El Salvador🇸🇻

Our next country was El Salvador and we crossed over the border by boat from Nicaragua. We spent exactly one week here and it has been another underrated highlight of our trip!

Brexit Boat

As mentioned in my Nicaragua blog, the main way to get between both countries, without flying is by the ‘Brexit Boat’. Honduras recently made it impossibly hard for UK citizens to travel to the country. If you want to go to Honduras you have to have organised your visa before leaving the UK. Once those restrictions were put into place, the Brexit Boat was created and takes backpackers from Nicaragua to El Salvador and vice versa. Details on how to book this transfer is at the end of my Nicaragua blog here.

La Unión

You MUST spend one night camping at the top of Volcano Conchagua in La Unión! La Unión is where you get dropped off by the boat once entering El Salvador.

We booked one night through their website, where you need to confirm your space and if you want camping equipment. It cost us $59 USD for a tent, mattress and the transport to the top and back. You can hire sleeping bags, but we didn’t need them and wore our own layers instead.

After getting off the boat and through immigration, we had to go to the Chinese Dragon restaurant, which was the pick up point. As we arrived at 1pm, we made the most of this restaurant and ordered two huge potions of Chinese, which Ned had been craving for months! At 2:45pm, we met other travellers who were also camping and left the pick up point at 3pm. If you miss the transfer, you will need to arrange your own transport to take you up the volcano, which can be pretty expensive as the road to the top is a horrible drive! Make sure to keep this in mind when getting the boat from Nicaragua, we left Granada at 7:45am and got a boat at 10:30am, which gave us enough time to get to El Salvador. The transfer journey to Volcano Conchagua takes between an hour and hour and a half because the road is not a proper tarmac road, but rocky and cobbled practically the whole way. You also have to be careful the entire drive up as hanging branches can hit you in the face as you go.

We arrived at the top of Conchagua at 4:30pm, allowing us to set up our tents and spend the evening taking in the incredible surrounding views of Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua! We also got to see a slight sunset, making the sky go a pretty pink. For dinner, they have a restaurant, which serves cheap burritos and tacos. The portions are quite small, so bring extra snacks and drinks incase. We then spent the evening playing cards, having some drinks and socialising with the other camping.

The main event of this camping spot, is the chance to watch an incredible sunrise the next morning. It was an amazing way to start the day, waking up and opening our tent to an incredible sunrise! Afterwards, we had a few hours to relax, catch up on some more sleep and have breakfast. We got coffees and muffins and sat on the chairs taking in the beautiful views. At 9am the shuttle arrived to take us back down and from there you can head to your next stop.

El Tunco

🏨Salty Dogs Hostel

El Tunco is another beautiful surf town. It took us two buses and a short taxi to get there from La Unión. We got the public bus to San Salvador, which took five hours and then a taxi to El Tunco, which took another hour. There are public buses, but by the time we arrived in San Salvador, it was easier to just get a taxi and it wasn’t expensive! We then spent three nights in El Tunco, which we really didn’t need! There isn’t a lot to do here, but surf. Both Ned and I aren’t huge surfers, so we spent the days relaxing, going to the beach and chilling by the hostel pool. We had plans to hire a moped to explore neighbouring towns, but decided against it as it was pretty expensive. So if you’re not into surfing, you can easily miss this spot!

Things to do in El Tunco

• Explore El Tunco Surf Town.
• Surf.
• Explore the Sea Caves.
• Tamanique Waterfalls.
• Explore El Zonte.

Santa Ana

🏨Casa Coco Hostel

From El Tunco, we got two buses to Santa Ana. The public 102 bus from El Tunco takes you straight to San Salvador, which is where you get another bus to Santa Ana. The overall trip took us about five hours, but was pretty straight forward.

Hike Ilamatepec & Santa Ana Volcano
The main activity to do in Santa Ana is to hike the famous Santa Ana Volcano.

You can book a tour with the hostel, which costs $30 USD. It is offered everyday, however, if not enough people sign up then they won’t end up running it. We didn’t want to rely on the hostel who ended up not doing it the day we wanted, so we hired a moped from the hostel and drove to the Cerro Verde National Park ourselves. The drive took just under an hour and it was a gorgeous ride through the National Park, seeing incredible views of Lake Coatepeque and the surrounding volcanoes.

Once at the park, we then had to join a group for a tour and pay $4 USD each for a guide, $3 USD for entrance to the park and $1.5 USD for parking. For this volcano hike, having a guide is mandatory. If you go with the hostel, the price of it includes a tour guide, but as went there ourselves we had to pay for one on arrival. Personally, not being able to do the hike ourselves, sadly made it not a favourite of mine. We got there at 9am and it took us an hour to even start the hike because we were waiting around for everyone. Sadly, because of this, by the time we got to the top we only had a few minutes seeing the views and crater clearly before the clouds covered it, as the weather is very temperamental.

Anyway, the hike itself is fairly easy, and can take up to four hours return depending on how quick you go. It starts going through the forest, with steep moments, but because you go quite slowly as a group, and have a lot of breaks in between, it’s really not so bad! As you get higher, you can see beautiful, panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and volcanoes. Once at the top, you then only have thirty minutes to spend at the crater, where you can walk along the rim of it and see the sulphur lake.

They are quite punctual with times so once your thirty minutes is up, you then walk down the same route back to the entrance of the park, which you can go as quickly as you want. Overall, it was a nice morning but I would 100% recommend going as early as you can, maybe get to the National Park for 8am, which is when it opens. This is because there will be less people there meaning your group will be smaller! By 9am, this is when the other tour groups arrive so it’s a lot busier. As we arrived then, we were put with a random tour group and there were about fifteen of us!

Casa Coco Hostel Pupusa Cooking Class
Another popular activity is a Pupusa Cooking Class. Pupusa is a traditional Nicaraguan dish, which is an cornflour flatbread, filled with all kinds of fillings! Our hostel hosts a class every evening from 7-10pm and it’s been one of my favourite cooking classes so far. It only costs $15 USD, which includes a free drink, a beer or soft drink and as many pupusas as you can eat. If you beat the hostel record (currently 31), you get a free t-shirt!

The evening starts with an introduction to all the ingredients. We then as a group, chop up some additional ingredients together before learning how to make homemade salsa, spicy pickled salad and then the pupusas, which we all hand roll out before filling them up with whatever ingredients we want!

The only downside is the pupusas you make are the ones you don’t get. As you are making so many, depending on how big the group is, you could make up to 100 different ones, so identifying each one you make can be a little tricky. The vegetarian/vegan ones are marked and cooked separately, so you can also initialise your own, however they can easily be mixed up after cooking! You also don’t eat until they are all cooked, so you can sit down and eat with the group, allowing you to socialise and chat to other travellers.

It’s such a fun evening and the host, Marilyn is so lovely and makes everyone get involved! Only recommendation is to eat something small beforehand as you don’t eat until 9:30pm, and as I missed lunch, I was starving by the time we sat down!

Explore Ruta de las Flores
Spend another day driving through Ruta de las Flores, a 36km scenic loop through the highlands of El Salvador, known for its lush coffee plantations, stunning volcanic backdrops and picturesque towns. We hired a moped from our hostel for $15 USD a day and spent the morning driving through the six different towns (Nahuizalco, Salcoatitán, Juayúa, Apaneca, Tacuba and Concepción de Ataco).

We stopped at the three main towns:

• Juayúa: weekend Feria Gastronómica food festival, Iglesia de Santa Lucia and Seven Waterfalls Hike or Los Chorros de la Calera Waterfall.
• Apaneca: small town of coffee farms, labyrinth, Cafe Albania for the rainbow slide and Laguna Verde Volcanic Crater, Mirador Grano de Oro.
• Concepción de Ataco: colourful murals, artisanal shops, cobbled streets, Santa Teresa or Alicante Thermales hot springs, Axel Cafe, Ataco Viewpoint.

Lago de Coatepeque
Spend another day exploring Lago de Coatepeque. There are so many cafes, restaurants and places to relax at and it’s a beautiful drive around the lake! We went to Captain Morgan’s Hostel, which cost $5 USD for a day pass that included a drink and using their facilities, such as sun lounges, hammocks and jumping ledges.

Other things to do in Santa Ana

• Hectors ‘free’ walking tour - A highly recommended walking tour around Santa Ana, it lasts around three to four hours. He takes you around the plaza, to some recommended food spots and teaches you about the history of El Salvador. It is a free walking tour with voluntary tipping at the end. If you want to do the tour, his instagram account is @hector_kw6.
• 7 Waterfalls Tour - You can book this tour through Casa Coco Hostel and it costs $20 USD each.
• Explore the town and plaza and walk up the Cathedral.

El Salvador is another beautiful, underrated country! If you have the time, I would 100% recommend stopping off here. It is the perfect place to briefly visit to get from Nicaragua to Guatemala and vice versa; you can easily see the main sights in a few days and they are worth the short trip!