okaybee

It was a weird time to be in El Salvador.

It had just been called a ‘shithole country’, by a certain brainless cheeto, the day we arrived. I’m here to tell you, that comment is bullshit. It’s clearly made me mad as I’ve now cursed twice in a paragraph, where I usually keep it pretty PG on this site!

As usual, I’ve done a travel video of my El Salvador trip. I have to say, it was one of my favourite videos I’ve done. I’m not sure why, it was just so easy to edit and I’m pretty happy with the final product. Normally I have a lot of things I’d change about a video once it’s live, but this one I’m can live with!

We arrived in Suchitoto after travelling from Copán in Honduras. It was about midday when we arrived, so all anyone wanted to do was eat! We ate dinner in the main square where you can watch the women making pupusa, which is a traditional dish from El Salvador. It’s like a tortilla stuffed with filling like vegetables, cheese and meat. We had dinner there including beers for about $5, if not less. I have to tell you, I am a puposa convert, they’re so good! That night we headed to the bar, literally across the road from our accommodation and hung out playing flip cup and generally taking over the whole place!

The following day, we were craving a chilled out day at a pool. We could have done a tour of the town, complete with a cigar rolling tutorial, but honestly, I needed a chilled out day. All those early mornings and long bus journeys were draining. Our hotel didn’t have a swimming pool unfortunately, so we had to try and find an alternative. We found a hotel with the most insane view over the lake called El Tejado. We literally just chilled there for the day, had a few drinks, swam in the pool, enjoyed the view. It was perfect!

That evening, we did a boat tour in Lake Suchitlan. The lake itself is stunning, surrounded by volcanos, with incredible views everywhere you look. The tour was a bit too focused on birds for my liking, but there was a great spot they brought us to for sunset and a few beers. The following morning we were heading to El Cuco, so I popped into a local coffee shop for some really great iced coffee and a toasted sandwich. The coffee was so damn good. Exactly what you need before another long bus journey!

The next two days we spent at El Cuco at a resort called El Tortuga Verde. It was amazing. I honestly never wanted to leave. The rooms were pretty basic, but ww spent all our time on the beach hanging out, so it didn’t really matter. At 4pm, it was happy hour where everyone would gather together and watch the sunset.

There are baby turtles that hatch near the sea there and make their way to the ocean. I completely missed it the first night as I thought people were just walking along the shoreline, I didn’t realise there were turtles! I’m still annoyed about that to be honest. Typically, the hatchings didn’t happen again the following night, so I totally missed out on that experience. If you’re ever there and see a lot of people wandering down the the beach – follow them!

This particular place was like a resort, so you get a wristband when you arrive with your room number and all of your food, drink, activities are put against your room number. You don’t pay until you leave. I think all my dinner and drinks for the two days was about $40.

El Salvador is a country with so much naturally beautiful sights, stunning nature, lovely people, great food, and some of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever seen. Apologies for the amount of sunset pictures. I tried to restrain myself! If you’ve never been before, start considering it, even as part of a larger trip. From meeting people along the way, we discovered that El Salvador is somewhat of a ‘mecca’ for surfers. So if that’s your thing, then El Salvador is for you.

I have to be honest, I was sad leaving El Salvador. I didn’t know much about it before I went there, but it was such a beautiful surprise. Everyone in my group thought so. I happily would have stayed there for much longer.

Moral of the story, don’t always believe what you hear in the media about a place. To do so is doing it a disservice. Do your own research, make up your own mind, and don’t be put off visiting a place if it’s somewhere you want to go.