Casa de la Abuela (in a huge hurry and the staff were fantastic, jumping into action!).

And then to the beach!! The drive to Palmarcito was much quicker than most of our journeys and we arrived at a fabulous beach resort up on the cliffs with enormous views south and west. There was also a lovely pool. A great surprise!

The place was called Atami Resort. I enjoyed a relaxing evening watching the sunset and having a dip in the pool before heading to Pelicano restaurant (on-site outdoor restaurant with beautiful panoramic views) where I tried the selection of ceviches for $15. They were absolutely fantastic!!! One was passion fruit, another was with pineapple and the third had some tomato and heat to it. Plus strawberry daiquiris were $6 and were pretty delicious.

The next day was completely free and I got up early, had breakfast and then went down to the beach to see where I could get a surf lesson.

At the far end of the beach I found a nice window hatch with a sign showing fancy coffees so I headed over there. I had a V60 pour over made using locally grown beans which had been slightly fermented to get some flavours which are good for pour over. Papo made me a coffee and then made a great deal for the surf lesson – I got an hour’s lesson for $25 rather than $60. We kicked off the lesson at about 10am when the tide was just right.

I was definitely fitter and stronger last time I surfed!! It was a lot of fun and I caught some decent waves, though I was back on a foam board. The waves were fairly consistently 3ft but there were occasionally 6ft+ which caused a bit of chaos!

After the surfing I headed up to the pool. Dinner was going to be very early so I didn’t need lunch and just had a lovely time reading by the pool and periodically swimming. Such a change of pace but it was a stunning location and a great day.

We met at 5pm down at a restaurant on the beach to get a briefing on what’s coming up next. Tomorrow is the big drive day to cross into Nicaragua (woohooooo!!) and we are leaving at 4am so needed to just get out heads in gear. The briefing was simple and we all ordered dinner which then took hours to arrive which was a huge frustration. My ceviche was fine and cost $9. I was a little nervous that it was going to be made poorly when it was the last thing to come out after all of the hot meals but it appears to be fine. Almost everyone else had paid and left when mine arrived but there were three of us to walk back across the beach together. I was really grateful for the air conditioning – during the day the temperature was around 32 degrees and at night it only dropped to 28! Beautiful part of the world, would recommend for a break.