Last Christmas... we were holidaying in the Central Americas, and yes, giving away our hearts to the various beautiful nations there. We tend to do this once every couple of years, because frankly, they don't make travelling to these countries easy. Our first stop, for example, was San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. We'd arrived here after a brief stopover at London to greet child 1 (literally just a night there) followed by a stopover in Miami. In fact, we'd spent the whole of the day travelling (about 9 hours of travel, a 2-hour delay in Miami, a further 3 hours from there and a 5-hour time difference), so by the time we'd arrived at the hotel the previous night, we were exhausted and jet-lagged. That, of course, hadn't stopped Arun, bless his enthusiastic heart, from negotiating a private day taxi to take us to the mountains and back the following day.
The next morning, we were ready, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 8 am, outside the hotel, where the driver and the taxi were very conspicuous by their absence. Another chappie and an accompanying taxi were promptly roped in, and we set off to the national park, with a guide to take us to Lago de Coatepeque, which was supposed to be a lovely green colour when viewed from the lip of the crater at the very top.
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| Already exhausted here, so pausing as I huff and puff and take in the spectacular view |
The trek was to take no more than an hour and a half, and I pish-poshed at the ease. What I hadn't accounted for was the jet lag, dehydration and a severe lack of general fitness catching up on me. While the rest of the group seemed to make it up easily enough (bloody mountain goats all of them, Baa-Lamb and Child 2 included), I was huffing and puffing minutes into the trek and made my way very very slowly like the little engine that could (with noises to match) up the mountain.
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| The clouds were threatening to move in already. The guide suggested that we beat the clouds to the top. I refrained from suggesting where the guide could put those clouds if he asked me to move any faster. I think I showed remarkable restraint. |
I'm sure the view would have been breathtaking. I wouldn't know, though. Because when we got to the top, we were enveloped by such thick fog that we couldn't see 3 feet in front of our faces, let alone the glorious views of the lake.
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| No, I'm not holding my phone wonky; that is how steep the climb was. And no, we didn't beat the clouds to the top, as is obvious. And yes, that is the annoyingly relaxed spouse practising his Spanish on the guide. |
Combine that with gusts of wind that threatened to blow us off the mountain if we weren't weighed down by the worries of the world, and I decided ten minutes was enough time to give for the weather to clear up. While the younger child and 1 trotted down the mountain like a couple of chatty llamas, the husband tried his luck for a couple of minutes more before giving up and joining us.
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| Chatty llama#1 skipping downhill. |
On our drive back, we tried to stop at Lake Llopango, but we realised soon enough that the entire lakefront was bought out by private properties and we couldn't find any public access. (If there was one, it was certainly a very well- kept secret) We then asked our driver/ guide-for-the day to guide us to a local pupuseria for some local pupusas - this being a sort-of steamed tortilla, with various stuffings in a rice paste. I loved them, especially with the salsa they served, but both Child2 and the baa-lamb didn't seem to be fans. We also tried their local red sapote or the mamey, giant, slightly more fleshy with a vibrant orange hue and much coarser skin compared to our desi Chikoo. That and the local coconut water made for the perfect roadside snack.
The evening was spent looking around the town centre.
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| The specially lit Palacio Nacional |
The Palace has free tours, but the queue for entry was long enough to dissuade us from attempting entry.
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| Whole-heartedly approving of the Christmassy feel of the town centre, although the heavy presence of military vehicles and armed personnel was a bit incongruous. We were warned that this would be the case, though, to ensure law and order throughout San Salvador. |
We did, however, head to the Biblioteca Nacional, the new national library, and bob-oh-boy was it an architect-bibliophile's dream come true. I promise you, if I had access to this library growing up, I'd have caused a lot less parental heartache during my adolescence.
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| Each floor housed bookshelves following themes from GoT to Potter to Bitcoin (!) You could happily spend days here. |
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| Windows and sitting corners with lovely views of the town centre |
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| The Iglesia El Calvario, borrowing quite a few elements from the Notre Dame (visually) |
That's about all the time we had before we departed on our road trip across Central America. The local Tica bus would take us from San Salvador to Leo, Nicaragua, via Honduras.
