As there are no direct flights to El Salvador right now from Colorado, we flew on United airlines through Houston, and then on to San Salvador. Our flights were fairly smooth except for a bit of a delay taking off from Houston, making us arrive a little late into San Salvador. Immigration was quick and easy, but we passed by many of the car rental counters on our way out because our rental with Sixt was off site with an airport shuttle. When we exited the airport, we found no signs for shuttles, and the people we asked tried to call Sixt but they seemed to be closed at 10pm, which had just passed...

An airport worker offered to help and told us her friend would be waiting back at the exit, which he was, and he tried talking to a lot of people about rental cars while we were standing around. Finally, we asked him how much for a taxi to our town and he said around $35 and we agreed. It was late, and an hour drive, and we decided to figure it out in the morning. Our driver, who we ended up paying $45, didn't speak English but he tried to convince us to go to his friend for a car instead. We weren't sure what to think about that but finally decided to just get to our hotel.

We arrived to the hotel, down a bumpy dark dirt road, (don't worry, it ended up being better in the daylight), found our unit and got in with the lockbox. The 2 bedroom villa with kitchen at 2Surf Sunzal was modern and felt brand new. We had a small issue with no running water at all when we arrived but went to bed (laughing it off to typical travel in central america), and in the morning the problem was acknowledged and resolved by the super friendly and helpful manager. We looked up nearby rental cars and there were a few private companies in town. After using WhatsApp to communicate with Viajero's Rent A Car, we had secured a car for our time there, including meeting at the airport at the end of our trip. It ended up being a similar price per day, but overall cheaper because insurance was already included. Crisis averted!

El Tunco "Surf City"

El Tunco, also referred to as Surf City, has an extreme surf culture, and has been known for surfing for some time. Expect to see surfers out on the breaks all day long, surf board shops and surf lessons for sale. Back when not many traveled to El Salvador, surfers and backpackers would still come to El Tunco. Because of this, the town feels a bit more established for tourism. Now, it is quickly growing and building new properties as the tourism industry has opened up to more general travelers. We were able to walk to El Tunco town from our hotel, along the very rocky beach and other paths along the shore. We also drove there, which requires paying a $1 entrance fee to the town road, followed by paid parking in private lots, only about $3-4. On our first afternoon, we drove there, parked, and spent some time walking around. There are a large number of tourist shops, but also clothing boutiques, surf board rentals and plenty of restaurants. We stopped at a pupusa restaurant called Pupuseria El Sol where we were eager to try this El Salvadorian staple. We ordered several choices and were pleased with all.

Moving on to the beach, we walked on the blackish sand beach where we saw the famous El Tunco "pig" rock formation out in the ocean. We walked both directions as far as we could before hitting an intense amount of rocks. It was then that we realized our hotel was definitely walkable, just with a patch of rocks before hitting the beach. We stopped by a very modern supermarket area to shop for some groceries before returning to our hotel to relax by the pool for sunset. After dark, we walked along the beach back to El Tunco where we had ate at Captain Cooks restaurant. Don't be fooled by the touristy name of this restaurant, it was all locals and in a food hall environment with delicious food. Everything we tried, from the ceviche, to the tuna poke bowl, and the fresh shrimp with corn, was amazing! We actually ended up ordering 3 of the ceviche portions amongst the 3 of us. We would highly recommend checking this place out for an excellent meal in El Tunco!

We got up and spent some time enjoying the view from the hotel surf tower and flying the drone over the beach before heading out. We learned that our hotel, which is comprised of 8 villas (perhaps more to come, as they are still building), had just opened on Dec 1st, which explained why everything felt extremely brand new. We were very impressed with the hotel, its modern design, and the location, which was close enough to town, but still far enough away to feel relaxing.

We had a few hours drive to get from the beach to the town of Juayua, which would be our base for the next 3 days while we explored the Ruta de Flores region. The roads wound up and down the mountainous region but were generally in very good shape and even seemed new in some areas. We experienced very little traffic and felt very comfortable on our first long drive through El Salvador. The views ranged from ocean vistas to volcanoes and green jungle covered mountains.

Read below to hear more details about our waterfall hike and also our first impressions of Juayua!

Tamanique Waterfall hike

The town of Tamanique is situated about 25 minutes drive up into the mountains away from El Tunco. As with some of the other hikes in El Salvador, they've clued in to the tourism boom and require you to have a guide bring you to and from the waterfall. To be fair, it helps limit the number of people walking up and down, while also helping out their local economy. We found our way to a private parking lot called Parqueo Cascadas de Tamanique where we paid $1 for them to watch our car all day. We ended up following another group over to the waterfall office, where you needed to buy your tickets and be set up with a guide for the hike. It was $8pp and we ended up being in a group of about 15. We started out on the hike which led you through town and then down a dirt road, easy at first. We then turned off onto a path and followed that down ~800ft elevation to the bottom of the ravine.

There were some steeper sections with ropes or railings to hold on to. The bad part of being in a group is that we had to keep stopping to wait for people to catch up, even on the down slope! We were worried about the trek up, as we were hoping to get on our way within 2 hours time. We arrived at the waterfalls, which included one very tall falls with another 3 levels off to the side. After our sweaty hot hike, we were excited to go for a swim in the cool water. It was super refreshing! We hung out at the other waterfalls and began talking to a fellow hiker who also desired to go back a little quicker than the group. After talking to our guide, he allowed us to leave as a small group, as long as we knew our way. It was NOT complicated, and we decided to head back, making perhaps record time on the way up. There is a perfectly placed home / store once you reach the top of the steepest part where we were thankful to purchase some cold beverages for ~$1 each! All in all, the Taminique waterfalls are worth the visit and you should plan to spend 3-4 hours to be able to enjoy it in a leisurely fashion.

Juayua weekend food festival

The small town of Juayua situated between the Santa Ana volcano and the upper towns of the Ruta de Flores, seemed like the perfect base for our exploration of this region. Maybe what clinched it is that we found out about a food festival that happens every weekend in this town, Saturday and Sunday until 5pm. Part of our rush during the waterfall hike was because we knew we had an additional 2 hours to drive to reach Juayua and wanted to arrive in time before the festival closed for Sunday.

We made it by ~4pm, parked and walked through the streets, easily finding the festival. There were 4 main streets leading away from the central park in the middle of town where you could find the different offerings of food, drinks and also lined with souvenier shops. We had several food items on our list and were able to sample many of them here. First, we tried the corn elote (a corn on the cob covered with mayo/butter, cheese and other condiments) along with some papas fritas also with mayo, cheese and ketchup. They were both good to try but we weren't overly impressed. Then on to the sweets where we tried the tamarind balls, coconut meringue, and caramel square - all very delicious! We saw a shaved ice guy and he ground up some ice and covered it with syrups and condensed milk. We weren't quite sure if this was a good idea or not but decided to give it a try. After that, we tried our final item, a mixed plate of shrimp, chicken and beef grilled right in front of you with sides such as beans/rice, potato, veggies and corn patties. I'm sure there is much more to try at the food festival but we were full and headed to our hotel to check in. If you're in the area on the weekend, definitely check this out!

Our hotel, the Vista los Volcanes, is right in town and has a fantastic view of the Juayua cathedral with two volcanoes behind. The rooms are large and breakfast is included. We settled in and then went out for a dinner of more pupusas at El Sabrosito. Only a few blocks away, it was packed with locals and they were making pupusas. We had 8 pupusas, 2 beer and a soda and it was only $10. We all agreed the pupusas were better than our first location, and we expect to be eating pupusas at least once per day while traveling in El Salvador!

El Carmen Estate Coffee Tour

The El Carmen estate has been growing and processing coffee for almost 100 years, using much of the same equipment as the olden days. They offer an excellent hour long small group tour for $7pp and you can just show up, pay and join a tour. Our tour guide explained the entire coffee process from the arrival of trucks (they process coffee from most nearby farms), to the drying, sorting, weighing, skinning, storage and roasting of the beans. He was an expert in all of the steps and the different types of coffee that come from this process.

The grounds of the estate were beautiful and we were in awe of the different types of trees and flowers as well as the animals we saw. We were even lucky enough to spot an Agouti, a large rodent similar to a mini capybara or very large guinea pig. At the end of the tour, we had the opportunity to try a coffee tasting and could buy beans to bring home from the gift shop. We highly recommend stopping by this estate, just outside of the town of Ataco, when traveling the Ruta de Flores!

Ataco Town

After our coffee tour, we stopped in to the small town of Ataco, and we were in for a treat! The town has a special feel about it, which we first noticed in its many tiny cars driving around (think fiat but smaller), its colorful street art and many shops. We spent more time that we would have thought here, wandering around the safe and inviting streets. Each shop owner was welcoming and had interesting things to sell. Ataco had much more art in the way of paintings and other crafts, than we had seen so far. We also stopped into a shop to try their "quesadilla" which is not what you think, its more of a sweet bread made with rice flour and cheese similar to a pound cake consistency. They also let us sample their chocolate and flavored liqueurs, which we chose to buy one of each.

After exploring the central square and its surrounding shops, we stopped by the cathedral before heading to a late lunch. We ironically decided to have tacos in Ataco, at a well rated Mexican restaurant called Taqueria Cachinflin, which turned out to be delicious! We stopped back at our favorite artist shop to purchase a few small paintings before heading out of town, very impressed with Ataco and definitely a place we would recommend stopping when in the area.

Santa Teresa Hot Springs

We had planned on another small waterfall this afternoon but found the reviews to be pretty bad, stating it was sadly filled with too much litter. So we opted for the more commercialized Santa Teresa hot springs instead. Entrance to the hot springs cost $10 per person, and includes entrance to all of their pools, situated between their private hotel rooms and restaurants.

The hottest pool is right next to the bar and restaurant, and there are smany other options of varying degree around it. Walking up past the restaurant you get to the hotel which has several more pools. We continued past these pools to the "natural" pool areas, which are concrete pools with slightly cooler temperatures. In this area, you can also purchase an add on mud bath for $10pp. We chose not to do this, but would be fun if you've never done this sort of thing before. All around the pools are off limit areas where you can see water and sulfur gas escaping from the earth below.

The hot spring includes a small spa area, where they offer massages varying from 15 minutes to an hour. They only had one time slot left which was a 2 person massage for 25 minutes for $35. We decided to book it, and while it wasn't the best massage ever, it was nice to get a little pampering. We left just after dark, a full day of exploring behind us, and made our way back to Juayua town for the night.

We started off our day similarly to yesterday, with the hotel's typical El Salvadorian breakfast. During the middle part of the day, we went on the local waterfall hike. It turns out you can just walk from our town to get to the trail in about 15 minutes. After the hike, we spent some time relaxing at the hotel before heading out to dinner at a mexican restaurant that was only a few blocks away. We had several plates of tacos and a combination plate of 4 different items at the Delicias de Mexico restaurant, which really WAS delicious! If we were staying in town for another night, I would take bets that we would return!

The Seven Waterfalls Hike

The Seven waterfalls hike can be found on the AllTrails app, and basically starts right from the center of town. There are a few choices on how you can visit this trail, depending on how comfortable you are with navigating. There are local guides you can pay to bring you or you can probably join another small group (perhaps ask at your hotel). If you download the AllTrails map, there's no reason why you can't go on your own, just be sure to keep checking the map, as you will see a lot of trail options as you go. We opted for the self guided tour.

After only a little while on the real trail, we came up behind a large group with their guide, so had a bit of a preview on the part where you get to the waterfalls and need to know where to go. Basically, there are a series of waterfalls and you start following them upstream. For several of the waterfalls, you actually need to climb up the rocks through the water. It's fairly easy to see where to go, as the rocks are worn where people have been stepping. The guide will also bring a rope to help you climb the steeper part of one waterfall, however, if you feel uncomfortable, you can easily bypass the steepest part by going to the side.

After you climb up several levels of the waterfall, there are more that you can stand under and take pictures, and then you are back to the beginning. Then, follow the loop around the other way and you'll get to another series of waterfalls that literally just appear out of the side of the cliff. They have large pools underneath for swimming. Just beware, there will be a tall locked fence and gate if you try to take the shortcut back to the town road, which we did.... A few simple but slightly sketchy manuevers around the edge of the fence, and we made it to the other side. We were super confused because we had seen a large group with guides head out that way, but the only thing we can think of is that they must give the guides all keys to those padlocks!

The 7 waterfalls hike is a must do if you're in the area, and super adventurous if you do the entire loop with climbing up the falls. Our guest traveler, Tessa, loves rock climbing so this was right up her alley!

Today we planned to hike up the Santa Ana volcano. We woke up early and prepared to hike, eating some snacks in the car for breakfast. We drove around 30 minutes, before noticing the gusting winds getting stronger the closer we got to the trailhead. We decided then to reroute our plans for the day and retry the hike tomorrow. It also was extremely cloudy at the top and we were worried we would be standing in a cloud with no view at all and very cold from the high winds.

We diverted to the semi-large town of Santa Ana, not quite sure what our plan was. We ended up visiting Santa Ana followed by the Mayan ruins of Tazumal, which was hadn't been able to visit the other day when they were closed for Mondays. After a long day in the car and a lot of walking around the towns, we checked in to our hotel on the Coatepeque Lake, which is a beautiful crater lake formed by a volcano tens of thousands of years ago. Today it is ringed with hotels, vacation homes and restaurants, making it a fun destination for our New Year's Eve. We have 2 nights here at the Cardedeu Hotel Lago de Coatepeque, which sits lakefront.

Santa Ana

First priority in Santa Ana was to find some breakfast. We found a popular pastry / breakfast chain called Bon Bon where we were able to park and sit down to order breakfast. We opted for 2 traditional El Salvadorian breakfasts of eggs on top of fried tortillas, with salsa, avocado, refried beans and plantains, as well as a nutella crepe and some lattes. It was one of our more expensive meals, but really not much, at $30 including some last minute pastries that we tried from the counter.

Moving on to the town, we stopped by the Parque Libertad where you can see the city hall area and the impressive Cathedral of Our Lady Saint Anne. We stopped inside the church to admire the large interior. While walking through town, we found a small tourist market followed by a lot of other shopping including fruits, veggies, drinks, clothing and pretty much anything you could think of. The town was packed with locals walking about, both selling and buying from the shops. Bryan tried one of the hot dog vendors things which is a bun filled with chopped condiments and a small amount of meat. Reviews were that it was very tasty!

Santa Ana was a much larger city than the small towns we had been visting, and while it was nice to see, we were happy with our choice not to base our stay there. However, we must mention that even being a bigger city, we felt so safe the entire time including both driving and walking around.

Tazumal and Chalchuapa town

Tazumal is an ancient Mayan ruin, dating back to 250 AD, but considered an important ceremonial complex in the 900's. By 1200 AD, Tazumal was abandoned by the ancient people. It consists of many stages of construction and rebuilding by the Mayans creating a central pyramid structure. It was excavated and reconstructed in the 1940's and unfortunately, they decided to use modern concrete to fill in the ideas of what they thought the structure would have looked like. From afar, the structure looked better, but when up close, you start questioning the concrete use.

There were very few tourists there, so little in fact, that we wondered if the site was open or not. We parked and walked over to find the ticket office, happily discovering that they were in fact open today. We paid the $5 tourist entrance price per person and spent about a half hour exploring the site. They have a small museum where you can learn about Tazumal and the Chalchuapa region as well as see some artifacts such as pottery, stone carvings, and jade stones.

After Tazumal, we walked through the town of Chalchuapa, where we visited their local market, ate a late lunch at an another excellent Mexican taco place called La Taqui Cardia, where we had some chicken tacos and margaritas. We walked over to see the cathedral and there was a pop up sale of fireworks stalls. There were so many choices, from minor to fairly large, and we picked up a few small ones for later. We headed back to the car and out of Chalchuapa, making our way to the lake hotel.

Happy 2026! We had a fun time celebrating the New Year around lake Coatepeque last night. It turned out almost every restaurant was closed, but we came across a few street vendors selling french fries, fresh chips, and sweets, so that became dinner. Nearby there were more pop up stalls selling many kinds of fireworks! We returned to the hotel where we enjoyed some drinks on our patio while locals were already setting off some smaller fireworks around the lake. At close to midnight, we brought our small fireworks and sparklers down to the dock, joining in the festivities. It ended up being a great location for seeing fireworks all around the rim of the crater and also on the lakefront.

We woke early again, for our last chance to hike the Santa Ana volcano. We really lucked out, with clear skies and zero cloud cover on the volcano! We made the ~45 minute drove over to the national park. Read below to hear all about our amazing hike! After the hike, we stopped for lunch at one of the many "mirador", or lookout, restaurants over the lake's crater rim. We ate 3 pupusas each, beer and coffee for only $11 at the Blue Star restaurant. Maybe we were really hungry from the hike, but we all thought these were our favorite pupusas so far. Back at the hotel, we took a well deserved rest, sat by the lakefront, and had dinner at the hotel's popular Argentinian restuarant, La Pampa. We each had a meal of grilled meat or fish with some sides. It was our fanciest dinner here, a good way to ring in the new year and Tessa's final night with us on the trip.

Santa Ana Volcano

Santa Ana is the tallest volcano in El Salvador. It had recently been dormant for over a 100 years, but apparently in 2005 it erupted spitting out rocks the size of cars, and water. Nowadays, it is a popular tourist destination and perhaps one of the top things to do when visiting El Salvador. Tourists are required to have a guide when visiting the volcano, but you are able to just show up there on the morning of your hike and join a group by going to the parking lot here. We had also had heard that you can ask for a private guide and pay a bit more but not have to have the hassle of waiting for a group. We opted for the private guide, which cost us $40 for the 3 of us. If you join a group, you will only pay $4 per person, but they will have you wait until a group of 10-15 people are formed. We decided the private guide was worth it to be able to go at our own pace and have a bit more peace on the trail. You will also pay $3 per car plus 50 cents per person for parking, and then about 15-20 minutes into the hike, you'll get to the park entrance where you will need to pay another $3 per person. The park is very secure with guards checking each backpack for any alcohol, cigarettes or weapons. There are also tourist police that walk the trail every day. They stop letting people up the trail aound 11am, to help preserve the natural habitat. We found the trail to be very clean and appreciated the care they were taking with their national park.

The Santa Ana trail was about 4.5 miles round trip with roughly 1500 ft elevation gain. We started out in the forest and made our way up to the smaller shrubs and then finally to the rocky top. Our guide spoke a little English, but we mostly tried to converse in Spanish, helping to push us out of our comfort zone yet again in this country, where we have been practicing our Spanish more than ever. We found out that the trail was actually closed yesterday for the weather conditions, and we were so thankful that we had decided to turn around before driving all the way there.

Along the way, we had fantastic views of the steeper nearby Izalco volcano, with its more perfect cone shape. Also views of the Cerro verde volcano, which you can drive to the top of and has several restaurants at the top. There were many agave plants growing, some with their once in a lifetime 20-30 foot tall bloom. Near the top, the route became a bit backed up with other groups, but finally we were there are were rewarded with fantastic views. At the summit, you overlook a stunning turquise sulphurous lagoon from the crater rim, a steep drop of nearly 1,000 feet down to the lagoon. Looking out from the summit, you can see most of Lake Coatepeque, as well as many other volcanoes in the distance. You can see all the way past San Salvador, and also out to the Pacific Ocean, giving you the feeling that you can really see most of this small country all from one vantage point. We were allowed plenty of time at the top, flying the drone and taking pictures before heading back down the trail. On the way down, we were stuck behind more groups, as many people were leaving around the same time. We would definitely still recommend getting a private guide if you don't mind spending a bit of extra money, as it allowed us more flexibility on the trail.

We woke up to another beautiful day on the lake. We had to check out of our hotel but found a nice coffee shop up above with amazing views of the lake to start our day. After geting coffee, we had an hour+ drive to San Salvador, where we would spend our only time in the capital city. Driving into San Salvador, you couldn't help to think about how this would potentially have been unheard of about 3-4 years ago. It felt completely safe and we found a paid parking lot, which are common here, where they watch your car for $1 per hour. After the city, we dropped Tessa off at the airport, as she had to be back at school tomorrow, and we headed out to the closest beach area, Costa del Sol, where we would spend our final two nights.

Costa del Sol seems to be a very popular local destination with many hotels that are renting out day passes for their beach and pool. We rented an apartment on the beach at Terrazas del Sol which turned out to be very nice and can accomodate many more people if necessary. We walked on the beach, relaxed on our patio, went to the local grocery, and then found a delicious seafood restaurant we could walk to. At Mi Costa Vida hotel and restaurant, we had a fresh whole fish, ceviche, and beer which were all outstanding for only $35. Tomorrow we plan on exploring more of the area and enjoying our last full day in El Salvador.

San Salvador

After arriving in San Salvador, we parked near a large tourist market called Mercado Ex-Cuartel. Inside, there was a maze of tourist shops selling almost the exact same thing as each other, which made it a bit overwhelming. Being one of the very few tourists inside, everyone was competing for our attention. We ended up purchasing a few souveniers each to take home. After the market, we wandered out into the central historic district, where they still had set up a ton of Christmas decorations including whole pop up villages for kids entertainment. There was a house for Santa, Mrs Claus, and even the Grinch!

In the Plaza Libertad, we visited the newly constructed and impressilby large library, built in 2023. The central square also included a large cathedral and the national palace nearby. We didn't have time to visit much before needing to get Tessa to the airport for her flight. We attempted to visit the Iglesia El Rosario, an interesting church with less than asthetic outside (think concrete blocks) but many rainbow colored stained glass windows on the inside, but unfortunaly it was closed from 12-2pm. We arrived there at 11:50am and the gates were already locked. There was a decent amount of police presence all around, which made us feel safe in a non-threatening way. As in much of El Salvador, we have seen police around but they appear to be super casual, as a part of the new government. We had a quick lunch at a Taqueria los Sanchez before making the 45 min drive to the airport. You could probably spend a day in San Salvador as there are a few other things to do, such as going up the local volcano and a place where you can slide down a rainbow looking multi story slide, but we opted for heading to the Costa del Sol instead to enjoy our final 2 days on the beach.

We had a full day to explore the Costa del Sol today, a beach peninsula with expansive wide sandy beaches, lined with many destinations that were pay per day to enjoy their beach and pool, with some rooms to stay in. We explored the end of our peninsula, at La Puntilla Beach, where there are many over water restaurants and some beaches to visit. After a few hours of relaxing, eating and exploring, we drove back to our apartment. From there, we went on a long beach walk to the North all the way to meet the river Jiboa entering the sea. We couldn't help but notice that we were perhaps the only non central american tourists that we had seen all day!

After our long walk and a swim in the warm ocean, we watched the sunset from our balcony. We had already picked out a dinner restaurant down near the end of the point. The restaurant Nammu was well rated and part of a fancy looking resort. We wanted to try their "world famous" ceviche, as well as the lobster. Both ended up being fantastic. The lobster was actually two lobsters for $45.

On our last day, we took a final beach walk before packing up. We stopped for lunch right down the road at a small kitchen called Cocteleria Esther. We had to get a few more pupusas before leaving El Salvador. We also had a freshly made ceviche. We noticed that they used filtered water for preparing our food, which made us feel good about the cleanliness of the place. Don't be fooled by the rudimentary kitchen on the side of the road, these ladies prepared everything so carefully and it was all delicious! We met the rental car guy right at the departures drop off and in 1 minute were on our way to the gate. We will definitely recommend El Salvador to anyone wanting to get away to somewhere beautiful, friendly and up and coming, before all of the tourists arrive!

Costa del Sol and Playa la Puntilla

Being the weekend, the Costa del Sol area was a very popular destinaion for locals. We made our way down to the end of the peninsula, about a 20 minute drive. From there, we parked in a lot where the guy explained to us that we could park for $5 or we could take a boat "tour" and go eat lunch on the floating restaurants for $25. We had no real plans for the day and were curious about the over water restaurants that you could only get to by boat, so we agreed to the $25 and soon were on our way to the beach to get the boat.

We had no idea which restaurant he would take us to, but it ended up being Restaurant Yemita. There are a bunch of these restaurants on the water and we figured they are probably all relatively the same. We happened to be there at high tide, but supposedly in low tide, there are more sandbars or otherwise shallow water. We weren't too keen on getting into the water, as it appeared their small bathroom MIGHT be going right below, but some others were swimming. We ordered some beer and a mixed fish and shellfish ceviche followed by a small whole fried fish with two garlic shrimp, rice and corn tortillas. The ceviche wasn't our favorite of the trip, but overall the food was good and we had a fun experience. We asked the restaurant owner to call our boat driver, who came over to pick us up promptly.

Back on the beach, we walked around a little, taking in the scene there. There were many families enjoying the day, and plenty of covered areas to hang out, where you could get food from small kitchens or bring your own food. Kids were enjoying swimming and being pulled on floating tubes behind the boats. There are also some other activities in Costa del Sol such as horseback riding, or boating a bit further to see the mangroves or visit a beach by boat.