In bloom ... a woman carries a basket of flowers for sale in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.Credit: AP
My first morning in El Salvador was spent surfing an empty break on an empty beach. Empty as in there was no one else to be seen for as far as the eye could see. After that plunge into the Pacific – these Central American waves originate off the coast of New Zealand – I washed the sand from my feet, dived into the hotel pool and swam across to the bar to order freshly squeezed orange juice. It was not yet 8am.
If crowded beaches, thumping night life and adding more feet to already well-tramped backpacking trails is what you're looking for, El Salvador is probably not for you. But if being a novelty to many people you meet, actually interacting with locals and visiting places others rarely do is more your thing, think El Salvador.
There is, it should be noted, a reason El Salvador's tourist trail is a road less travelled. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is blunt in its advice.
"Violent crime including armed robbery, banditry, assault, kidnapping, sexual assault and carjacking is common, including in the capital, San Salvador," the DFAT website states dramatically. "Avoid travelling alone and after dark when security risks associated with violent crime are heightened. Victims have been seriously injured when resisting perpetrators."
Then again, you might get hit by a speeding bus on Sydney's Parramatta Road, be mugged at knife-point on George Street (this has happened to me twice), or shot in Kings Cross.
Poolside, at an otherwise empty hotel on El Salvador's Playa Costa Del Sol (tip: at weekends, beach resorts fill will San Salvadoreans but take your pick during the week), my friend Javier had a solution to any negative press his country receives. "El Salvador?" he shrugged. "Want to have some fun?"
From Playa Costa Del Sol, part of a 300-kilometre stretch of white sandy beaches, we drove 20 minutes towards Estero De Jaltepeque, an estuary entangled with mangrove forest. A local distraction, it turned out, involved towing a surfboard from the back of a boat to "surf" through an Amazonian mix of river and jungle.
To rest, we pulled up to a waterside restaurant, more a shack on stilts crowded with tables of locals, to buy bottles of beer for 50 cents.
"Is it against the law to drink beer on the boat?" I asked Javier, with Australian concern. "No," he winked. "Remember? We have no laws in El Salvador."
Another boat pulled up to sell its catch to the restaurant, which in turn soon became our lunch of ceviche, a Central American specialty of raw fish "cooked" in lime juice.
El Salvador is not only beaches, though. Two or so hours' drive north of San Salvador is the mountain town of Concepcion De Ataco on the Ruta De Las Flores, Route of the Flowers.
On the rainy drive there, past villages where families sit on the side of the road in the dark outside their shacks, I learn a new Spanish word: ahorcita. This Salvadorian response to "Are we there yet?" translates as "a little time from now".
In practice it can mean anything from five minutes to, well, later.
It's true, though, that good things come to those who wait. As a town, Concepcion De Ataco is a time machine. Lamp posts and buildings are painted in bright pastel colours and, as though New York's Times Square had never existed, street advertisements are painted murals rather than billboards or flashing neon.
Women sold fruit on street corners alongside others who cooked arepas, a corn cake, using makeshift stoves. A man approached and asked, "What are you doing here?" and then insisted on guiding me around his home town, introducing me to friends he passed on the street.
Maybe kidnappers had taken a few days off but the biggest threats to personal safety were speeding yellow buses or flying footballs straying from games played in the middle of streets. Then again, later, at dinner, a smiling sentry seemingly dwarfed by his shotgun stood guard outside the restaurant. That proved to be a regular sight – unlike other tourists.
"With guns, it's just like America," Javier explained, waving away concern. "Except here, we don't conceal them and they are big ass."
El Salvador is definitely unlike other places. Leaving, an airport worker ran 100 metres across the terminal to return a dropped boarding pass. At the departure gates televisions broadcast videos of church choirs singing hymns. El Salvador may not have a reputation as a mainstream travel destination but it does appear to have God on its side.
TRIP NOTES
GETTING THERE
Qantas and American Airlines partner to fly from Sydney to Los Angeles and then to Miami. There are daily flights from Miami to San Salvador. The last leg takes two hours. See aa.com. TACA, an excellent regional airline, flies from other Central American cities. See taca.com.
STAYING THERE
Accommodation ranges from affordable resort-style hotels to ranches and basic pensions. See elsalvador.travel.
GETTING AROUND
Buses traverse the country and cars can be rented. See cadejoadventures.com.
SAFETY
There are risks but they decrease if you use common sense, especially in San Salvador.
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