On Monday, February 19, the four of us loaded all our worldly belongings on our respective bikes and said goodbye to Antigua Guatemala as we headed towards the border to El Salvador. The ride was just under three hours and the border crossing was surprisingly painless. We have added a Border Crossings section to our blog where we record all the procedures we had to go through and, hopefully, help our fellow overland travellers who are travelling through the same borders.
The gateway
For the night, we stopped in Santa Ana, a small city that is just under an hour away from the border an we all stayed at the Hotel Florence for 25 USD (~32 CAD). If you plan on staying at this place when visiting Santa Ana, note that the check-out time is between 7:00 – 8:00 AM as the hotel has daytime clients. We soon realized what type of hotel this was and Tim still pokes fun at Phil for booking the place. The great thing was that we were in the city center and a very short walk away from a restaurant called Simmer Down where we had an incredibly delicious dinner for really cheap.
Victory shot
The following day, we rode for about 1.5 hours to the capital, San Salvador. We stayed at the Suites and Apartments San Benito Zona Rosa for 46 USD (~58 CAD), which happened to be in one of the safest neighbourhoods in the city. The staff was terrific and one of the employees even gave us a map of all the places we could walk to and marked the areas to stay away from. We walked to a nearby restaurant called Cadejo and had another delicious meal that quickly conditioned us to expect only delicious things to come out of Salvadorian kitchens. After lunch, we walked to a mall that was a short distance away because there was a Starbucks there and do I need to say more?
Starbucks located – mission accomplished!
Some parts of San Salvador were nice enough to remind us of Mexico City so, we wanted to see more and decided to extend our stay by another day. The next day, we used Uber to get to the city center and did a bit of exploring. It was a hot day and we saw some beautiful places and some not so much. Our favourite was the Palacio Nacional or National Palace, which is a beautiful building that was first erected in 1870 and was restored between 1905 to 1911 after a fire damaged it in 1899. The perfectly-manicured gardens and the pristine condition of the interior were quite remarkable. We finished off our day of exploration with a late lunch at the same restaurant as the previous day and had some delicious food, once again, along with some cold beers.
Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo (Monument to the Divine Savior of the World)
Blooming flowers and sunny skies
Statue of Captain General Gerardo Barrios
Palacio Nacional (National Palace)
Palace gardens
Palace upper floor exterior
Food, glorious food!
On Thursday, we left San Salvador and rode for just under 2.5 hours to another small city called San Miguel, our stop for the night before we crossed the border into Honduras on the following day. We stayed at the Hotel Plaza Floresta for 47 USD (~60 CAD). It was a bit more than we normally like to spend, especially in a city that does not get many foreigners, but air conditioning in the Salvadoran heat was worth every penny.
Now, for the burning question: how was it spending four days in a country that has one of the highest homicide rates in the world? Well, let’s start with the obvious fact that spending only four days in a country does not qualify us to give an accurate account of its state. While we didn’t have to dodge bullets from gang members wanting to kill us every single day, it is important to remember that El Salvador was plagued by a civil war that lasted more than 12 years. Civilians were subjected to extreme violence and numerous human rights violations that most of us would not be able to imagine. Many fled and despite the war’s end in 1992, the country still seems to be recovering.
Outside the gentrified neighbourhoods of the capital, there were large piles of garbage everywhere (even along the sides of the main highway) that undoubtedly took years to accumulate without anyone to clean it up and walking through certain parts of the city exercised our gag reflexes due to the strong stench of urine. We had chosen our accommodations carefully and, as a result, managed to enjoy our time in the country, despite the aforementioned negative points. We never felt unsafe at any point during our time, people were friendly, and the food was some of the best we have had.
El Salvador has its problems and has a long way to go before it becomes a place where tourists would flock to; however, it does have good things to offer to the cautious visitor.
