Route De Flores

Church in Juayua's Main Square

Our next port of call would be along the Route de Floras a scenic drive in to the west of the country. Here there are a series of smaller, rural, hill towns that are in the middle of the coffee region. We first stayed in a lovely little town called Juayua (i still to this day struggle to say this name in Spanish).

The hostel here was lovely and the town also a lot more sedate and nicer than the bustle of Le Libertad. The hostel had a little pleasant surprise for us also - a hot shower !!
We arrived on the Friday and had been told to look out on the weekend for the festival of food. This was more a free for all of food stalls on the street, situated around the main square. We tried some of the local foods and enjoyed the extra buzz about the town. However there was a moment when Kip stopped talking to me. This was shortly after a lady had offered us both a little cocktail stick of the local meat to try. Obviously wanting to enter the spirit of the festival i tired it. I have to say it was lovely & tender and tasted rather nice. It wasn't though until i translated the meaning of the word Conejo, that i realised i have just eaten Rabbit. Hey ho, in for a penny....

After a little while Kip started talking to me again and we took a short trip in the afternoon to another local little village called Ataco. We had heard that this little town was famed along the Route de Floras for the various murals painted on the walls of the houses. It was lovely to see and the town was nice and quiet, which gave us the feeling of having the place to ourselves. (You'd have like the paintings mum !)

We strolled the streets of Ataco for a few hours and popped in to some of the local bric-a-brac shops, then continued strolling round looking at the murals.

Spot the Kipper in the water

The next day, back in Juayua, we took a morning tour to the local waterfalls. Now these were waterfalls, but not as we had seen before. The water was more seaping out of the rock face, along a single seam of rock, which did give lovely walls of water. The locals over time had dammed some of the falls to create little pools to swim in. It was a good swim, if not chuffing "fresh".

The following day we took one of the local "Chicken Buses" (more about these later!) to a coffee planation near to Ataco. This would be the first time of putting our spanish to the test, as the bus driver and our guide at the coffee planatation spoke no English....with phrase book in hand, we were off. Luckily at the start of our tour there was a little video (in English) to show us the process so we had some idea of what to expect.

The tour was excellent and with just Kip and myself we spent a good few hours walking through the entire factory looking at the process from beginning to end. We walked up ladders, round the machinery, past the rotating driers and to the stores where they sort the beans. The harvest had been in October and November, but still there were the beans laid out to dry on the terraces, as they have done for years.

We managed to sample some of the local brew and were nicely rewarded with some really fresh and lovely coffee. This also gave us a boost to get back on the chicken bus and experience another fast trip back to our hostel.

After 3 days in Juayua, we caught the first of 2 local buses north for our next destination along the Route de Floras, an even smaller town called TaCuba. The intention of heading here was to access the Park de El Impossible a sort of national park where there was supposed to be some good hikes. We stayed in TaCuba in a random little hostel, that was more someone's house than hostel, but none the less it was comfy (ish).

We embarked on our walk in to the National Park and picked up our local guide Jose. He was a diddy little man (as most Salvadorian's appear to be), but a great guide. Again his English was non existant, but this gave us chance to practice our Spanish and thumb our phrasebook. Jose took us on a 6 hour hike through the coffee Fincas (plantations), pointing out wild life, plants and the amazing sites and scenes when we reached the top of the hills. The walk was steep and tough, but rewarding. We had been used to doing a lot of walks in New Zealand and had taken a rest for the past 2 weeks, but we survived. We managed to see snakes, butterflies, armadillos and a whole host of other bugs.

The drive to and from the start point of our walk was about half and hour, but along some seriously steep and bumpy roads. I had to sit in the back of the truck, but this seems to be the way to travel in El Salvador. We arrived back in one piece and chilled out.

The next day we were again on the move, this time heading for the 3rd largest city called Santa Ana.