The route from Copan appeared to be a complicated one. The quickest route looked like we would have to go via Guatemala to get to El Salvador…so that’s what we decided to do! The first stage of this journey was a quick minivan to the border (20L/$1.10 AUD/0.85 USD). Walking into immigration it was a pleasant surprise to find out both Honduran and Guatemalan authorities were in the same building. It only took us 10 minutes to get stamped out of Honduras and in to Guatemala. Stage one done, it was on to minivan number 2 (25Q/$4.45 AUD/3.45 USD). We had been told to ask to go to Vado Hondo, which is a crossroads where we would be able to pick up another van heading to the El Salvadoran border. We hadn’t reached Vado Hondo when we were suddenly asked to change vans in a random town (we thought this was going to be mega stressful, but it wasn’t) and from there it was only a short ride to the crossroads. Once there you simply need to cross the road and wait outside the snack shop on the other side. Waiting in the sun while minivan after minivan drove past not going to the right place, our hopes that this was going to be quick, easy and painless started to fade, but after 30 minutes we were ushered onto the most overpacked minivan we had ever seen (15Q/$2.65 AUD/2 USD). Knowing that this was potentially going to be a longer journey this wasn’t a promising start. Luckily 10 minutes in we were able to get “seats” and settled in for the 3 hour journey to the border. The border seemed relatively easy on the Guatemalan side in fact they just looked at Dani’s passport, laughed and then stamped her through (still not entirely sure what they found so amusing). The tricky part came when we thought we needed to be stamped into El Salvador. I’m pretty sure the officer had never heard of New Zealand and spent a good 20 minutes looking at my passport before listening to his colleagues who told him I was fine to enter. Don’t be worried when they don’t stamp your passport your exit stamp from Guatemala is all they want. We trekked up the hill to the bus waiting to take us to Metapan ($0.55 USD/0.70 AUD). This was a quick journey, and we were soon there ready to get on our final leg to Santa Ana ($0.90 USD/1.20 AUD). True to their reputation, El Salvadorans unbelievably friendly and helpful and a lovely man from the first bus guided us to our next bus stop. This part of El Salvador was beautiful and the final leg of the journey felt much less hateful as we weaved our way through coffee plantations and local farms. The bus dropped us off right around the corner from the hostel we had booked and we were finally there. It had taken us about 6 hours in total and was a lot less painful than the 6 stage journey had the potential to have been, and all for $7.75 USD ($10.15 AUD) per person. (This is a fairly significant saving on the $40 USD ($50.80 AUD) you can pay per person in Copan to take you directly to Santa Ana in 3 1/2hrs, but I guess it depends on what you’re willing to put up with)! Santa Ana is a nice town. It’s colonial architecture and local vibe was not at all what I was expecting from El Salvador’s second biggest city. Casa Verde Hostel ($11 USD/14.40 AUD per person for a 6 bed dorm) was perfect and had the best-equipped kitchen I have ever seen in a hostel. In for an easy day we decided to head to a pupusaria for breakfast before wandering around Santa Ana. I’m not going to say it’s the most dynamic city, but it was a great place to sit back and enjoy the local vibe. We opted to chill our first full day because of the long travel day the day before, so took advantage of the cool hostel. Ready to explore the following day we headed to Tazumal ($3 USD/3.90 AUD), which is a small ruins site about an hour outside of Santa Ana on a chicken bus ($0.65 USD/0.85 AUD). It was a little bit of a let down post Copan but a nice enough day trip. This is also a great location to pick up cheap souvenirs, as there is a small market just outside the entrance to ruins. Afterwards (because it only takes an hour or so to walk around the ruins and market), if you’re up for it, get one of the locals to point you in the direction of the laguna nearby for some good bird watching and a pretty little spot to chill out and walk around. After a few hours we were ready to head back for some more pupusas, so we headed back to the main road and waved down the next bus back to Santa Ana, which was really easy. Casa Verde has a great social vibe and as people who are in El Salvador have come off the Gringo Trail it is a good place to like minded meet people. It was here we met Camilla and Matt, a couple of newlyweds (just like us haha) on an epic honeymoon adventure, who we quickly realized had asked us for directions in when we were in Copan (it’s a small world on the travel road)! We had both already planned to go in different directions from Santa Ana at this point, but after 2 days spent hanging out together and chatting, we decided that we would catch up with them again in Guatemala. We bid them farewell on our final day, walked up to the bus station and grabbed the next bus to Juayua ($0.80 USD/1.05 AUD), which is on the Ruta de Flores. The main reason one goes to Juayua is for their legendary food market on the weekends. I’ve got to say although we both loved the town itself the market left a little to be desired…gone are the exotic meats Dani was hoping to try (iguana and frog to name a couple) and there wasn’t even any promised ‘elote loco’ (translation: crazy corn – corn on the cob covered in mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and BBQ sauce and the coated in grated cheese, yes it is a bit gross but also, oh so good!) to be had. Don’t get me wrong the food we did get was absolutely delicious but I’m not sure you should change up your travel plans to arrive on a weekend. We spent a day wandering around Juayua and munching on snacks and decided the next day would be spent in Ataco ($0.25/0.35 AUD for the chicken bus), another town on the Ruta de Flores, to try their food market. Ataco turned out to be much prettier than Juayua (and the food market had elote loco!) and although we had been led to believe there was no backpacker accommodation here we saw a few hostels advertising cheap beds. The street art here is fantastic and it is worth doing the walk up the hill to the mirrador for the views across Ataco and the surrounding area. We had intended on doing another town on the Ruta de Flores that day but we had loved Ataco so much we spent the whole day there. Having one day left before we were going to head to Guatemala we found out that our hostel (Hostel Mazeta: $25 USD/28.80 AUD for a private double - $9 USD/11.80 AUD for a dorm bed) offered a pupusa making class. As pupusas had become a firm favourite with us we decided that we had to learn how to make them, and at $5USDpp ($6.55 AUD) it was the cheapest class we had ever done. The class didn’t start till 2pm so we opted to do the hike to the Los Chorros waterfalls in the morning (the shorter one as the long one takes 6 hours) and decided to take the recently recommended safer option of taking a guide ($5 USD/6.55 AUD per person) from our hostel. The trip was good, but the waterfalls are a little spoiled by the fact that the hydroelectrical plant has walled them off so that they are no longer free flowing, but on the positive side this does mean they have good pools at the bottom to swim in. Tired and hungry, we arrived back at the hostel just in time for our class. This class was definitely the best value class we had ever taken. A group of 4 of us made 50+ pupusas and we not only stuffed ourselves that night but there was enough for breakfast the next day, which set us up well for the journey to Guatemala. We had arranged to meet up with Camilla and Matt in Antigua so we had to leave El Salvador a little quicker that we would have liked, but we had definitely been won over by El Salvador and its kind, friendly, helpful people. The route from Juayua was to be another multistage journey. From Juayua the bus to Sonsonate (1hr $0.50USD/0.65 AUD) was painless and a pretty journey. It was also a quick transition to the next bus to the ‘frontera’/border (2hrs: $1 USD/1.30 AUD), which took a little longer but was again easy. Now, just a word of warning, although you can of course walk from the El Salvadoran side to the Guatemalan side of the border it is a long walk and in the sun is a little torturous. This was the route we opted for and it took us the better end of 30 minutes to reach Guatemalan customs. Had we known what we were in for we definitely would have jumped in one of the many tuktuks offering rides from one side to the other for a nominal fee! Stamped into Guatemala for the second time we were off to find a bus to Esquintla. We had been forewarned by our new travel friends (who had crossed this way the day before) that the drivers will lie to you about where their bus is going and they had ended up in Guatemala City instead of Esquintla. With this knowledge we made the decision not to mention anything about our onward travel intentiona and to just say Esquintla instead. This appeared to work as we were quickly lead to a bus that had Esquintla/Guatemala City (45Q/$8.20 AUD/6.30 USD) on the front of it. This journey started off well…that was until there was a loud bang as we were making our way up a hill about 5km from the border. It turned out that we had blown a tyre and we spent the next 75 minutes waiting for it to be changed. The saving grace was while we were waiting on the side of the road, a man on a motorcycle drove past shouting “elote loco”! Having so much trouble finding it in El Salvador where it had been promised in abundance, here it was…crazy corn being driven past on a motorbike. Most people on the bus said yes and we had soon almost bought him out of this deliciously nutrition free snack. Once the tyre was fixed we sped off and soon arrived in Esquintla. The bus conductor pointed us in the right direction for the buses to Antigua (8Q/$1.45 AUD/1.10 USD) and after a short wait we were again ushered on to our final leg. Overall, we absolutely loved El Salvador and wished that we had spent more time exploring it. It’s reputation as a dangerous gang riddled country is undeserved and we felt perfectly safe in all the destinations we went to. El Salvadorians go out of their way to help you find where you need to be and always have a smile and a hello for you. We avoided San Salvador but everyone we met who had just been said that they felt fine there too and most said they felt safer there than Guatemala City. We were told by a local though, that it is best to avoid public buses in San Salvador as they really aren’t safe for anyone let alone gringos. Take a “risk” on El Salvador…you won’t regret it! LGBT: We felt comfortable and welcome in El Salvador however we are not an affectionate couple in public when we are aware of more conservative attitudes in a country. Legally discrimination is not allowed however there is still widespread discrimination towards members of the LGBT community in El Salvador. The current president is working towards changing this however El Salvador remains extremely conservative (Women can end up with a 30 year sentence for murder if they are caught having an abortion or a miscarriage is suspected to be the fault of the woman) and violence is a real threat to those living in El Salvador so exercise caution. Budget Time $$$Moneywise, El Salvador was not a problem at all! We had a budget of $30USD ($38AUD) pp/day and in the end, we came in under that. It is fair to say that we didn’t do a whole lot in terms of ‘excursions’ while we were there and we only visited two locations but both transport around the country and the cost of activities are both incredibly reasonable. Entrance to ruins, cooking classes, trips to waterfalls and self organized day trips to other locations all came in at under $5 USDpp which is pretty impressive and few of our bus journeys cost more than $1USD ($1.25AUD)! While we were in El Salvador we stayed in two backpacker hostels, thus definitely bucking our trend of staying in local places (this was done both for convenience and also because we had plans to meet up with people). This decision may have meant that we wound up spending a little more than we could have done on accommodation, but it still didn’t push us over budget. An average spend of $22 USD ($28 AUD)/night on accommodation for the two of us didn’t seem unreasonable. In terms of food, El Salvador proved to be our cheapest location in Latin America up to that point. From street snacks to sit down meals it was almost impossible to spend more than $2USD ($2.50AUD)pp/meal and sometimes that was a struggle. There is absolutely no reason to leave El Salvador off your Central American itinerary; it is a beautiful country, full of truly lovely people and it is not at all expensive to explore!
What it actually cost:$388.47 AUD Accommodation: $196.53 Food: $78.49 Entertainment: $34.06 Souvenirs: $28.17 Miscellaneous: $24.89 Drinks: $15.97 Transport: $10.35 This works out at $27.75 AUD per person per day
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