Surprising Santa Ana

From Juayua we got the public bus to Santa Ana, which is direct for just $0.70 each. However we had to wait a while, we heard the bus goes every hour at 10 past, so at about 11am we headed outside the hostel. We were on the street where the bus would go down, turn around at the main square, then come back up…

We waited a while, and finally at about 11:30am the bus went past us. We got our things ready and crossed the road as it should just turn around then come back…… Nope… 😭 We waited almost another 40 minutes, doubting what we knew and wondering if the bus would ever come back!! Until it finally pulled up about 12:10.

We think the bus must have been waiting to fill up, as it was absolutely crammed full, the doors opened and people were already hanging out, the central aisle full of people standing. We had no other choice but to try and squeeze on too.

Other passengers helped us with our bags and once they were in the overhead space it wasn’t too bad… But the doors couldn’t close and Dave was practically hanging out of the bus 😂

It was definitely an adventure haha

We finally arrived in Santa Ana at about 2pm, a bigger city in El Salvador. We were told not to expect much from this city and even considered not staying here and staying in the nearby national park instead. But surprisingly, we ended up really liking it here. It’s more raw and gritty, but still has a lot of charm.

We stayed near the main central square with the cathedral, and in the afternoon/early evening after arriving we saw a small Semana Santa procession, nowhere near on the scale of Antigua, but still interesting. We had pupusas for tea, then went back to the room for an early night as my migraine was still lingering.

The first day here was still a bit ruined by my migraine, so we started slow, heading for breakfast about 10am. Since it was quite warm in the city, and we’re on the hunt for trainers for Dave after his Acatenango hike, we visited an air-conditioned mall in the south. It was Saturday, so it was HAMMERED, but it was nice to do some shopping, although we didn’t find anything in Dave’s size haha, it might be a continuous issue, as he towers over most central Americans!

Then in the afternoon we went over to the Archaeological site of Tazumal. It’s a Maya site, and probably the last one we will see now as it’s at the furthest reaches of the Maya civilisation. However we didn’t really come here for the archaeology if we’re honest, I’d read that this was one of the best places to see El Salvador’s National bird, the turquoise-browed Motmot… We had our fingers crossed to see one, since we hadn’t been lucky with the quetzal in Guatemala.

The ruins were cool, but they’ve been heavily restored and covered in layers of concrete to “protect” them. By the entrance we saw a yellow oriole species (the spot-breasted oriole). Then we headed behind the temples and pyramid into the dusty forest. 

The call of the turquoise-browed motmot is quite different to the Motmot we saw at earth lodge, and is quite metallic and robotic sounding, no way we can mimic that!! So I played a recording of one from my bird app…

One flew right in front of us and landed in a nearby tree, we were so excited and raced to get in a good position to take a picture, but we shouldn’t have worried. Over the course at about an hour we stayed here we saw about 5 or 6 of them. Often perching together in the same branch, and calling to each other between the trees.

They kept their distance to some extent, but generally stayed quite close and as we crept towards them slowly to get good pics, they would fly to another tree, but never far away, more like moving around us in a circle haha.

We got a few tail wags, but not much, these Motmots seemed much more comfortable with us. But they did watch us and follow us through the trees.

We headed back to the town for a drink and an ice-cream, then caught the bus back to Santa Ana which was just $0.25 each!

The next day we got up early and walked over to La Vencedora bus station to get the bus to Santa Ana Volcano. It took about 2 hours to get there and was only $0.75 (we still can’t get over how cheap the buses are here)!

Then we think we got scammed a bit… We heard that the bus drops you at the park entrance where you can get a guide to walk up to the crater rim (which according to other tourist blogs is ‘mandatory’). But the bus stopped outside a private carpark and we were told to get off. All the tourists got off here and asked to pay $0.50 just to enter the car park area… A guide greeted us (with an official lanyard) and asked us to pay $4 each for a guide for the whole group that just came off the bus. We’d read it was free or $1, some people said $3 on their blogs… So I was pretty confused and said to Dave maybe we were being scammed for extra, but every one else paid without so much of a murmur, I didn’t want to kick up a fuss….

We walked along a forested path to the park entrance, we seemed to be taking the back route, and saw no one else on this path (which seemed dodgy if it was the main pathway to the park). When we arrived at the actual entrance, it was teeming with locals arriving from another path and here we had to pay the actual official $3 entrance…

It turns out we were sort of scammed as this was the private guide meeting point, and we’d got a private guide not an official park one, and so they can charge whatever they want. If we’d gone to the main entrance from the front, we think it might have been free to join a public guide, or we’d have been able to not have a guide at all, since we saw plenty of locals with no guide and there were no signs or information boards which mentioned a “mandatory” guide – we think this is just something the guides say to make sure you get one, but all the travel guides and blogs fall for it then reinforce the message… 🙄

It’s experiences like this which are challenging as a tourist. And it’s not about the money, it was $4.50 extra, that’s all, in reality it’s nothing. But when you’re being taken advantage of or exploited – at the end of the day we are new here and have no other option but to trust those in positions of power – it feels pretty rough…. Also, it’s not the only time it happens. When you’re travelling often, even if you’re savvy, sadly this kind of thing happens A LOT. Not like the mega scams you know to be cautious of, but just skimming a little off the top by someone official looking. Like “oh the price has gone up to $1.50 now” (but the ticket still says $1…), or the bus should be $0.90 but they conveniently “don’t have change” from a dollar, or there’s some additional “handling fee” or “service charge” which wasn’t advertised before hand etc, you don’t always question it, it’s not an obvious scam, just a little extra… but over time the little extras here and there DO start to add up, and can make you feel a little cynical if you let it.

We try our best to not let it get to us, but travelling isn’t always rosy and perfect as some influencers make out to be…. and so I thought I should mention it along with all the amazing and positive things we’ve done. Life is never perfect and there are good and bad things which happen every day.

So, now to the good thing… The hike in itself was actually great! Our group was quite big and loud, so over the course of the hike, we eventually found ourselves at the back, leaving a gap between to enjoy the peace and quiet of the mountain and take our own time to enjoy the views and keep an eye out for birds.

The walk was also not that challenging, but in the sun and heat we got very sweaty and got to the top absolutely soaked in sweat! The views were worth it though. On one side you can see down into the caldera which has a steaming sulphur lake in it, and eery green colour, and on the other side you can see lake Coatepeque, and another volcano Izalco, plus you could even see all the way to the Pacific ocean, and we could even make out the waves hitting the shoreline, it was pretty amazing!

We spent a good half hour at the top, soaking in the views, eating all our snacks and drinking lots of water before walking down quite quickly to make it to the 1pm bus back to town.

That afternoon after we returned (and showered to remove the layer of sweat and dust) it was super hot in Santa Ana and we were also quite tired from the walk, so after a quick food stop we headed to our AC room to watch the final day of the masters golf (haha) only heading back out in the evening for some little ceasars pizza and to visit a few churches which were lit up.

Santa Ana was nice and we enjoyed the hike and the Motmots at Tazumal, but a couple of days was enough in the city and so next we move to the beach!

Thanks for reading!