El Tunco & Juayua, El Salvador

Our journey to El Salvador was one of the most straightforward of all our border crossings. The only drama occurred when one of our two fellow passengers, a Chinese girl named Liu, was denied entry at the immigration desk. After having proven herself useful with recommendations for accommodation at our destination, we felt a little guilty ditching her in no man's land between Guatemala and El Salvador. But the guilt quickly receded as we looked forward to arriving at Playa El Tunco, a sleepy surfing village on the Pacific coast.

El Tunco's surf

Our room in El Tunco was one of six in a lovely, local-run place complete with balcony, swimming pool and plenty of hammocks to relax on. Jose, the owner, is a surfing fanatic who lives in one of the 6 rooms and offers surfing lessons, which is the main pastime here. When we head down to the beach, it's easy to see why: the waves here are massive and, while the black-sand beach itself isn't the best, it's a great place to sit in one of the bars and watch the visitors and locals ride the waves.

Jose's place

There are several beaches along the Pacific coast of El Salvador, so we decide to visit one of the neighbouring villages and see if the beach is any better. Unfortunately, we wouldn't quite make it to the next village. Our walk along the beach was cut short thanks to the high tide and large waves crashing into the beach-head wall. Diverted up 10 flights of stairs to the road, we continue on only to be confronted by a rampaging cow down a lane. After a narrow escape, we find ourselves back on the beach, but we knew it wouldn't last. We soon come across a river leading out to sea that blocks our path. Defeated, and fearing any further plagues of locusts or frogs, we decide to make the trek back to El Tunco along the road.
 

Confronting the raging bull

The only other event of note during our time here is finding ourselves receiving a masterclass in brewing from a Californian who has opened what might be the smallest craft brewery in the world. This even extended to tasting the different types of barley used to create the different flavours of beer. Naturally, we also had to sample the corresponding beer, including one brewed entirely using wild yeast. The result of this experiment is a 'beer' of about 40% that tastes more like vinegar than ale. At least that's how we remember it... 

Learning how to make home brew

After a few relaxing days by the coast, we decide to make our way in-land to the town of Juayua. Our journey here is quiet and painless, in large part thanks to the generous offer of a ride from the beach to the capital with our host, Jose. Juayua is a small town set in the highlands of El Salvador. At an altitude of around 1,000m, it's a lot cooler here than on the coast.

Juayua central park

 Without a firm schedule when travelling, it's easy to find a place you like and stay a lot longer than you originally intended. Listening to stories from fellow travellers, this can extend to months or even years. Juayua is just such a place for us. While we only stayed a week here, it could easily have been a lot longer. Our accommodation was in the process of being sold by the current French-Austrian owners to the new English-Salvadorean owners, and while you might think this could impact on the quality of the place, the opposite was true. Everyone went out of their way to make sure we were comfortable and give us recommendations on the best places to visit.

Our accommodation in Juayua

The highlight in the town was definitely the food (as per!). We discovered a fabulous pupuseria where we spent a wholly unacceptable amount of time. They come with all sorts of fillings, but our favourite was definitely the local specialty of spinach, cheese and spices. This place was so good and at about 20p per pupusa we just kept coming back. Juayua is also famous for its food festival held every weekend. Dutifully, we made our visit and enjoyed great steak, giant prawns and chocolate-covered strawberries, all for less than a tenner. After a day of food tasting, we were sure we had earned a night out so made our way to the Cadejo Cafe, the heartbeat of Juayua's nightlife, where we spent the evening enjoying the local rum in the beautiful indoor-garden.

Inside the Cadejo Cafe

In an effort to burn off some of the calories, we decided to book up a local guide to take us on a tour of the surrounding countryside. This area is famous for its coffee plantations, which means lots of hills and even more waterfalls. Our guide clearly thought we wanted to visit all of them as he led us for 4 hours up and down hills and across streams. The best part was probably abseiling down the middle of one waterfall, which must have been at least 20m high. Tiring stuff, but no fear, we recovered with another visit to the pupuseria and another evening of fine food.

Abseiling down the waterfall

During our week here, we also spent a day visiting one of the neighbouring villages, Ataco, which is famous for its murals painted on most of the walls of the town. It's a fantastically bright and colourful place and we even chanced upon one of the local artists creating a new mural as we watched.

I hope he paints eyes on those kids...

We loved El Salvador. Everything about it was how we imagined Central America to be: a land of volcanoes and waterfalls framed by the ocean, with hugely friendly and welcoming people, delicious and interesting food and a place we could really experience something a little different.