We have a message for the El Salvadoran people.
Don't you worry, we will be back!
We are Marianne and Chris,
in May 2018 we quit the 9-5 job,
rented our house, to travel full-time.
Like everybody,
the corona virus is affecting our daily lives,
and our around the world drive has now come to a standstill.
After spending over 70 days in the same car park,
we often find ourselves daydreaming of past trips and adventures.
In fact about one year ago today,
we were actually in El Salvador Central America.
El Salvador is sometimes overlooked by backpackers due to its reputation,
in fact they actually created a hashtag!
#Dontskipelsalvador
and how happy will we that we chose to spend a few weeks in this wonderful country.
In fact when we arrived at the border, we did a land crossing,
and the tourists in front of us kept saying the word "in transit"!
and we were really unsure of what was going on.
What question were they being asked?
so when we arrived for our turn and the immigration guy said "how long are you here in El Salvador?"
and we look to each other, grinned and said "A couple of weeks maybe?!"
He was so excited in fact he asked us to wait and he disappeared,
and he came back with this 'welcome to El Salvador tourist map' with all the best places to visit!
And in fact the hospitality continued to grow from that point onwards!
What a a country!
As travel bloggers, people always ask us 'where is the best place?' ' what is the best place?'
But for us, it always comes down to the people,
and it has some of the most friendliest people we have ever met.
I remember we had a we had a party in El Tunco,
Our Airbnb host Eduardo and Kriscia actually took the time to take us up into the mountains in the hills,
surrounding San Salvador,
to a village called Panchimalco,
what a village! such a beautiful colourful village up in the countryside.
We were blessed because the whole family just took us in,
and we heard about this national dish called 'Pupusas'
and we were curious and when we asked them,
Nancy actually showed us how to make them,
showed us the different fillings you could put in,
and even cooked them from fresh for us to taste that deliciousness!
We were really lucky to be able to explore El Salvador both on our own and with locals.
we did a free walking tour with a company called EC Tours.
And Estephany took us around the capital San Salvador
and what an interesting day that was!
We got the opportunity to stop off at the market stalls,
to taste all the fresh juices that were being pressed right in front of us.
and see all the colourful market and also all the improvements that are being done in San Salvador.
It is just a fabulous culturally diverse place, with the new and the old all blended together.
In fact we had so much fun with the Estephany from EC Tours,
That we actually teamed up with them,
and they spent their time taking us,
and showing the best of their country!
and El Salvador surprisingly has so much to offer,
it's such a tiny little country,
it's called the little thumb!
It's so easy to get around,
the local transport is great,
and there's so much to see that and something for everybody.
Whether you're into hiking up mountains,
whether you want to relax in the hot springs,
yeah we were actually blown away by the diversity,
Beautiful lakes some of them the most amazing blue colour,
volcanic lakes, we went on a boating trip.
we headed up into the countryside of El Salvador and did some jungle trekking.
And if you don't believe us on how amazing El Salvador is,
we actually invited some of our friends,
YouTube creators that we know have visited El Salvador to share their experience with you as well.
Hola Amigos! hola! Brittany and Drew here from the YouTube channel,
mr. and mrs. adventure
and we're here to tell you a little bit about our travels in one country in particular,
that stood out amongst the rest,
and we want to thank you Chris and Marianne for allowing us to share a bit of our story with your community,
because for the past six years we've been traveling the globe by van.
We spent over two years in our beloved 'Howling Yowler' ford transit van,
all across Europe and Northern Africa, as well as exploring North America and Latin America.
And right before everything with Cova 19 hit across the globe.
We had the ultimate pleasure of being able to spend a blissful week in El Salvador,
not only were we running on the beaches and surfing in the waves but
we were able to eat the delicious food of that country 'pupusas' Ah the pupusas,
it was so fun to learn how they are made and just taste and relish every bite we had.
The fresh fish and the smoothie, some of the fruit smoothie and on top of all
of that one of the things you remember them
was the kindness and hospitality that we received from the locals.
people are very warm welcoming
there's been a big push in recent years from the new president
to encourage tourism, bring people in to surf and explore the beach communities
as well as many of the other delights and adventures that await them.
we had the opportunity to be guided by a really wonderful local his name is Salva with Tuncolife
they do these adventure tours to certain parts of the country,
so not only did we get to summit this incredible crater volcano
that has bleu waters, they were gorgeous,
it was like nothing I had ever seen before!
one thing we can't forget, is the motorcycle trip we took from to Tunco to
Musiata, and just exploring those windy roads it was picturesque I felt like we
were in Southern California all over again,
cruising through Malibu!
And we even got to explore the city of San Salvador,
we really enjoyed the Heritage stepping into the grand Cathedral,
and looking at how beautiful that cathedral was in the centre of San Salvador those glass panes.
yeah that was one of the most beautiful churches we have ever seen,
and I wanted to mention exploring the city,
exploring alone on a motorcycle just us two,
we felt completely safe
and not only that, we felt very welcomed and supported by the locals.
And they were grateful that we were there grateful that we had the courage to explore this country that on the outside has had a bad of reputations,
but on the inside truly has so much to offer.
yeah and on top of that we should talk about the weather,
the climate along the coast and beaches are some of the best in the world,
it's dry air and it's so beautiful.
So when all of this is over,
we truly hope that you all will consider exploring the beautiful country of El Salvador,
and to the people of El Salvador,
if you are watching this, thank you so much for the experiences and memory that we will carry in our hearts forever.
El Salvador to the very top of your bucket list, because it is a one for the books!
Do it now guys take care, ciao ciao for now
Adios!
Hey guys I'm Alex Outhwaite, I'm a travel television presenter and a travel blogger.
now I visited El Salvador last year in January,
and I just wanted to share with you a couple of stories about why I thought it was such an amazing country,
and why I was super excited to hopefully visit again after the covid 19 situation.
So when I first arrived in El Salvador,
I flew in and I just collected my rucksack,
and as soon as I came out at the airport I had people approaching me asking if they could carry my bag.
This does actually happen at quite a lot of airports,
but usually people are wanting to make a couple of dollars by carrying your bags for you,
so initially I was saying 'thank you' or 'it's okay no thank you'
and then I started to realise,
that these people weren't trying to actually make money,
and they were just doing it genuinely to be kind and to try and welcome me to the country.
and this kindness actually continued throughout the whole of my trip.
My Spanish isn't particularly good,
but I would have people coming up to me stopping their cars and asking if I needed their help,
translating or directions to other places,
when we were on buses people would go out of their way to try and tell us when our stop was,
and make sure that we didn't miss it!
on top of the kindness I think another amazing aspect of El Salvador is
just how diverse it is there's something for every type of traveler,
so there's a lot of adventurous activities if you want to go hiking you can go up to the volcano which I did!
Which I absolutely loved,
you can stay by Lago de Coatepeque
and stay in some beautiful huge properties by the lake there
and go swimming and boating in the lake there's actually a lot of lovely up-and-coming luxury hotels,
especially around the El Tunco area.
And so if you're in need of a bit more of a luxurious side El Salvador can offer that as well,
certainly El Tunco itself has so much to offer for everybody
it's a huge surf destination I think a lot of people don't know that El Salvador is so good for surfing.
And it's got an incredible nightlife as well
so I actually spend quite a bit of time in
El Tunco, going out to some of the bars
and it's actually got a bit of an Ibiza feel
I posted some videos on my Instagram from El Tunco and people genuinely seemed to think that it was an Ibiza!
They we're very surprised to find out that it was El Salvador.
It's only a small country,
so it's quite easy to get around there's lots of buses going up and down the coast and inland,
and it's very cheap to travel around as well which certainly as a backpacker like me
is a big benefit.
It's somewhere that I'm really keen to go back to,
because although I did spend a few weeks there.
I certainly want to go again, I've made some nice friends in the country.
I'm absolutely obsessed now with pupusas so that's one reason that's good enough to go back,
and I hope to see you all there!
if you guys want to subscribe to my channel there's lots of videos on there from El Salvador that I hope you'll enjoy.
And if you're still in doubt why you should visit El Salvador,
here's a few more reasons!
El Salvador is so diverse,
and one of the benefits of visiting this country is it's so compact and small,
that you can visit so many different types of tourism all in a couple of weeks.
There's lots of wonderful archaeological sites to really get the imagination going.
There's a massive selection of volcanoes you can either drive to or hike up and get the magnificent views from.
And let's not forget the wonderful diversity of wildlife,
and nature trails and things that they have available.
And if you're a foodie like us?
there is something for everyone, there is the delicious street food
all the way up to the high-end restaurants.
Yes and some of those restaurants have the best views.
We went to a restaurant in Suchitoto called Casa 1800,
and the view from that restaurant has to be one of the best views I have ever seen!
Definitely worth the visit!
Every village or town in El Salvador,
the main square is overlooked by wonderful colonial churches,
and when we visited Panchimalco, we got to see the traditional Nahuit style buildings too.
Amazing, I really loved the hustle and bustle of the markets.
We went and walked around, got lost in the markets with the locals,
and you see colourful vegetables and produce
and definitely colourful characters!
Yes we met some amazing people there,
just the the banter that goes on with everyone.
It's so vibrant and colourful and just a really lovely place to visit.
One of my favourite things as a massive coffee drinker was visiting Entre Nubes,
meeting Daniel and his family,
who's been farming the lands for years,
for generations, and tasting the delicious coffees.
All the little colourful villages along the Ruta de las Flores,
well Ataco took my heart!
It was so beautiful, the street art is second to none!
the colourful and beautiful artwork ,
just brightens up the cobbled streets doesn't it?
Absolutely!
and well one of the things that sticks in my memory of how friendly people were,
when we were in Ahuachapan,
we saw a group of bikers all dressed up in their leathers,
with bandanas and we thought let's go and say hi to these guys.
And what a welcome they gave us !
It was really Edwin and Kathy from EC Tours,
that took the time to show us around their wonderful country,
and during these troubled times like so many countries around the world,
people are worried about the tourism and worried about the future of their businesses,
but we have a message for the El Salvadoran people,
don't you worry we will be back,
and all of the tourists will return,
because you have something very special.
And we absolutely loved our time in your country,
And if El Salvador is not on your list of countries to visit, why?
Do it now! put it there!
It should be! it really really should be!
In fact ......
#Dontskipelsalvador
You're still there?
Go on click that link
And get watching some videos on El Salvador!
And plan your next holiday!