Hey girl hey! I’m here to share my travel experiences with you. I grew up in a small village in the south of the Netherlands, which has always been too small for me. On my nineteenth I went to London for an internship, where I lived in a hostel. I was so fascinated by all the people I met who where traveling around the world, I wanted to be just like them. Now -10 years later- I’ve been to over 40 countries and I am looking for a new home in South America. My biggest dream is to start my own hostel. In this blog I will share my adventures from El Salvador! – XOXO Kris
El Salvador, living in the suburbs of San Salvador
El Salvador does not have the best reputation, but it is not as dangerous as people make it out to be. I had a really good time here. I traveled on my own for a bit and stayed two weeks with a family. The people are absolutely amazing and so friendly, my Salvadorian mom was really looking out for me.
When I first arrived in San Salvador I stayed in La Zona hostel in the good part of town, San Benito. Walking around here is safe enough. Everyone is a big crazy about the public transport. People say it is really dangerous and there are a lot of robberies, but if you have a look at how many people use it on a daily basis it can’t be that bad. I guess the more privileged have a car, but my mind set is usually: if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. I ended up taking a lot of public transport during the three weeks I stayed and it’s really cheap. I didn’t have any trouble on the bus or felt unsafe.
In this area I went to the museum of Art, it’s quite big and has some great peaces. I hid in the museum for a couple of hours until it stopped raining.
I took a free walking tour because I didn’t feel safe enough to explore the city on my own. Not feeling safe, has nothing to do with my experience, it was solely based on what people told me and what I have read. The tour was great, my tour guide was such a nice guy. The city did not feel dangerous at all. We went to a really cool rainbow church and tried some drinks on the market. My tour guide told me he had a hostel, I told him I needed a job. We exchanged numbers and agreed that I would work for him in a couple of days.
After the tour I went to a volcano with another guy I met on the tour. The sign said we had to walk for at least an hour, but after 20min we where at the top. There is a crater in the middle of the volcano but it doesn’t look that impressive.
I really wanted to go to the beach and El Tunco was the most popular one. Online I couldn’t find any hostels, but once you are there, there are plenty! You don’t need to book anything beforehand. I went just after easter so everything had calmed down after all the festivities. You have to climb over some rocks to get to the beach, but the beach is nice. It is not very crowded and there are a lot of surfers. The town is really cool, there is a relaxed ‘surfer atmosphere’. You can get good food and drink some beers after dinner. I wasn’t there during the weekend, but you should be able to get your party on with some surf-dudes.
When I retuned, Dave (tour guide) was suppose to pick me up from the bus terminal. Sitting on the bus I was a bit worried, because I didn’t have a back up plan in case he didn’t show up. And if he did show up: where was I going to go? We had only met once, I knew nothing about him. But I trust people very quickly and believe in the goodness of their hearts. So I was really happy when I saw his face when I got off the bus. We took another bus to his place, he lives in San Marcos, the suburbs of San Salvador. There were no tourist in the area and it is quite under developed. Nothing like the good part of the city. His house was two stories, the first story was really nice; a brick building with a kitchen/ living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. He told me that this was all mine, it had a separate door and lock. If you go out and up the stairs there is another space. This was a little less nice, it was build later and was mostly made out of wood. During the day it gets very warm. The kids like the upstairs more, so they lived upstairs. It felt a bit weird living in the better part of the house.
The family gave me a very warm welcome, Merci, the mom is such a sweetheart. Her and Dave have two boys together of the ages of 4 and 12. The 4 year old is very needy, grumpy and always gets his way. And they took in their niece who had trouble with her mom.
With the whole family we went to an orange farm owned by his dad. I had never been to an orange farm, so it was really exciting for me. We went orange picking, the fields were huge and a bit wild. If we plant something in the Netherlands it is in perfect rows, this was a bit different. It looked more like a forest of orange trees! His cousin lived on the farm with his family.
In the evening I helped making dinner, in a outside kitchen. Pupusa is the most popular food in El Salvador, you can find it on every corner of the streets. It is cornflour with water and inside we had cheese, beens and some onion. First you make a dough ball and then push the other ingredients inside. After that you slap it flat and fry it. We had a lovely family dinner! At all dinners they drink really, really sweet soda.
I dated a couple of guys in El Salvador. Well, we didn’t really date… I met them on tinder, but we hung out as friends. There are a lot of guys on tinder that just want to meet new people. And they all had a car, which was great for me because I didn’t really go out on my own much, since I was living with the family. They are quite protective, I loved this about them, always looking out for me. My mom (Merci) would approve the guys and Dave would meet them before I went out. They always picked me up in their car. One guy turned around because he saw a gang sign, he was a bit scared coming into the area, but everything was fine.
I had one of the best nights of my life because my wish came true. We went to a gaming hall, soooo much fun! Later a friend joined and we went to some bars. The day that I left I stayed with them, they took me to a really cool bar. You play video games and drink cocktails. I wanted to go home, because I had to take a bus at 7am. But they thought it was best if I stayed up all night and slept on the bus. I didn’t really have any say in it. Eventually, around 5, we went to his house, or should I say mansion. I never been in such a big house! His parent are architects so the style was.. let say, different. In the morning I took the bus back to Guatemala and they were right, I slept like an angel.
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Top 3 Activities |
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| Free walking tour |   |
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El Tunco |
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Orange picking |
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Top 3 Restaurants |
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Thekla beach club |
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| Rustico Bristro | |
| Pupusas Express |  |
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Nightlife |
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Cadejo Brewing Company |
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| Travalas Friendly |  |
Favorite travel quote
‘Never stop doing things for the first time’