Santa Ana (El Salvador)

After our chicken bus ride from Ta Cuba to Auachapan, we then caught a second bus to Santa Ana, all in all about 4.5 hours. Santa Ana is the 3rd largest town in the northern part of El Salvador and would be our base for us to explore the surrounding countryside. We stayed in a lovely hostel that was very well setup. It makes you appreciate a nice hostel, when you have stayed in some bad ones.

The afternoon we arrived, we mooched round Santa Ana to see the sites. We had done in about 2 hours, but that was still good to do. A lot of the cities are set up on a grid system like in northern America, so after wandering around for a time it all looks the same. That said, Santa Ana had a nice cathedral and town square with old colonial style buildings.

The main reason for coming here though was Volcanoes! Now I don't know what the excitement is, but the thought of climbing a live volcano is pretty cool. I say "live", it last erupted in 2005, but still not exactly dormant.

The day started out with a chicken bus ride to the national park. It was a 2 hour ride and luckily we avoided the usual run through of people selling stuff, as this was an early bus straight from the garage. After arriving at the national park we had to wait a while until the park opened, but soon after got a guide and 2 armed security guards (they were there just incase, as there had been historic robberies along the walk - eek!)

The walk started with a trek trek through the lower lying forest, then a steady climb up to the alpine desert of the upper levels. When we got to the top it was an amazing view, again the pictures here are only a snap shot of what we saw. Te hardest part is to try and convey the size and depth of the inner crater and lake, they were just massive.

Volcan Izacol

Also from the top we were able to look down and across to a 'new' volcano called Volcan Izacol, that was formed only about 200 years ago. After a blustery stay at the top, we then worked our way back down to the start and waited for our bus ride home. We had a small group from the same hostel and that made a nice difference as we could enjoy the trip with other people. There was a couple from Detroit and 2 guys from LA. 

That night we rewarded ourselves with a nice meal out at a "proper restaurant", not something we had done that often, but after scaling and surviving a volcano, why not.