What happens in El Salvador, SighSee? Has anyone been there? Are there any places that are safe to visit and spend some time in? Over the past year, I visited Colombia and Bolivia. Would like to switch up and maybe visit El Salvador in November.
If anyone has any opinion/advice/tips, please let us know!
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2nd. I have been considering flying to El Salvador for part of this winter, now that Bukele has cleaned up the streets and local business can prosper again. Average low temps of 62 - 65 F in San Salvador during the dry season would make for great sleeping weather without an A/C. As someone who dislikes tropical humidity - dewpoints over 70 F, basically - San Salvador and other higher-elevated cities are perfect in the "winter" dry season.
>San Salvador and other higher-elevated cities are perfect in the "winter" dry season.
Exactly! Last November I was in Bogota and it was pretty high up and the weather was mild and dry. It takes few days for your body to adjust to elevation but then you're good and you feel even better when you get down to sea level when you go back home.
I'm just wondering that kind of a city San Salvador is and whether I'll get stabbed/kidnapped.
>I'm just wondering that kind of a city San Salvador
Kind of a shithole I've heard. It's polluted, developed in an American way (sprawl, freeways and fast food joints) and there's not much historic stuff by latam standards due to the area having frequent earthquakes that just level everything.
El Salvador is popular with surfers and supposedly has better beaches. Guatemala I think has more sugarcane agriculture that causes the water to be kind of gross looking because they burn the cane and that washes in.
Salvadoran here, right now we're probably in the top 3 safest places of latam much safer than say Colombia, San Salvador the capital is also pretty safe (there are tons of police and military patrolling the mayor spots and sometimes even they even patrol inside the public transport) so just use some common sense and you'll be fine.
Thanks anon. Any other cities I should visit?
If you are looking at big cities San Salvador is really the only one, the rest is mostly small towns, do the Ruta de las Flores which is basically a collection of nice small towns with a lots of old colonial buildings it is also near the volcano so you can also go there, I personally like Ataco a lot.
Do you think the dynamic will continue or is there a risk Bukele is pushed out and the country turn back into a Mara hellhole?
Presidential elections will be held the march next year and anyone looking to release mareros will face some pretty big backlash, the most likely scenario is Bukele being reelected, meaning things will stay the same, although there is a lot of b***hing from the international community and opposition parties about reelection being illegitimate since it was made legal after Bukele gained total control of the country (previously you had to wait 10 years before running for a second term) so if things go south it would be around that time.
>it took latams decades to figure out basic peace & order procedures
You should make a quick visit to San Pedro Sula in Honduras 🙂
I got back from spending 3 weeks there about a month ago. It's pretty safe overall, yeah, but not completely safe. There are definitely still areas that you should probably avoid at night/don't walk around during the day flashing your wealth, but I think it's pretty much fine if you're not a moron.
That said, I enjoyed the country, but I enjoyed Guatemala a lot more. It just seems to beat El Salvador in almost every way as far as tourism is concerned imo. Much better/more nature, better colonial towns, much better volcanoes/mountains, better weather, better pyramids etc. Guatemala is a bit more dangerous in certain parts, but again, as long as you're not a moron, you should be fine.
If you do go to El Salvador though, I'd recommend Santa Ana + the volcano, Suchitoto (nice, quiet colonial town that looks down on a big lake), the towns along ruta de las Flores, Joya de Ceren (an old pre-spanish town that was covered up by a volcanic eruption, similar to Pompeii, but not nearly as impressive), Tazumal (pyramids). That's most of the places worth visiting that we visited tbh. We were at the end of a pretty long trip and were pretty tired.
How do the Pacific coastlines of the two countries compare? El Salvador's coast highway looks pretty cool on Google Maps; Guatemala's Pacific coast is very flat and looks rather poorly developed. But yes, Guatemala's highland region is far more extensive and varied than El Salvador's.
No idea tbh. I didn't leave the mountains at all. Too hot when the elevation starts to drop, and I had my fill of beaches in Oaxaca anyway. The place everybody in El Salvador kept mentioning though was El Tunco, whereas I don't really remember anybody saying much about Guatemala's Pacific coast. Either way, from what I've heard/read, the Caribbean coast of Central America sounds more interesting in general, but obviously I can't say for sure.