Howdy all, today a quick summary for you of the day I spent at the ‘Ruta de las Flores’ in El Salvador. As my title suggests, I did it as a day trip from Santa Ana. I was travelling with Graham at the time but he was a little under the weather this day, so I did it by myself and as it happened Graham did it himself from San Salvador (a bit further away) as a tour through Get My Guide.

If you’re not concerned about cost at all, Get My Guide is the go or something similar if you want to do it in a day. The Ruta de las Flores is a road/route connecting a number of little towns in El Salvador in the hills/mountains and at the right time of the year it comes alive in colour with all the flowers blooming – so the recommended time of the year is November to February. However, sometimes you’re not quite there at the perfect time, I was there in April this year which is the end of the dry season. It’s still picturesque, but not as resplendent with colour and it is a pretty hot month to visit Central America too.

If you have the time, taking a week to amble through the Ruta de Las Flores and staying at a couple of towns would probably be the best way to experience it. However a well planned day trip can also be very rewarding and it’s not like the route is FULL of excitement.

The main bus station in Santa Ana is the Terminal de San Francisco, and if you check online and even in your hostal you will find a lot of information about bus routes and destinations, however a lot of it is conflicting, and then even the signs at the bus station are not necessarily correct, or some buses are just not running. At all or just the day I was there? I have no idea.

Juayua was the town I wanted to start at along the Ruta de las Flores, so I got to the Bus Terminal de San Francisco, found the right bay (for bus 238), fifteen minutes early way to go! An hour later, it was clear the bus wasn’t coming, or it left super early, OR all the information I had was WRONG. I asked people who came after me what bus they were waiting for and they said the one in like two or more hours. So something was afoot.

Quickly I scrambled determined not to make it a wasted day, and there was a bus filling up leaving for Ahuachapan (bus 210), just north of the Ruta de las Flores, a gateway town. Then it had to fill up before leaving, and it took I don’t know how long, but once I got there I was soon able to find another bus (249) to take me to two towns on the Ruta de las Flores (NB I think this bus does the whole length of Ruta de las Flores, certainly more than the two towns I visited).

The first town I visited was Apaneca, certainly a favourite town for visitors. I had lunch here with some lovely mountain-side views and wandered the streets, it’s very picturesque and has a number of places to eat and sleep too. Easter had just happened and the pope had just died and there were lots of purple crosses embedded on material on display throughout the town.

The Church of San Andreas is a popular image of the town – well, it’s façade is, and there is a lovely central park not far from a building full of souvenir shops and eateries. A popular spot on the tours in Apaneca is Café Albania. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s much more than a café and not particularly Albanian either.

It’s an adventure park with zip lines galore, from your standard zip lines to ones where you sit on a bike and peddle along the wire! Graham tells me he did this on his tour but he provided no photographic evidence. There is also the labyrinth, a hedge maze on the side of the hill (so you walk up and down the hill inside it). It’s very well done actually, hard to get out of, took quite a while – 45 minutes for me but others were taking much longer.

Concepcion de Ataco or more commonly ‘Ataco’ was the second town I visited, determined to get a good sunset view. The streets here are interesting and there are a few murals painted on them, and a lot of colour in the buildings. I ascended to the Mirador de la Cruz (the Cross Lookout) but not until after I had followed the road along presuming it would take me there and finding out it did not, coming back and ascending the stairs. Steep again, but not too long a climb.

I arrived and one man and his son were there too, within five minutes there was a crowd, it was as the sun was setting. Straight long roads on the sides of hills and mountains look cool, in my opinion. I had had a good day in the end, albeit it one with not a lot of ‘sights’ as we tend to think of them. But I had walked over 15,000 steps and seen beautiful mountains and towns. And done it for very little Cashiola.

I took the number 249 bus back to Ahuachapan and then in darkness the 210 back to Santa Ana. Even solo this time, I felt perfectly safe the whole time (although this doesn’t necessarily mean I was! Disclaimer!). Would love to come back and just enjoy the Ruta de las Flores at a leisurely pace in January/February in cooler and less humid conditions. But I still enjoyed it the way I did it. Thanks for reading! May the Journey Never End!