El Salvador - Post Vacation
El Salvador is a relatively small country bordering Honduras and Guatemala. We found out from other volunteers that it is very easy and economical to get there using a private bus that operates as a shuttle between the two capitals: Tegucigalpa and San Salvador. We reserved round trip bus tickets online for less than $75 per person and left early Saturday morning (5:30AM) from the Clarion Hotel in Tegucigalpa. I should mention that the bus was air conditioned, comfortable, and provided a meal, drinks, and a couple of movies over the 7-hour ride. Crossing the border took more time on the Honduras side (yes, we had to go through Honduras customs to leave) than on the El Salvador side. We arrived at the Sheraton in San Salvador early afternoon and had time for lunch before checking into our hotel.
The first item on my sightseeing list for San Salvador was
the Holy Rosary church. We did not make visiting hours which closed at 3PM but
were able to go to Saturday night mass instead which was even better. We were
also able to see the Cathedral and old town on the way back.
We had prebooked a tour for Sunday where we could hike up the
Santa Ana Volcano. We set our alarms to get up early for the tour only to find
that it had been cancelled at the last minute. There was no explanation, but we
suspect that there were not enough people on the tour. We ended up with a more
leisurely morning and found a bus to our next destination Santa Ana.
We visited old town Santa Ana which had a large square with a
cathedral at one end and interesting old buildings and shops around the other
sides. One of the old buildings was an old-fashioned theatre and we were able
to buy tickets to a dance show for that evening. The dance program had a mix of
dances: flamenco, bachata, salsa, belly dancing. It was put on by a dance
studio and had performers of all ages, from children 6 years old up to
grandparents like us. We especially enjoyed a rendition that included
Cotton-Eyed Joe and Footloose, two of the dances in our New Year’s Eve
performance.
We had previously arranged to visit NPH El Salvador which is just outside of Santa Ana on Monday morning. We were able to get an Uber to take us a way out of town, wait for us, then take us back to Santa Ana for a very reasonable price. Our tour guide, Carmina, wears a lot of hats for NPH El Salvador: visitor coordinator, volunteer coordinator, and padrinos office. NPH in El Salvador is smaller than the Honduras campus with fewer children but with more integration of the local community. For example, they have 65 children in the daycare on site.
After the tour, we took a bus to El Tunco which is one of the “must see” beaches in El Salvador, particularly for surfers. We had not prebooked a room as the place I was interested in (La Guitarra) had not replied to my inquiries and I hoped we could just show up. Unfortunately, we found out that El Tunco was preparing for the International Surfing Competition for Juniors (under 20) during that week with finals on the coming Friday and Saturday. We were able to find a place to stay, but decided to just stay one night as there was a lot of construction on the beach, putting up viewing platforms and amenities, and a lot of visitors from all over the world. We watched surfers and shopped at El Tunco before moving on to Atami Escape Resort for the next two nights.
The Atami Escape Resort reminded us of a large cruise ship as
it was high on a bluff with several swimming pools (both fresh water and salt
water) and a restaurant built on the edge of the bluff. There were also paths
down to beaches on both sides of the resort where we could swim in the sea. The
Resort was somewhat isolated as it did not have shops or restaurants nearby and
it appeared to be family oriented. While we had a relaxing time there, I ended
up with a lot of bug bites from our room which made life a bit uncomfortable
for a few days.
We also explored El Zonte beach as a day trip from Atami and this was easy to do taking the public bus. We both decided that we preferred El Zonte over both El Tunco and Atami. It had a Bohemian vibe with lodging, shops, and restaurants, and with a long beach for both seasoned and beginning surfers. We found a placard outside a shop in El Zonte advertising a Santa Ana volcano tour for Thursday which was the next day! We made contact and by the end of the day had our guided tour confirmed.
The Volcano tour left early Thursday morning as it is a 2-hr
drive and the strategy was to be some of the first hikers up. Even though we
were hiking up to the rim of an active volcano, it was an easy and well-marked
path. We had a guide and one additional passenger that we quickly made friends
with. We reached the top after a little more than an hour and the only
difficulty was helping our new friend overcome her fear of heights in a few
spots.
We spent our last night in San Salvador and had a little time
Friday morning to visit the Art Museum before boarding our bus back to
Honduras. We liked El Salvador enough to contemplate coming again sometime over
the next three months. There are guided tours that we could do in a weekend
that would allow us to see more volcanos and beaches!
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