El Salvador: Vamos a la playa
El Salvador has an infamous reputation for its incredible high homicide rates, one of the highest in the world and this probably does not sound very appealing to most tourists that are looking for a holiday destination. But when you are on your way South on a bicycle, there is no way of avoiding El Salvador. Luckily the country and its people exceeded our expectations and we had a great time cycling through the country that has much more to offer than we thought at first sight.
Shotguns and peanut butter sandwiches
After our tank encounter on the Guatemala side we were wondering what the border crossing had in store for us, but it was smooth sailing again! We faced no trouble at all and only friendly people that were keen to learn more about our bikes and send us in the right direction. So, off we go to the first gas station of many to follow. Even though we did not need the gas, of course, this was the recommended place to go to be safe, eat some peanut butter sandwiches and buy cold drinks. We sure felt safe as the guards were equipped with massive shotguns… Luckily they smiled and even wanted to try our bicycles occasionally.
We finish our first day at the cute Palapa Cabins on the beach. Its a beautiful place and offers a dip in the warm ocean where we play around with the big waves and meet an interesting German couple. This couple is involved with one of the churches in the worst area of the capital city, San Salvador, and visits once a year for the last 30 years. She tells us that they are respected visitors and they can walk around at any time of day without problems, but if they bring others they will need security. They provide us with some more insight in the challenges the country is facing since the civil war from 1980 – 1992. The gangs that were formed by Salvadorians in LA returned after the war and spread a lot of violence till today. All the murders that we read about in the local paper are predominantly related to the gang violence. As long as you do not get involved, violence is hardly ever targeted at tourists which gives us some more confidence riding down the streets. After a stunning sunset we have a tasty candle light dinner overlooking the beach and we enjoy a refreshing outdoor bathroom shower before getting carried away by our dreams.
“La Gente es muy Caliente”
Today is only a short cycle to the well known surf spot of El Salvador: El Tunco. It is a nice ride overlooking the pacific waves and we have a fresh fish lunch on one of the overlooking cliffs. The road ahead adds to the thrill with a few unlit long tunnels. Wow, its pretty dark with just our little bicycle lights and we are super happy that no cars or trucks pass us from behind on this one lane road while we cycle as fast as we can seeing barely anything. Luckily we make it safe and sound to El Tunco, a popular place for backpackers. Quite a culture shock for us plunging in this international party town. Nevertheless we manage to have a long Spanish conversation with the owner of a BBQ shack and meet Gloria in a bar at night. She is a lawyer who lives in the capital and is visiting family here. We try to understand more of El Salvador and one of the questions we have is why there are hourly ‘auto motels’ on every other corner of villages that we pass. Her explanation lies in the fact that ‘la gente es muy caliente’ and we figure that this may be one of the biggest cultural differences between the Netherlands and Central America where these hourly hotels are so out in the open. The next day we take it easy and beat the heat at the pool with a cool couple from the UK, Tara and Joey. Late afternoon we check out the beach side where a nice lagoon gives a mirror like image at sunset. Even though its an international fuelled town, the real Italians have not found our way here yet. Its the first disgusting pizza that Matthijs would not even finish. That night we try to finalise our visit to the casa organica for the next day to plant a tree together with some school kids. Unfortunately it is only then that we find out that the place is wrongly located on the map, being on the other side of the country in the mountains. Although we could not visit ourselves, we left casa organica one of the Land Life COCOONS to plant a tree with the kids in their yard.
Horror scene nightmares and road works
Covered in the dusty roadworks we continued our way to Usulutan during another overwhelmingly hot day. We have a quick lunch along the way and are looking for the hotel we found on google maps after some 85 kilometres. Again the location failed on us, it was at least another 20kms ahead before we could finally get off the sizzling hot tarmac. We rolled into a ‘resort’ that once was set-up as a nice English style club with large ball room and a number of hotel rooms. Now it looked more like a ghost town with a sinister row of old rooms that could well be the decor for a spectacular horror movie. After a quick dinner they leave us on our own on this massive property, together with the guard and his shotgun. We are a little shaken up by the scorpions that we find in the bathroom and the nearby fire that seems to get really close. But apart from the nightmares, we wake up the next morning and it all seems to be fine.
We are rolling around in El Salvador for five days now and we are already getting closer to the border. We’ll take a boat to cross the border into Nicaragua, but these boats only run twice a week and we need to wait a few days. A great opportunity to spend some more time at the beach at a nice Turtle conserving eco lodge: Tortuga Verde. It is a nice vulcano view ride to the coast with a last stretch of bumpy gravel climbing and whike pushing, which is rewarded with an aircon room (the heat is killing us!) and a cool beach bar. We meet yoga teacher Eric and he immediately feels inspired to go on a bikepacking trip himself after seeing us and our whikes :). When we have a sundowner beer on the beach before we enjoy some local cuisine in ‘mama’s’ restaurant next door.
Salsa swings, daggering mums and teens
We have got another two days to kill so we spend them at the Tortuga Verde Lodge with yoga and fresh fruit in the morning. We dive into another long conversation with Eric about life, the established order and how we can opt out. Interesting food for the mind, but we were starving for some lunch. We catch-up with the people at home, cool down in the sea and take some breath-taking sunset shots with the drone. It is a Saturday and we have dinner at the beach bar where we meet a group of teachers from the British school in San Salvador. A pub style night quickly turns around into a bubbling dance night with mums and their teenage daughters dancing salsa and performing some serious daggering. We try to join in, but I guess our hip movements are just not as smooth. We have great fun and just a few too many beers as the night is closed with a bonfire on the beach. Its good news that we have another rest day to chill out and we enjoy our little routine with fruit and yoga. The French guys that we met last night live here to build a solar farm, how cool, and they invite us to dinner that night. Tara and Joey also arrive at the lodge and we will be on the same boat to Nicargua. It all starts to feel like a little family here in El Salvador. We gather some supplies for dinner and have a great BBQ at the French guys’ place with Tara, Joey and also meet Abbey here. She’s been working for the Tortuga Verde lodge and in charge of the Turtle hatchery program. After some hilarious card games we walk back to the lodge and check the hatchery on the way. Unfortunately its already late for the turtle season and non of the eggs hatched. Abbey explains that the lodge buys eggs off poachers, who would otherwise sell for the same price to restaurants. They place the eggs in a secure hatchery and release the turtles together during the day when they have a better chance of surviving. Absolutely shocking to hear that most of the turtle eggs will be poached off the beaches. At least there are some programs that try to conserve, but the questions is will this be sufficient?
Our way out of El Salvador, dodging Honduras and straight to Nicaragua
The last morning with yoga and fruit has come and we continue to la Union after lunch. We reach this unexciting town just before dark, as we did not anticipate the many hills we faced on the way. We source the dark streets for a nice restaurant, but end up at the neon lit ‘Pollo Campestre’, the Salvadorian equivalent of the KFC. We close our El Salvador adventure with a night in a scruffy hotel which does not do justice to our time here, but provides a good view on the contrasts in this country.
We get up early and eat our staple, peanut butter sandwiches, to have some extra time to find the immigration office. This sounds like it should be easy to find, but even with route indications and a google maps location it took us a good 20 minutes to find this non-indicated office. We meet our guide and are happy he is helping out on immigrations here and in Nicaragua as the latter proves to be a bit more tricky. Getting the bicycles on board was a bit of a challenge. We felt luckily they did not go overboard during the bumpy two hour ride to Nicaragua. We had no idea, but the whike proved to be a good body building device when they got taken out of the lancha, haha!