In March 2022 it was my first time visiting Central America. On top of that, it was a solo trip. While the pandemic seemed the be a little less concerning I decided to book a flight to El Salvador. First of all to relax a little bit, enjoy the sun and just take a breath outside of daily life.
Many of you may ask “Why El Salvador”. And I understand this question because a few months ago I was not even thinking about El Salvador when I thought about Vacation.
But because of online dating, I was talking to a Salvadoran girl and we decided to meet. You can find more details about that story in my Blog Post “Love Story in El Salvador?” I booked my flights before even checking anything about this country. But after booking my flight I was interested in what the country looked like and what I’m going to do with my 11 days in El Salvador. Therefore I started my online research.The first few things I read on news or blog posts were:
“El Salvador is the most dangerous country in the World” and “People even get shot in the day time”
And well I didn’t expect that and I was thinking, “OMG, this could be a big mistake”. But anyway, I already booked the flights and I was super excited about the trip on top of that I was staying with a local, so I was pretty sure that she should know where to stay to be safe.
When I arrived in El Salvador I was very surprised, because I thought the country would look dirty as we know it in European countries like Italy (i hate Italy for all the trash you find on every street corner). But El Salvador was completely different. No trash, no ugly smells on the streets. It was super clean. I have to say that I didn’t visit downtown or other dangerous places, but the places I’ve visited were surprisingly clean.
When it comes to nature it is even more sensational. El Salvador has almost everything you can imagine. Wonderful beaches (a paradise especially for Surfers), heroic vulcanoes, colorful national parks, and breathtaking lakes. You will find everything you want to see in an exotic country. Unfortunately, our tour to the volcanoes was canceled (but I’m sure I will visit this El Salvador again and I will climb the volcano one day).
In my 11 days, I had a lot of communication problems. The main language of El Salvador is Spanish and I don’t speak any Spanish at all. The only things I know are greeting fins, saying thank you, and goodbye. For me, the problem was, that the majority of the people there don’t speak English. It even started at the airport security, where the security guy didn’t speak English.
Apart from the language, I was surprised by how friendly and sympathetic all people were to me. When I was looking to find something, there was always someone who asked me, if they can help me. First, I was a little bit skeptical and I thought they want to rob me, but that was not the case (Fun fact: In the “most dangerous” country in the world I was not threatened or robbed once). Overall everyone was helpful and they even tried to translate things with translater tools to help me and to communicate with me.
I can’t say too much about the culture, for that I didn’t meet enough local people and the time was also too short, to see a lot of the culture.
I hoped that they have good food, but I haven’t done research before my trip. So I told my local friend, that I want to try everything and she should show me everything she thinks is classic for El Salvador. And oh yes, They have great food! I tried so much different things and almost everything was super delicious. As a swiss, I was most surprised about the great bakery and the good bread they have. As a swiss I often can’t eat bread in other countries because it tastes so much different and worse in my opinion, but not so in Elsavaldor, I didn’t even notice a difference between the swiss bakeries or swiss bread and the national dish pupusas also caught me, super delicious and extremely flavorful.
But… there is still one single negative point regarding food in El Salvador. It was not the healthiest food I have eaten, I even think I got a little bit more weight after my vacation.
But if you want to eat healthy, it is easy to find super healthy dishes, only the traditional dishes aren’t healthy at all.