D137: Casa Mazeta @ Juayua, Ruta Flores, El Salvador

It has been already four days since I am in this tiny and pretty country called El Salvador. So far it is the country of colorful mural paintings where even the post lamps and the bins are artistically painted. The bright colors somehow show the optimism and not losing the faith of the people after the harsh and cruel 12 year old civil war which ended in 1992. Despite all the loss and grief the people are genuine, friendly and happy looking. As in every Central American country the garbage is an issue. People are throwing things from the bus, on the street. A very interesting thing that I have only seen here is that men pee on the street everywhere they feel like. Also they do not know the notion of queuing maybe they should learn their lesson from the Communist Cubans :).

My first stop on D135 was in the north-western village of Perquin on the Ruta Paz (Peace Route). This part of the country is one of the most effected by the civil war. No wonder that all the sites are dedicated to the revolution. In the Museum of Revolution I was walked around by Jose an ex guerrilla fighter who told me that he started fighting when he was 17 years old and learned to read and write in the guerrilla camps. This museum displays some guns used by the guerrillas, posters from different guerrilla supporting countries around the world, profiles of few influential figures who either were murdered or disappeared during the 12 year civil war and the radio used by the guerrillas to keep the nation informed. Further up the road in rich in vegetation area they have a reconstruction of a guerrilla camp. This was very interestingly done. It had two dodgy bridges which by the time I crossed both I was sweated. After this I hiked up to 1,321m to the view point of Perquin. On the way up there were some tranches, bomb holes from the war and an amazing view of Perquin and its surroundings. Getting down to the village there was nothing else to see or do so I decided to move on to my next destination.

After seven hours hopping on and off the chicken buses I got to Alegria. This is a gem of a little town on the top of a hill from where you can see a huge, beautiful green valley with a lake. It was a bit difficult to find a place to sleep but eventually ended up in a dorm room with 3 beds and a bathroom. The garden of the house was full of amazing plants, a statue of St. Mary and a lot of small items like mortars, old phones etc. It was similar t O’Connors Pub in Salthill, Galway. 

The next morning (D136) I woke up early in the morning (which is quite unusual for me) and I walked to the nearby lagoon 2 km up the hill from the town centre. While I was walking on the path a guy with smashed and stitched face approached me to tell me that he was going in the same direction. At first I was a bit scared as the dirt road uphill was quite deserted but eventually he proved to be a genuine and curious guy. Lesson learned from this do not judge people based on how they look. The emerald green lake was peaceful and relaxing. On the way down I encountered a 50cm snake that wanted to eat a lizard and the poor little lizard was fighting for its life. This was the first time when I saw a snake, so I did not know what to do to only thing that it came to my mind was to walk very slowly for a few metres and then run like a crazy woman. By the time I got back to the town I was very hungry and decided to spoil myself with some local pupusas (fried white flour pancakes with cheese and additional fillings like bean paste, sunflower seeds, minced meat). Yummy!! Again I needed to hit the road to have time to cross the country to get to Juayua. This town is famous for its weekend food fair of exotic delicacies. On the way here I met a lady who was living in US but came back to El Salvador to care for her elderly father. She really wanted to speak to somebody in English and she even invited me to her house but I was very determined to get to Juayua.

It took seven hours and five transfers to get to this place. As I arrived here late afternoon early evening there were only few food stalls that served food. But I managed to find a few. One thing I am sure about that I am passionate about good food. In normal circumstances I am quite shy to approach people but yesterday I stopped anyone who was eating something unusual and asked them what it is what they are eating. The main ingredients of the meals are maize, yucca and a lot of meat. I had tried some fried maize and yucca croquettes with some sweet sauce. My favourite was “crazy corn”, a corn on the cob on a stick with mustard, ketchup, brown sauce sprinkled with a lot of parmesan cheese. Yummy!! They had on offer hot pineapple juice with some cloves (atol de pina) served in a coconut shell; yucca dish with pieces of meat served in yucca leaves. The amount of grilled meat I had seen was just incredible. Some of the exotic meats were frog legs and snake, I had not tried either of them :)

For a couple of hours I went to visit Ataco, a neighboring village on the Flower Route. As it was Sunday the whole villages was in the central park eating, sampling the amazing local coffee and had a mariachi band singing. It was amazing to see the liveliness of the people around here. So at the end it was worth to do the 3 days of chicken bus marathon.