Our time in Guatemala was at an end, and so we booked a shuttle to take us across the border into another new country for the both of us; El Salvador. We booked with Gekko Travel, but a G Adventures bus is what eventually picked us up (about 40 minutes late). It had come from El Salvador that morning and picked us up on a route still dropping off other tourists doing the opposite journey, so there were lots of quick exchanges on the bus. “What would you recommend? What’s the top tips?” Etc as we crossed paths.
Then we finally set off towards La Frontera (the border), we were crossing at Chinamas and the crossing was super simple. We just needed an exit stamp from Guatemala, then hopped back in the bus to cross the river and enter El Salvador, which gave us both 180 days!
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, so it wasn’t a long drive from the border to our final destination; Conception de Ataco – also known as the first town along El Salvador’s famous ‘Route of Flowers‘.
It’s technically not the right season for flowers along the route at the moment, but there were still a lot in bloom, and the jungle flanked the road too. Still, the road of the route is beautiful, winding through the mountains and surrounded by seemingly hundreds of volcanoes, as every hill here is cone shaped and volcanic looking, and actually most of them are!!
Ataco was also a lovely little village also and was our favourite in the end… The Ruta de las Flores is the stretch of road between Ahuachapan and Sonsonate, and runs through 5 quaint villages/towns – Ataco, Apaneca, Juayua, Salcoaltitan and Nahuizalco. Usually people visit Juayua as a base as it’s the one in the middle, and then get the local bus out to visit other towns, but we’re heard Ataco was the nicest, so we decided to stay here for 2 nights first, before moving to Juayua for the next 2.
Our hostel was at the far south of Ataco town, right next to a little church and the main Mirador overlooking the town, it was very nice, and also had a pool table (but all the cues had missing tips 😞), a couple of cute cats and the nicest coffee we’ve had on our trip.
Pretty much all the towns on this route conform to the same recipe… Cobbled streets, a central square (often with a fountain) with a little church on it. Lots of street murals and flowers. Several pupuserias (serving the El Salvador staple food ‘pupusas’) and loads of coffee shops (this is the coffee growing region of El Salvador!).
It’s a very touristy region apparently, but with locals, who all flock here at weekends from the cities. Apparently on a standard weekend 16,000 locals turn up in Ataco and all the roads are gridlocked!! It kind of reminded us of the villages in the Lake District in the UK. Fortunately for us it was midweek and the towns were all very quiet, and there weren’t many western tourists here either, only a handful we saw. So it felt really authentic and off the beaten path.
On the first full day we took the bus to the next town over, Apaneca, to explore and visit the famous ‘Cafe Albania‘ theme park which is here.
After a very brief walk through town from the bus stop, we went to the park, and it was mad!! $5 got you in, but this could also be used as credit in the park on one of the many activities here. And you could also buy more vouchers, or even a ticket to do them all! There were ziplines, slides, swings, bicycle high-wires, cage high-wires, lots of adrenaline activities basically. But they were pretty pricey actually, I think the day pass was $60! We were surprised! El Salvador uses the USD for currency, and it seems to push the prices up for a lot of things, especially tourist things like this place. So we had a look at some of the cheaper options… There are 2 mazes here on sites which is what the park is actually most famous for. The first is a maze of mirrors, so we gave this one a go for $5 each.
It was really really good actually(!) and we were both very surprised how much we enjoyed it! It was very well designed and, yes, we got lost a couple of times haha, but we did eventually find the exit. It wasn’t just mirrors, but also lots of cool lighting which was really trippy!
Then we headed through the park towards the hedge maze, which was MASSIVE, and was a bit of a maze just to find the entrance to haha.
This was $3 to get in, and we tried for about 40 minutes to find the centre, we tried using the maze hack of keeping one hand touching a wall at all times – which usually works… UNLESS it’s not a traditional maze design with no islands haha, and I guess it wasn’t a traditional maze, because after 40 minutes, we found ourselves back at the start again, not the centre!! Haha 🤦🏻♀️ it was baking, and we’d drunk all our water, we we took it as a sign to leave whilst we still could!
We left the park and headed into town, which had… Cobbled streets with a central square with a church on it, lots of coffee shops, flowers and murals…
Then in the afternoon, we headed back to Ataco and explored the village here, visiting… The central square, the church, a local coffee shop and snapping lots of the murals – many of which were of El Salvador’s National bird…. The Turquoise Browed Motmot!! I’m going to be in my element here with all the Motmot madness haha!
Then we climbed up a steep road towards the Mirador de la Cruz viewpoint, which had epic views of Ataco and of volcanoes on the border with Guatemala.
The next day was Dave’s birthday!! Happy birthday to him! I asked him ages ago what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to climb a volcano and eat pasta (lol), but unfortunately, after extending a few nights in Antigua we were about 2 days behind and the volcano I’d planned to hike was in Santa Ana (where we’re due to be in 2 days!), so the volcano hiking would have to wait… But I could cook him pasta! As I had booked a nicer apartment for his birthday with a fully fitted private kitchen. We just had to get there…
Since check out was 1pm and check in at the apartment was only 3pm, that morning we did do a small hike out to a coffee plantation just out of town. I’d read that there were Motmot signings here frequently… We didn’t see any Motmots, but we did see a gartered trogon which is not so common actually, so that was cool.
Then we got the bus over to Juayua for just $0.38 (the buses here as insanely cheap!) and checked into our apartment.
Juayua was the biggest town we’d been to so far, but still followed the recipe – central square, church to the side, cobbled streets, murals and coffee shops.
We went to the local supermarket and stocked up on pasta and veggies and I cooked for the first time in nearly 2 months, just a simple pasta dish, but Dave was happy! ☺️
On our final day here, we visited the last 2 towns on the route, Nahuizalco first, which (you guessed it) had a central square with a cute little church and tonnes of pupuserias and coffee shops. No but actually this town was a bit different, as there was way much more action going on with a busy outdoor market and lots more locals. And we didn’t see any other tourists here at all.
Although one other difference we noticed in this town was the heat, and it was WAY hotter here than the other town, we think because it’s in more of a valley and has less breeze? But we got so hot and sweaty here, we didn’t stay long before heading back to Juayua via Salcoatitan.
That evening I got a migraine (which sadly lasted a few days), so in the evening we just got an early night and slept, and the same in the morning before checking out.
The route of flowers was a perfect introduction to El Salvador, it’s so beautiful and the surrounding volcanoes from Guatemala to Santa Ana and Izalco volcanoes make this region visually stunning and dramatic.
The towns are quite similar in their set-up, but they are beautiful, and we’re glad we chose to stay in both Ataco and Juayua. Although we didn’t do much in the region except just explore the cute towns, our days still felt busy and interesting.
Anyway, here’s a round up of all the best Motmot murals we saw in Ruta de las Flores ☺️ Enjoy!
Travel Alchemist 
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