Why? Travel that confounds expectations is always deeply satisfying. El
Salvador is Central America’s smallest country and is best known elsewhere
in the world for its 1979-92 civil war, its gangs (in the US and at home)
and for not being quite as “Mayan” as Guatemala, its neighbour. It is also
one of the world’s unsung wonders, with a chain of perfect cone-shaped
volcanoes and huge lakes inside craters, an established surfing scene and
some fine beaches, a modern, tree-filled capital and a northern flank of
pine-forested mountains – and it has Mayan sites, such as the Unesco-listed
Joya de Cerén.
Suchitoto is El Salvador’s prettiest colonial-era town – and a great first
base. Thanks to its mansion setting, art, antiques, its Franco-Salvadorean
fusion restaurant and its general opulence, Los Almendros de San Lorenzo is
a genuine “destination hotel” – and all for the price of a Costa Rican b&b.
Perquin, in the hills of the Oriente region is one of the places where the
memory of the 1980s war between government and guerrillas has been turned
into something approaching a “tourist” experience. This simply means that
you can be guided around the monuments and the hillsides by former
combatants – on the guerrilla side – and visit Perquin’s Museo de la
Revolución with people who know what they’re talking about. In the west, El
Imposible is El Salvador’s wonderfully named, beautifully mountainous
national park. You can see Guatemala’s volcanoes from the peaks here, but
don’t forget to look back at El Salvador’s – they are magnificent,
unphotographed, and very close.
How to go: Journey Latin America can organise visits to El Salvador
that combine El Imposible and Suchitoto with the Mayan site at Copán in
Honduras, starting from £1,322 per person plus flights.
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