Y’all, I always talk about Thrifty Traveler, and this trip was one of the best deals. We booked a mistake fare roundtrip from Los Angeles to Panama ON FIRST CLASS for about $400 on Avianca, which is a Columbian Star Alliance airline. In addition, the flight had two layovers in both Bogota and El Salvador for enough time for us to get off and actually explore the cities.
A word of advice: Whenever you’re booking a vacation, play around with the layovers. It’s often pretty simple to get a day or two layover on both ends for no additional cost – three vacations for the price of one!!
I’ll admit, I initially booked my flight not knowing much about El Salvador. At happy hour one day shortly after booking, a friend who travels frequently told me all about how dangerous, dirty, and terrifying the city was, and urged me not to stay the night or to change my layover, and mentioned that there wasn’t much to do. Part of me was thinking about changing our flight to stop in a different city, and part of me was more excited than ever to visit a city that many overlooked.
Since we landed at 7 am and took off at 7 pm, we knew we had super limited time and decided to book a tour so we could see as much of the city as possible. We found Nahuat Tours online and y’all, I’m so glad we did. If you decide to book, definitely request Mario. He was incredible. We arrived and he had arranged for a stopover agent to meet us at our gate and take us through security. Once we finished customs, we walked outside and met Mario, who was waiting at arrivals with his car to take us around the city.
A word of advice: If you’re planning to go to El Salvador, definitely get a stopover agent. They will walk you through customs to make sure you know what’s going on and avoid paying any “fees” to get through. You should be able to do this with any tour you book, and most airlines offer them as well so make sure to ask!
The first thing we did was go to one of the highest points to look down at the beautiful view of the city. We took a few photos, and then hopped back in the car to head toward the volcanos. El Salvador has over 20 volcanos, and they are incredible to see.
We drove up to the top of the San Salvador volcano and went into El Boquerón national park. We hiked up to the top and man, the views are incredible. On top of that, the volcano is insane. Y’all, its a volcano INSIDE of a volcano! The large crater is called El Boquerón, or “big mouth” and the small, perfect circle crater in the middle is called El Boqueroncito, or “little big mouth.” Mario pointed out the white stones in the middle, which are barely visible in the photo above. You can hike down into the volcano and hikers will arrange the stones in various patterns. One common pattern is “el paz” or “the peace” in Spanish.
After the volcano hike, we tried to stop by Mario’s favorite coffee shop up at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately it was closed, but the views were amazing, and the jungle foliage was breathtaking. Coffee production is a huge part of the economy in El Salvador, and you see coffee plants everywhere.
After our failed coffee attempt, Mario took us to the handicraft marketplace, full of local hand crafted items. It was surprisingly very empty, and we only spent about 5-10 minutes walking around. Unless you’re really into buying trinkets to bring home, I’d suggest skipping this stop and spending more time seeing the city.
After the handicraft market we headed towards the city center to check out some of the churches. On the way to the city square we passed the Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo which represents El Salvadorians around the world. It’s a beautiful statue of Jesus standing on top of the world, and it stood out as we drove down the main street.
We arrived at the city square and our first stop was the supposed to be el Iglesia del Rosario, or the church of the rosary, which has incredible stained glass windows that light up the entire church in beautiful colors. Unfortunately we arrived and it was closed, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying everything else in the city square, and it’s definitely at the top of the to-do list for my next trip.
After attempting to see el Rosario, we visited San Salvador Cathedral, which is known for many things, one of which is the funeral of Oscar Romero, the former Archbishop of El Salvador, who was assassinated while performing mass. Then, during his funeral, tens of people were killed. Both Pope John Paul II and President Obama have visited the cathedral, and it was amazing to see how they’ve honored both the people who were killed and the leaders who have come to honor them.
Across the street was the Palacio National, which we didn’t get to enter, but took a million photos of. The square was an interesting place – as we looked around I counted close to 60 armed soldiers in full garb with face masks on. We had noticed throughout the day that there were armed soldiers in the front of nearly every building and in all major public spaces. Mario filled us in on the turbulent history within El Salvador, and the soldiers who wear face masks so that the gangs won’t know who they are. Even though the danger has dissipated in recent years, the people of El Salvador view a soldier at the gate or door of an establishment as a sign that it’s an upscale place that can afford to pay someone to guard it, and often view places without a guard as dangerous. While at first it was a little jarring to see, after about an hour or so we were very used to the soldiers walking around, and neither of us ever felt unsafe in the city, in fact, we felt that the people in El Salvador were more welcoming and friendly than most places we’ve visited.
After walking around the square, we headed back up the mountain for a late lunch of pupusas. The restaurant had a great view, and the food looked almost as good as it tasted, but we were enjoying the food and conversation so much that we forgot to take any photos. We tried just about every combination on the menu – bean and cheese, chicken, al pastor, etc., and Mario taught us the “correct” wait to eat pupusas with the spicy kimchee-esque slaw. I’ll admit that since the vacation I’ve tried many pupusa spots in SF and have yet to find one as good as El Salvador (but when I do find one, I’ll let y’all know!).
After an incredible lunch, we drove up to the top of the hills for one last look out at the city and the volcanos before we headed back to the airport. At this point I was already dreading leaving, and definitely wished we had booked more time to explore the country.
I’ll be honest, I’ve been to a lot of airports in a lot of countries, and you really never know what to expect. My standard has now become “could this be worse than LAX?” and the answer here was a big no! The airport was fantastic, and once we had gone through security we found a table at the Cadejo Brewery, which is a local El Salvadorian brewery that we’d actually seen as we were driving around and had both noted as a place we would have liked to have gone. We had some flights along with some more pupusas, and left El Salvador sunburned, tipsy, full, and ready for our next adventure.
Have you been to El Salvador and have some tips for us for next time? Planning a trip and looking for some advice? Let us know in the comments!
