Coming from Guatemala City, the bus ride actually wasn’t too bad. The border crossing seemed to take forever, and there was some Russian guy on the bus who got detained and never came back. No idea what happened there.
Santa Ana
The bus didn’t drop me anywhere near a station. It let me off at a random gas station about eight miles from my hostel, which I had not planned for at all. Keep in mind this was before President Bukele did his whole (controversial) crackdown thing, so I went in with the standard preconceptions about the country being dangerous.
Not feeling like walking eight miles, I end up walking up to a couple guys in a car for a ride. The one in the passenger seat who seemed to be high said yes. Along the way, I started to feel a little froggy. My offline maps.me route said one thing and the road they were taking me down didn’t match it at all. They said it was a “shortcut” and it was pretty dark out by then too. I was in the back seat quietly preparing myself to fight my way out of a kidnapping.
False alarm, it turned out to be nothing and my preconceived notions got the better of me. Long story short, they were genuinely good dudes. They drove me the rest of the way, wouldn’t take any money for it, and got out to make sure I was dropped at the right hostel before driving off.
Lake Coatepeque
The hostel was called Captain Morgan the Hostel, right on the lake, calm, quiet, and a nice place to just relax for a couple days. No hot water, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but the lake more than made up for it. There was a little floating tiki hut anchored out on the water that people partied on, so I ended up doing some of that too, mixed in with paddleboarding and walking around when I felt like moving. Not a ton to actually do out there, but the main attraction was the lake so you get plenty of that.
San Salvador
From there I caught one of the infamous chicken buses, old US school buses that get pulled out of retirement in the States and repainted bright colors turning them into the standard form of public transport all over Central America. About $1.70 and a nap later, I arrived in the capital. Central American capitals usually aren’t worth lingering in, usually more of a connection point than an actual destination. Since I still had a shuttle to catch out to the coast later that day, I grabbed a temporary hotel room for a few hours just to store my bag and walked around the city a bit before heading out.
El Tunco
I rolled into El Tunco—a little surf town on the coast—and checked into Maiko right in the middle of everything. I don’t surf, but being there kind of forces your hand, so I figured I’d at least try (and mostly just not drown).
The days were simple: beach time, meeting people at the hostel, and letting the hours disappear. The coastline has these rocky stretches with holes and little cut-throughs you can climb around on, so a few of us spent the afternoon scrambling over that instead of doing anything remotely productive.
Tamanique Waterfalls
The next day, a few of us from the hostel went out to Tamanique waterfalls, and it was worth the trip. There’s a cliff jump spot out there that’s pretty fun, plus some light scrambling around the rock walls nearby, nothing that counts as real climbing though. It’s a decent hike in with a good vibe once you actually get to the falls, and we ended up spending most of the day just relaxing around the water instead of rushing back.
Pupusas and Surfing in El Tunco
Back in El Tunco, I mostly did what you do in a surf town when you don’t surf: sit around, relax, and let the day disappear. I ate a ridiculous number of pupusas (after working out of course), wandered the little strip of town, and just posted up at the beach or the hostel with a cold drink, people-watching and recharging. It wasn’t an action-packed stretch, more of a slow, easy few days.
After a few days on the coast, I headed back into San Salvador and stayed a couple nights at the Oasis Hotel, which turned out to be decent. Nothing dramatic happened during that stretch, just the usual central American capital city stuff, parks, museums, whatever Google Maps had rated highest nearby.
Backpacking around El Salvador turned out better than the preconceptions I walked in with. A sketchy start at a gas station turned out to reveal the extremely helpful people within. I didn’t spent too much time here this trip so next time I want to do the Santa Ana volcano hike, hit the hot springs near Santa Ana, and make my way through the Ruta de las Flores.
