San Salvador

El Salvador as a country had many similarities to what we had previously seen in Honduras and Guatemala. Before visiting, we had been warned a lot (mostly by people who had never been there) not to visit the country because of the violence they have. When we were in the capital, San Salvador, we were a bit alarmed as taxi drivers were also warning us not to go out at night and telling us about the dangers of gangs in that city. However, our whole experience in El Salvador was excellent and we had no problems at all. On the contrary, we visited very authentic places that I liked very much and I was able to learn a bit more about the Salvadorian culture.

In San Salvador, the capital, we didn’t stay long and only visited a bit of the northwest area (which has a lot of money), we also made our way to El Boquerón National Park where we visited San Salvador Volcano.

Getting there was very easy, as we took a bus from the San Martin Park in Santa Tecla that took us almost to the top. There we had a very funny cultural contribution made by a child.  The currency of El Salvador is the American dollar and therefore they use the same currencies as in the United States. We needed to know how much the ticket was for our next bus and the boy told us: “2 cores”. We did not understand what he was saying and suddenly he took out of his pocket a coin to show us what he was referring to and took out a 25 cent coin which is called in the United States “Quarter” but in the Salvadoran version, its name was altered. It was a bit of a joke and from then on it was quite useful because everybody calls it that.

The San Salvador volcano was a good place to visit. It is very close to the city, doesn’t take a lot of time and the crater is very beautiful.

 

Santa Ana

After San Salvador, we drive to the city of Santa Ana located in the north of El Salvador near the border with Guatemala. This is “just another city” in El Salvador.

It is the second-largest city in El Salvador after the capital. In its park, it has very nice buildings and the cathedral also has a very special gothic style but in general, the city has an atmosphere that I didn’t like.

It looks rather untidy, the streets are a bit dirty and in some parts, the smells are not very pleasant. There are not many hostels. The most famous hostel is called Casa Verde and is a bit far from the city centre. We arrived looking for a hostel close to the centre but we realised that most of the hostels we found were places where men and women went to unload their sexual desires. We had no choice but to spend our night in one of these places. People had previously warned us about this town, however, it is practically an obligatory stop if you want to go to the Santa Ana volcano (which we couldn’t go to but it was highly recommended), also to go to Juayúa.

Our stay in this city was rather short but we also had the opportunity to meet a guy from Couchsurfing.com, Erick, who told us a bit more about this city and even took us to Los Chorritos park where there were some water springs. This made our experience in this city change a bit.