Entrer au Salvador, ce
n’était pas gagné avec Bip Bip et son volant à droite… Mais on n’a pas baissé
les bras! Chris a passé pas mal de temps à chercher une solution sur internet
et finalement a contacté un club de land rover du Salvador. José Mario,
responsable du club et très impliqué dans le développement du tourisme dans son
pays, s’est chargé de nous obtenir une autorisation spéciale du ministère des
transports.
On n’a pas été déçu! El
Salvador, le pays d’origine de mes cousins David et Moïses, est plein de
surprises:
- La ruta de las flores: route parmi les champs de café et des forêt de pins, parsemée de jolis petits villages
- El Bosque el impossible ou forêt l'impossible: une réserve naturelle dans laquelle nous avons fait une randonnée qui nous a mené à un site archéologique et une piscine naturelle. Nous avons eu droit à une escorte de la police pour y arriver. Nous ne trouvions pas la route qui amenait au parc, alors au lieu de nous expliquer, ils nous ont carrément accompagné... C'est pas génial ?
- Les plages de la côte pacifique connues par les surfeurs du monde entiers où Chris a atterri la tête la première dans le sable
- La ruta de la paz: dans le superbe département montagneux de Morazàn, qui a connu les pires atrocités de la guerre civile
- Alégria: la ville la plus haute du Salvador, bien fleurie et avec une vue incroyable sur les environs et son lac dans un ancien volcan.
- Suchitoto: un joli village colonial qui surplombe le lac Suchitlan
- Sa capitale San Salvador où on a passé un excellent week-end avec Jon et Raquel, un couple américano-salvadorien que nous avions rencontré à Belize et qui nous a accueilli chez eux. Incroyable, non ?
- Le lac de Coatepeque: un superbe endroit pour se relaxer tranquillement et pêcher...
- El volcano Santa Ana, le volcan le plus élevé de tout le pays, que nous avons escaladé.
A votre tour, maintenant! Allez-y!
The problem
is this…Bippers has a bogus steering wheel.
That is to say, it’s found on the wrong side of the van. On one hand it helps as NOBODY has ever seen
a thing like this (ie who in their right mind would steal it) but on the other
hand, well sometimes it runs fowl of the law; and so the case here in El
Salvador. We hoped to visit ES but the
prospects were particularly poor and we were down to skipping the country OR running
the border – à la Cool-Hand Luke. (sadly Bippers is NO ‘stang, ya know?)
BUT! We got a lead on the El Salvador Landrover
Club and made some inquiries… Jose Mario came to the rescue. A super guy super interested in prompting his
country and developing tourism took charge and wrote a request to the Ministry
of Transport. Voila.
And a good
thing too, as we were not disappointed to poke around this tiny country; turns
out that Fanny has a pair of cousins adopted out of ES to France so there is
some internal motivation to visiting.
- La Ruta de las Flores : winding over the hills through coffee fields, patches of pines and tiny traditional villages
- El Bosque El Impossible – aka the Impossible Forest. A natural reserve where a hike will pull you to a historic Mayan site or a natural pool in the flowing river. We got the benefit of a police escort (who could find this frikin Impossible Forest anyway???) to get there. NOT what you hear of when you say police and Honduras in the same phrase eh?
- The beaches of the Pacific considered some of the best surfing spots in the zone. Of course I got to surf my FACE on the SAND rather than foot on the board. However the scab gave me a bit of 'angry chipmunk/rocky balboa' coolosity factor (no where near as cool as Cool-Hand Luke).
- La Ruta de la Paz in the mountains of the state of Morazàn remembered for the horrors of the war.
- Alégria otherwise known as the highest point in ES, all in bloom and feeling so high you could tumble off the edge of the town square! The volcano crater lake is an interesting place to chill (and take a shave if you need to). Suppose to be good for the skin, the acidic and sulfuric water...
- Suchitoto a pretty colonial village next to the lake Suchitlan
- Dude, San Salvador is one capital Capital. Try NOT to get lost for say 3 or 4 hours, in the dark, in the rain. It is, however, also the home of Jon and Raquel, a American/Salvadorian couple we met and connected with while in Barton’s Creek Belize. How cool is THAT? And how cool are THEY?
- Lake Coatepeque is a chilling zone – once you beat your way past the housing development to get close to the lake. They say there are fish in the lake but I never saw any….as the local fisherman laughs and walks away...’gringo with a fishing rod! Tell him to pull his shorts down, man- up and get wet.’
- And finally a heart-pounding grind up the volcano Santa Anna gives you an overlook over the countryside (when it is NOT raining).
Ok well the
next steps are yours to take…Hasta Luego pronto! Let us know how it turns out...
