Suchitoto and Alegría – El Salvador

Suchitoto is a place you must visit if you are in El Salvador. It is located about 2 hours by bus from San Salvador.  This is a colonial town with cobblestone streets that give a beautiful touch to its structure. Its climate is rather hot. It is located in western El Salvador and has a huge lake called Lago Sutitlan where you can relax.

This is a very peaceful place with a lot of Salvadoran history, it is very small and you can spend your day walking through its streets. Its park is a place where you breathe zero stress, you can see grandparents sitting on their benches, children playing and running around right in front of the Santa Lucia church.

There is a place called Centro Turistico San Juan de Suchitoto where you can go to spend an afternoon. The place is a 30 minute walk from the park or you can also take a “tuc-tuc” to take you there, on the way you can also stop at the hotel “El Tejado”, where for US$2 they let you use the swimming pool.

Walking through the streets is relaxing and very peaceful.  I think that one night in this place is enough, the atmosphere is very peaceful and it is perfect to escape from the stress of the cities.

There are also several museums if you want to see a bit more of the culture of this city. They are:

• Arts for Peace Centre
• Alejandro Cotto House Museum
• Coin Museum
• Etc.

Alegría – El Salvador

What a beautiful name for a city. Cities should have this kind of name to generate a bit of psychology in their inhabitants. This was a destination we didn’t have in mind and let’s say it was “interesting”.

The trip didn’t start very well. At the bus station in El Salvador we were about to take the bus to Alegria and one of the “impulsadores” (people who give information to the passengers under the bus) told us that the bus was going there. At first, I didn’t believe him because of the way he was talking, but it was getting a bit late and we had to get on the bus. An hour and a half later we started talking to a guy sitting next to us who told us that the bus was not going to Alegria. It was going in that direction but it didn’t go there. We were very angry to hear this because we had trusted the man, but we were still on the bus. Experiences like this happened to us repeatedly in El Salvador.

The bus left us in a village called Santiago de María where we had to take another bus to Gracias. This village is very small, quiet and quite cosy. Its main attraction is the Laguna de Alegría which we had already seen in photos and were looking forward to seeing. You can go there on foot or by car. We hired a (rickety) car for US$ 7. The climb was almost 30 minutes on an unpaved road. The surprise was great when we arrived at the lagoon and realised that it was practically dry.

It had not rained during the last few days and this climatic effect had affected it. There was not much to do and we took our “cacharrito” with Don Beto back to “Gracias”.

Near the village, there is also a restaurant called Cartagena. There they also have a nursery and a lot of animals, especially fighting cocks. One of their employees was telling us how the system of this trade works. He told us that his boss usually bets a lot of money. The roosters are trained during the week and when they are full-grown they are given a spur (a small knife for fighting), with which they attack their opponent.