Our last country in Latin America!! ADIOS, EL SALVADOR! 🇸🇻

What a way to end 6 months in Latin America. We were able to experience El Salvador in its purest form- full of energetic, friendly, happy people.

For context, El Salvador was very recently known as the murder capital of the world. Here's a quick history timeline of the rise and fall of gang violence:

• 1979-1992: The Salvadoran Civil War leads to widespread violence, displacement of civilians, and recruitment of child soldiers. Hundreds of thousands flee to Los Angeles, where gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18 form.

• 1990s: As part of stricter immigration policies, the U.S. begins deporting gang members back to El Salvador after serving prison sentences. This spreads LA gang culture to El Salvador.

• Early 2000s: Mano Dura crackdowns on gangs involve mass arrests but fail to curb violence long-term. Gangs grow stronger in prisons.

• 2012: El Salvador government brokers truce with MS-13 and Barrio 18, leading to a 40% drop in murders initially, but the truce unravels by 2014.

• 2015: El Salvador has the highest homicide rate in the Western Hemisphere at 103 per 100,000 as gang violence peaks.

• 2019: Nayib Bukele becomes president, promising to defeat the gangs.

• March 2022: After a gang massacre killing 88 civilians, Bukele declares a state of emergency, allowing mass arrests and a crackdown on gangs.

• 2022-2023: Over 77,000 alleged gang members were arrested by September 2023. Gangs largely disappear from the streets as homicides plummet to the lowest levels since the civil war.

The current president, Nayib Bukele has a 90% approval rating since coming into power in 2019.  He’s praised for cracking down on gang activity and eradicating violence across El Salvador,  while outside nations question his unconventional/ dictator-like approaches (all gang members are sentenced to prison for life without due process). Say what you want, but his approach has worked and some! They are now considered the safest country in the Western hemisphere! As you walk around towns, locals have peps in their steps, dancing in the plazas, picnicking with pizza, eating out at various weekend food festivals, and enjoying beach towns along the coast during the weekends. It’s the most vibrant group of people we’ve experienced in Latin America (except the Brazilian’s of course!)

Broadly speaking, Sam and I struggled a bit while traveling across South and Central America because we couldn’t feel an underlying vibrancy or energy across the people (I’ll say it again - Rio you were ELECTRIC). People take life as it is, perhaps thinking they aren’t able to change their current situations or have a better life in their native countries (many still believe the only way to a better life is through immigrating to the US). But here in El Salvador, the president has given hope to a new future for the country, one where tourism will bring foreign ideas and investment, and he has invested heavily in Bitcoin (he even gave citizens the option to receive $30 worth of free Bitcoin!), He made clean water a priority across the country and you can feel people are excited to build a new country.

So far, tourism is picking up, mainly between backpackers and avid surfers. El Salvador even hosted the junior world surf competition just last week!

Santa Ana🚌🌭🍟 

We explored Santa Ana, the second largest city in El Salvador, and felt like it was the most authentic immersion into local life. The city’s lined with sidewalk vendors selling everything from mangoes to phone chargers to counterfeit football jerseys. It happened to be Mother’s Day while there so the plaza overflowed with families dressed up and vendors selling various flowers bouquets.

From Santa Ana, we took a local “chicken” bus, which are pimped out old American school buses to travel 1.5 hours to Juayua, a small pueblo with a weekend food festival. The buses are PACKED with locals and vendors selling full-blown meals (hotdogs and loaded fries), and you’re lucky if you get a seat. We met a few travelers on the bus, one named George from Sheffield, who joined us for the next few days!

Juayua 🛵🌸🌺🌻💐🛵

The food festival was mini but was packed with locals enjoying huge plates of grilled meats and cervezas. We shared a few plates like loaded Yuca Fries and pineapple Piña coladas while people-watching. That night, we went to the local pupusaria to enjoy our first of MANY pupusas of the trip (Deff one of my favorite Latin American street foods!!).

Older women stand outside their homes or storefronts patting massa, cheese, and whatever fillings between their hands to make the perfect pupusa before throwing it on a comal to cook.

Right along Juayua is a scenic highway lined with flowers (only certain parts of the year) that connects 5 little pueblos along a route, Ruta De Las Flores, that Sam and I rented a bike to explore. The flowers weren’t blooming this time of year but it felt so good to be back on a scooter (first time since Asia!!). We stopped for lunch at a fancy hotel, bought a few souvenirs in Ataco, and went to local thermal baths that gave me the ick (the water was naaaaasty!!!). On the way back, we drove to our last stop, Nazhuilo, which had another food festival packed with families enjoying a Sunday night meal in the main plaza.

The next day, we joined some people from our hostel to explore 7 waterfalls in the jungle near Juayua. To see them all, you trek through the jungle and cross (or climb!) each waterfall before ending in a swimming hole. The waterfalls were gorgeous- some massive, soaking us as we walked through, others smaller but surrounded by the most lush moss and ivy walls that felt so majestic. It felt like walking through Avatar at times. We plastered volcanic mud on our faces to exfoliate and rejuvenate our skin (the most skincare I’ve done in the past 10 months 🫣) before stopping at our final destination, a giant watering hole/ waterfall before washing our faces. On the way home, it started torrential downpouring, the kind where the raindrops smack into your skin and actually hurt, and we all laughed in the back of the open-air pickup truck at the chaos.

From Juayua, we took 2 buses down to the beach to explore a few towns known for surfing! En route, Sam decided to wear his new El Salvador football shirt, which was a HIT with the locals. Everyone stared and smiled at him as we cruised through the bus terminal, on our various buses, etc. Not sure if they were fascinated to see tourists riding the bus or because a gringo was repping their national football team, but either way, we felt like little local celebs!!

El Zonte 🏄🌊🏄‍♂️

Our first stop was El Zonte, a small, sleepy, rustic town that didn’t have much other than a few hotels and surf shops. The town (and hotels) were SHUT by 8 pm every night! There really wasn't much to do there other than surf, so Sam and I leaned in and booked 2 days of surf lessons with a bougie surf school.

To no one’s surprise, Sam was a natural. He was pushing the instructors to let himself take bigger waves, paddle on his own, and really got the hang of it quickly (minus 50 wipe-outs in between). I also really enjoyed it and had some successful times standing on the board but needed to perfect my stance once up!  We met two American guys from DC/ LA on a surf trip who were awesome. They were so excited that we were taking lessons and kept giving really helpful tips and insight into the sport. They both even watched our surf lesson from the beach to cheer us on and take pictures!! During our time in El Zonte, we enjoyed pupusas, tacos, and a few beers with them while trying to convince them to take time off and travel (Taylor- if you’re reading this, I hope you have started planning that 6 months off with your wife!!!)

The next few days were spent relaxing at a super nice hostel on a secluded private beach. It had a gorgeous infinity pool and access to its own private black sand beach. There wasn’t much to do there so we read lots and planned our next adventures. The power even cut out one night while everyone was chilling at the pool but instead of that ending the night, these Brazilian surfer guys took matters into their own hands and started forcing everyone to samba and dance to their Brazilian beats. It was so random but hilarious.

El Tunco 🌊☀️🍻

We saved the most lively beach town, El Tunco, for last. We’d heard it was the most built up of the surf towns and has a great party on the weekends as locals from San Salvador come for a weekend staycation. Since it was our last weekend in Latin America, we leaned into the hostel life and booked a dorm room, ready to parrrrtayyyy. We met up with Fred and Bronte, an Aussie couple who we briefly met in Utila, Honduras the week before, and Natalie, who we’ve been traveling on/off with since Guatemala. El Tunco is famous for its killer surf waves, making it super popular with the world’s surf enthusiasts. Sam and I opted OUT of surfing anymore since the waves were huge, but admired the semi-pro surfers from land.

Our first night consisted of a few bevvies on the beach with our friends for sunset, and en route to find more Pilsener (s/o El Salvadors beer brand) we stumbled into a small local bar full of El Salvadoreans and a few backpackers getting ready for a full night ahead. The locals love chatting and dancing with the gringos so it was the perfect way to get the night going. We then all migrated to an outdoor beach club that was sweaty as all hell, but we continued to party and chat up locals. Our group met the sweetest boys from San Salvador who were on a bachelor party for the groom's wedding that was THE NEXT DAY! They even invited us to the wedding! I would have 1000p gone, but I didn’t want to catch the bride off guard LOL. After our wild night, we took things a bit slower the next day, enjoying the beach, sunset beers, pupusa dinners, and lots of Piña Coladas with friends. (2 for 1 Piña Coladas from 1-5pm at the best bar on the beach… c’mon!)

By Monday, the rest of our friends continued on their travels down to Nicaragua together and Sam and I were faced with the reality that our time in Latin America was coming to an end. The past few days with Bronte/ Fred were short-lived, but it was so energizing clicking with them both for a weekend. Traveling with Nat for 4 counties was also SUCH a treat!! I already have FOMO that they’re continuing down Central America without us.

Adios, Latin America 😭🎒✈️

And just like that, our 6 months in South and Central America was coming to an end. Like what the heck?! (fun fact people: Sam’s Spanish is still muy horrible LOL). We packed our bags and prepared for a gnarly travel day. A quick flight from El Salvador to Nicaragua to a 9-hour layover in Miami before a red eye to London Heathrow. Not gonna lie, it was a flurry of emotions throughout the 4 flights. We knew that true backpacking was pretty much over and this overwhelmingly wonderful way of life is on pause for a while. On the contrary, we can’t wait to change up the lifestyle and spend the rest of the year with friends and family who we miss maybe a bit too much :)

With that - first stop: GREECE (kind of)! After landing in Heathrow, Sam’s Dad and wife, Steph, graciously picked us up, took us to lunch, and allowed us to switch some of our clothes that we had left in England. We have officially parted ways with our travel backpacks after 11 months! They did us good 🙂 But it was time to downsize to a personal item each to take advantage of cheap flights around Europe for the next few weeks! He drove us up to Stansted ready for an evening flight to Milan. We’re doing a 3-day layover ($20 flights - how could we not!) before heading to Greece for two of Sam’s close friends wedding. Bring on the Ouzo, Gyro’s and plate smashing!