This is a story-style travel blog featuring my adventure through Central America in the fall of 2023. I did a 17-day tour called Central American Journey, from the company Intrepid. We visited Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. You can read the blog in order, or about whichever destination intrigues you! Within my stories, I’ll offer some recommendations and some tips and tricks for a smooth journey. When I travel, I mostly do group tours and the reasons are:
* As a solo woman traveler, it is much safer especially if traveling long distances or to countries that can be dangerous in some parts
*The itineraries are amazing and usually include all of the things you’d want to see and do…and if not, there is free time to do as you wish;
*You don’t have to worry about booking transport, finding hotels, etc. Sometimes that can contribute to the adventure, but it’s also nice to sit back and relax and let your tour leader be in charge
* And finally…the new people you meet on your tour become your family, and I’ve made lifelong friends in these journeys. For myself, this has equal importance with exploring new countries.
We start the morning in Suchitoto, and have a nice breakfast at the hotel. Check out my heart shaped pancakes.
Today we are driving to the Pacific coast of El Salvador, to El Cuco. It will be two days of relaxation and sunshine. It’s around a 3 hour drive, but we make a stop halfway at a town called San Miguel. We end up at a giant mall complex, where we can have lunch and pick up any snacks or essentials for the next few days. Me and Ivonne choose Pizza Hut, and sometimes there’s nothing that hits the spot like one of these pizzas. Haha.
We arrive at out hotel, La Tortuga Verde, which translates to green turtle. The rooms are nothing special but they’re actually better than I expected.
We buy the air con for the next couple days because otherwise there won’t be much relief from the heat. Our room has an enclosed veranda with hammocks in case we’d rather relax in the heat instead of the air conditioned room. The awesome part of this afternoon is that we’ve arrived just in time for happy hour! The group heads over to grab some chairs in the sun and then we begin the unnecessarily long wait for our drinks. If all you want is a beer, that’s easy enough but if you desire a cocktail…. They are 2 for 1, so it takes way longer. I opt to start with a fresh local beer, Golden.
But eventually, we hop on the cocktail train and I try to not get too drunk before dinner.
This resort is described as not only a hotel and bar, but a turtle sanctuary and pelican retreat. I’ll go into more detail about the turtles later. In the meantime, we meet a couple of the pelicans and they strut around the resort like they own it.
We watch as one of the workers throws some fish in the pelican pool for them to enjoy. If you’ve never seen a pelican try to pick up a fish, it’s one of the most frustrating things to witness. Like they have a hard time getting the fish into their beaks. Just when you think they’ve got it, it falls out again. Poor birds. Haha. I try to get close to them to have a chat but I get that side glance of – don’t bother, lady.
The owner of the resort is an eccentric American guy who comes over to introduce himself and have a chat with us. I think his name is Tom; he’s very welcoming and tells us all about his life growing up in the USA – it’s fascinating but it also makes me wonder if he’s exaggerating or making up these stories. Nonetheless, this is the situation here at the beach: turtle eggs are in demand for consumption, and poachers scour the beaches to steal the eggs the turtles have laid to sell them to the restaurateurs. Since there’s no way to control this practice, Tom buys the eggs from the poachers at a higher price and then puts them in incubators until they hatch. He then brings them to the beach to release them. More on that later…..
Before dinner I go for a short walk along the beach, hot sand through my toes and splashing through the small waves.
The sun begins to set, and it is an absolutely gorgeous scene.
We gather for dinner and play some drinking games while we wait for the food – this takes forever too. I guess we’re on El Salvador beach time, and there’s no urgency from the kitchen staff to get the food out quickly. I try the pasta with shrimp and it’s pretty amazing…they are not stingy on the shrimp! After dinner, a few more drinks and I’ve been told that they run a very basic karaoke night. Since I do competitive karaoke back home, this is right up my alley except for the fact that I am still fighting off this cold and I am not really in top form to sing. The group insists I sing, so I push through a couple of my easier songs. Even though we don’t have to get up early tomorrow, everyone is still feeling tired after a long day of drinking and sunning so we have a relatively early night.
This morning is a decent sleep in, to get some rest before enjoying another day of doing nothing. I start the morning with a Salvadoran style breakfast which is eggs, black beans, plantains, cheese and tortillas. And then I’m off to my 1-hour full body massage, and it is glorious. The masseur doesn’t speak English, and she’s definitely shocked when I leave without paying her. Haha. She’s too sweet to say anything though. I head back to the room to have a shower, and I get a message from the front desk that I need to go pay the poor girl (I thought we paid our total bill at the end of our stay! Whoops!). When I go back to see her, I say Lo Siento and we have a giggle and I feel like kind of a dumbass. But a less tense one, thanks to her!
I head over to the beach and meet up with the group for more day drinking. James and Eilidh take some surf lessons on this bright sunny day.
I order a plate of french fries for lunch and it takes close to an hour. Salvadoran time still runs much slower than regular time. At this point, I’m feeling a little off/overheated so I go back to my room to enjoy the air con and have a nap. After a couple hours, it’s back to the beach for happy hour of course. I convince Manuel and Paige to come do “ocean beers” with me. I’ve done this in a few countries – you go slightly into the water and sit and enjoy the beer and the waves.
Except the waves are a little bit too strong and I get so much sand up my swimsuit. Not the outcome I expected. Haha. So it’s back to the room for my 3rd shower of the day before dinner.
Tonight is a special occasion here at the hotel because they will release the baby turtles back into the water. This resort seems to be a popular destination for locals, and maybe this is the reason why a lot of them are here this weekend. There is also a group of young pageant girls, and I’m not sure what exactly they are representing but I think their sashes display their hometowns. The resort owner also does a very cheesy television show on a local channel, and we watch as him and his cohost talk about the turtles and releasing them (I’m assuming this, because I don’t understand Spanish).
They bring out the baby turtles in a large plastic bin and everyone is permitted to pick them up.
Now this is where I have a bit of an issue…there are many children here and while I can see how this could be a cool experience for them, it’s NOT appropriate to allow every child to pick one up without proper care and supervision. I decide to hold one, and we must wash our hands in salt water before doing so.
They are squirmy little things, so we have to be extra careful not to squish them or drop them. And this is why I don’t think kids should have free range to handle these delicate creatures. The whole thing is a bit chaotic if I’m being honest.
It’s close to sunset, so it’s safe to release the turtles. One of the pageant girls carries the bucket of turtles out to the ocean and our large entourage follows her.
They’re still filming this TV show and there’s still no words to describe it other than wacky. The girl comes down the line of us asking where we are from, so I am now a star on local El Salvador TV.
The turtles are ready so anyone can grab one and release it.
This is another thing that made me a little uneasy – kids are running around while the turtles are slowly making their way into the waves to be swept into the ocean…what if someone steps on one? I feel like it is entirely possible. So, my overall take on this situation – I feel this guy has great intentions when he rescues these turtle eggs, and he provides an educational experience for everyone that attends. But I feel that the baby turtles should be handled cautiously and under supervision. Same with the release…..under very close supervision.
Side note– the sunset is absolutely stunning tonight.
After this excitement, it’s time to wait hours for them to prepare our dinner. I have the pasta again, because it was soooo amazing the night before. As we’re finishing dinner, wacky Tom comes over and says they have spotted a turtle laying eggs. He invites us down to the beach to have a look. We can’t have too many lights, so there is one flashlight around the turtle who is in the process of covering up the eggs.
The turtle “experts” grab her before she heads back to the water to examine for any barnacles or possible illness, or just anything wrong in general. Then they pick her up and carry her over to the water. The explanation for this is that she is tired after laying the eggs so they want to make it easier for her to get back to the water. But isn’t that what she does naturally? Why interfere? Is it really helping? Will this stress her out more? I’m not a huge fan of this process but again, I know they are doing this with the best intentions in mind and I can’t say whether it’s good or not. The eggs are then gently put in a bag and taken away to be safely hatched.
We have an early night, because we need to leave in the middle of the night to get to our next destination………
Everywhere On Earth With Erin 