San Salvador and the walking tour that went on for a week

Despite being a nice place to visit for a couple of days, there was not much to do in El Zonte except surfing.

Although we previously decided to avoid the big cities due to their extremely high crime and murder rate, we decided to spend a couple of nights in San Salvador as our Lonely Planet guide book has a large section on San Salvador and transport links for further destinations are easier.

We left our hostel in El Zonte and walked up to the main road to catch the bus. We resigned ourselves to a long wait and settled down on a bench. About five minutes later a guy in a flashy pickup stopped to offer us a lift. He turned out to be on his way back to San Salvador from a weekend surfing and gave us a lift all the way to our hostel.

Greg and I outside the Belgium church
which is made completely out of
sheets of metal

On our drive to the city, he told us horror stories about San Salvador and explained that his pickup was bulletproof, with inch thick glass. Just before dropping us off, he pointed at a road and told us not to go down there! Needless to say, we were slightly apprehensive about staying in the city.

On arriving at our lovely hostel La Zona Hostel in Zona Rosa, a very upmarket and safe zone of the city, we met businessman. He took us on a tour of his favourite places to eat. He turned out to be a loud, obnoxious, rattlesnake bashing stereotypical American Suit (sorry Americans!), and we got a taxi back to the hostel as soon as we had an opportunity. We ended up eating dinner in Dennys and were somewhat disappointed with our stay so far.

The next day we set off for a free walking tour of the city with EC Tours. After getting a microbus to near the centre, we met our guide Dave at a gas station.

The Rosario church.

We spent the next few hours exploring the city and learning about churches brought from Belgium and rebuilt in San Salvador, the newly canonised Saint Romero and learning about the cities chequered colonial past. Dave then took us to Downtown San Salvador- an area that is supposed to be one of the most dangerous. Over the past few years the Mayor has revamped many of the central parks and security has been increased. A few years ago, people were afraid to linger in the park and hurried home at night. Now many people sit around the park and children play in the water fountains after dark.

We finished our tour and went for coffee in an air-conditioned café above a bank which also hosts a free museum. We got talking about business. Dave has just set up two hostels: one in his family house in San Marcos, an area just outside the city, and another in a rural town called San Pedro Nonualco. Dave needed help to set up a website and start advertising his businesses on social media and booking websites.
Dave had no other tours booked for the afternoon, so in his free time, he decided to show us more of the city. Firstly, we stopped for pupusas in a small eatery. I tried the lorocco pupusas- a flower grown in El Salvador. We then visited some huge shopping malls, the world trade centre, and finally ended up back at our hostel at 6pm.

San Pedro Nonualco church

The next day we met Dave at the Metrocentral to stay at his hostels and help with website creation. Over the next week, Dave showed us more of his favourite secret spots around San Salvador and he shipped us off to his other hostel in San Pedro Nonualco an hour and a half from the city. San Pedro Nonualco is one of several Nonualco towns named after the native Mayan inhabitants. These delightful pueblos produce mostly fruits that are shipped all round Central America. San Pedro in particular produces oranges. Within ten minutes of arrival we bumped into the recently re-elected mayor (yes, the town is that small) and were invited to a street party that evening. The pueblo is on a new mission to advertise itself to tourists as a beautiful place to stay and we were very impressed with its warm and inviting atmosphere and gorgeous views. The town was badly affected during the civil war and the 2001 earthquake. After European aid and 17 years of recovery you probably wouldn’t realise the tribulations they have gone through, minus a few bullet holes.

Bullet holes in a wall

Hitching a ride down the road we met Dave’s cousin, a salt of the earth orange farmer, and were shown around the new hostel La Casa de los Nietos, House of the Grandchildren. Set against a lush green backdrop and well-tended garden the house itself is quiet and large with an American style. The rooms are large and ready for guests, but there is still a long way to go with the project to get it ready for the modern backpacker. There are also several large Ctenosaurs (spiny-tailed Iguana) that live in the roof and in the trees nearby!

That evening we went to the street party. The entire main street was closed with two stages opposite each other. One was an extremely load and deafening reggaetón and club music, and the other stage was an El Salvadorian cumbia band. The stages would take it in turns to play and it was entertaining to watch a mass exodus of people going from one side to the other. Apparently, this sort of party is typical in El Salvador.

La Casa de los Nietos

The next day we enjoyed a gentle walk to the town from La Casa de los Nietos to buy an ice-cream coffee. The hostel is situated a mile or so from the town down a cobbled street, surrounded by fields, flowers and trees.

We returned to San Salvador with Dave for a couple more days to finish up the website (click here to find the website!), but soon it was time to leave as we had a Workaway to go to in Nicaragua.

Hasta Luego!
Bryony & Greg

Ctenosaur on a tree at La Casa de los Nietos, San Pedro Nonualco