Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 41 - Santa Ana, Juayua, Antigua (El Salvador, Guatemala)

We left El Tunco and headed back to the main road for a bus to La Libertad from where we caught a second bus to San Salvador. A quick bus change and we were on the third bus heading out to Santa Ana, El Salvador’s second city. As always seems to be the case here, the bus dropped us off at a random bus garage on the outskirts of town and we had to catch another bus going the other way in to the terminal (only to be dropped off a few blocks away in the middle of the market). After asking a few locals for directions we made it to a hostel, Casa Frolaz recommended by the Rough Guide. It was a beautiful hostel but they’d turned the ground floor communal area into a bistro so it was a bit awkward using the communal kitchen and they only had space left in the dorm so we didn’t have any chill out space. After a short walk into the centre of town, where the locals loved to wave at us and point at my blue eyes, to see the unremarkable square we ended up in the Metro Centre (the shopping mall) for a fast food dinner.

The next day we left the hostel with a Taiwanese girl who was sharing our room and caught a bus to Cerro Verde and the Volcanoes National Park. After an hour of sitting in the cafe in the car park chatting with a group of 5 girls from one of the other hostels in town, the compulsory guide arrived. Along with two tourist police, who tag along with the group to scare off the muggers, we headed off hoping to make it to the top before a storm hit. The hike was pretty easy, after dropping down to a saddle between Volcan Izalco and Volcan Santa Ana we started to climb and reached the top of Santa Ana within a couple of hours. Volcan Santa Ana is the highest volcano in El Salvador and one of the most active last erupting in 2005. The clouds were very low and visibility was poor, we couldn’t see more than a couple of metres in front of us and we definitely couldn’t see the crater. The walk was pleasant and we met some great people which made the whole trip worthwhile.

Back in Santa Ana we intended to met up with people from the hike at their hostel and made it halfway across town just to decide we really didn’t feel overly safe and we turned around and headed back to our hostel.

The next day we left Santa Ana on a bus to Ahuachapan where, with some help from the locals, we managed to find a bus to Juayua. Juayua is a pretty town, not as beautiful as Suchitoto but still has a pleasant central park and cobbled streets lined by brightly painted one storey buildings. The town provides an ideal base from which to explore the Ruta de las Flores, a stretch of the Cordillera Apaneca covered in a patchwork of coffee plantations and pine forest. As soon as we got off the bus we decided we liked it, everyone there is so so friendly and we checked in to a wonderful hostel run by an English guy called Casa Mazeta complete with two dogs, a huge courtyard garden and a great homely feel, in no time we were walking around bare foot and lying on the bean bags in the communal area. We popped in to town for one of the best sandwiches i’ve had in a long time before spending the afternoon relaxing in the hostel garden playing with the dogs.

We were up at 7am the following day to meet our guide for the ‘Seven Waterfalls Tour’. Along with Cedric from Switzerland we headed out for a short walk to the outskirts of town before winding up through coffee plantations to the ridge from where we had stunning views of the volcanoes in the distance. The path then dropped down into the valley through forest to the first of a number of waterfalls. The first couple we were fine to just paddle through but then we got to some of the larger falls and Carlos had to get out a rope and tie it to trees so we could rappel down to the river below. It was great fun but i’d hate to think what European health and safety would make of it all. After one of the dogs who had accompanied us on our walk had caught a squirrel, the hike ended at Los Chorros de la Calera, a waterfall where the base has been turned into a pool to allow for swimming. After a quick dip in the cold water we had a delicious panini lunch prepared by the guide before walking the final 30 minutes back into town tom complete the 5 hour circuit.

For dinner we headed in to town to check out the ‘gourmet food festival’. Rhys had rabbit and I had loroco, some kind of local leaf, stuffed chicken. It was delicious and great value although if you came to town solely for the market you might be a little disappointed. In bed that night just before lights out the furniture and light fittings started shaking, a 5.9 earthquake had hit about 70km along the coast, me and Rhys looked at each other and stuck our heads out to see the other guests in the common area looking just as awestruck as we were.

The next day we decided to catch the bus to Ataco, a little town 30 minutes away. We stupidly let the dog out to walk with us to the bus stop and he managed to sneak on the bus with us. Rhys had to pick him up and throw him off. Next thing we know, 10 minutes down the road the dog reappears from behind a chair having thrown up on the floor, he’d worked out that he could get back on the bus using the back door after we’d thrown him off. We ended up having to take him with us to Ataco and spent the whole time worrying he was either going to get lost or we wouldn’t be able to sneak him back on the bus to get him home. He was very good though. We spent an hour or so wondering the streets, it’s a beautiful place set in the mountains with cobbled streets and loads and loads of colourful murals, mostly by a local artist called Axul. We would have stayed longer to visit one of the many little coffee shops and courtyards and to browse the artisanal shops but we had a dog to look after. Rhys ended up carrying him back on the bus and he sat on my lap all the way back (and threw up whatever it was he’d eaten 10 minutes earlier from the rubbish heap). We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the hostel - it was so nice to stay somewhere we felt so comfortable and there were so many nice communal areas to chill in that we didn’t want to leave. Later we stopped by the plaza and one of the food festival stalls for lunch.

Our last day in Juayua we spent the morning at the hostel then in the afternoon our guide came to pick us up for a quad bike trip to Laguna Verde in Apaneca, the next village along. Rhys drove on the way there and I had a go on the way back. The lake itself wasn’t overly pretty and was quite litter strewn but we enjoyed the journey, only a small part of the road is paved so it’s mostly dirt and rocky tracks. Back at the hostel we had ‘Curry Night’ with Darren the owner cooking a delicious curry for 5 of us. It was a really pleasant evening, just sitting around the table playing cards and eating great food.

It was sad to leave Casa Mazeta, we really loved the place and Darren was the perfect host, not to mention the dogs who we’d become quite attached to. Leave we did though and headed to the border to Guatemala. The first bus took about an hour and got us as far as Sonsonate, chicken buses are hard work anyway but we were crammed into a little space at the back standing up and trying to keep our bags out of the way. The next bus took about 2 hours and got us as far as the border at La Hachadura. The formalities were straight forward, the 1km hike in the heat between the two immigrations was not so pleasant. Luckily a bus was waiting once we’d crossed in to Guatemala and we were on our way to Esquintla 2 1/2 hours away. In Esquintla then we had to wait on a random street corner for a bus to pass through to Antigua, our final stop for the day. By the time we arrived we were pretty hot and bothered and hungry. The hostel we stayed at ‘Yellowhouse’ upgraded us to a volcano view room with a private patio which was so lovely that we’ve booked to go back to the same room after my early birthday celebration on Thursday.

After showering we headed into town for a drink at the Englissh Sports Bar and then on to a Welsh owned bar, Ocelot were we ended up spending the night chatting to the owner and regulars. Our first impressions of Antigua were great and we found ourselves talking about what we’d do for work if we ended up settling here - it’s honestly the nicest town we’ve been to so far on our travels.