El Salvador: Suchitoto, the Ruta de las Flores and the Pacific Coast

1. Day 1: Arrive in San Salvador

   Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport (SAL) to your hotel in San Salvador

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Dinner
   • Stay in San Salvador
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport (SAL), on the coastal plain about 45 km south-east of the capital. Plan to land by about 4 pm so you reach the evening briefing; the exact latest arrival is confirmed with your final itinerary. You buy your tourist card at the airport, and a driver meets you outside arrivals for the drive of about 45 minutes up into San Salvador, a city of about two million in a valley ringed by volcanoes, with the San Salvador volcano, Quetzaltepec, filling the western skyline. The hotel is in one of the leafy western districts, close to cafes and restaurants. In the evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing: what the volcano morning involves, what to bring for the boats and the beach, and how the days are paced. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner, with pupusas, the stuffed corn tortillas that are El Salvador's national dish, on the table.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport (SAL)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner in San Salvador

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

2. Day 2: San Salvador on foot, then Suchitoto

   San Salvador historic centre, then north-east to Suchitoto

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Suchitoto
   Day 2 details

   We start in the historic centre while it is still cool. Our guide walks you through Plaza Barrios to the Metropolitan Cathedral, where Archbishop Oscar Romero, shot while saying Mass in 1980 and canonised in 2018, lies in the crypt. Across the square stand the National Palace and, a few streets on, the National Theatre. Then El Rosario, a 1970s church by the sculptor Ruben Martinez, whose curved roof is set with strips of stained glass; on a sunny morning the colours fall across the floor and the iron sculptures of the stations of the cross. After lunch in the centre we drive about an hour and a quarter north-east to Suchitoto, a hill town of cobbled lanes, tiled roofs and whitewashed houses that grew rich on indigo in colonial times. We arrive mid-afternoon, with the rest of the day free to walk up to the plaza and the white church of Santa Lucia.

   Included

   • Walking tour of central San Salvador with your guide: Plaza Barrios, the Metropolitan Cathedral and Saint Oscar Romero's crypt, the National Palace, the National Theatre and the church of El Rosario
   • Sit-down lunch in San Salvador
   • Drive to Suchitoto

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Suchitoto

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot in the centre, on flat streets.

   

3. Day 3: Indigo and Lake Suchitlan

   Suchitoto, then Puerto San Juan on Lake Suchitlan

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Suchitoto
   Day 3 details

   Suchitoto's wealth came from indigo, the blue dye the Spanish exported from these hills, and the craft has come back. This morning we spend a couple of hours in a local dye workshop: you see how the leaves are fermented into dye, then fold, tie and dip a cotton scarf of your own, watching it turn from green to blue as it meets the air. You keep it. Lunch is in town, and the early afternoon is free, for the small galleries and cafes, the market, or a rest in the heat. Later we drive ten minutes down to Puerto San Juan on Lake Suchitlan, a reservoir made by the Cerron Grande dam that now draws herons, egrets, cormorants and ospreys. A boat takes us out past the islands as the light drops behind the hills, and we are back in Suchitoto for a free evening on the plaza.

   Included

   • Indigo dyeing workshop in Suchitoto, with a scarf you dye yourself
   • Sit-down lunch in Suchitoto
   • Late-afternoon boat trip on Lake Suchitlan from Puerto San Juan

   More active option: Walk with your guide to the Los Tercios waterfall, a short way out of town, where the water falls over a wall of hexagonal basalt columns (the flow is thin in the dry season).

   Free time: Early afternoon and evening free

4. Day 4: Joya de Ceren and on to the Ruta de las Flores

   Suchitoto to Joya de Ceren, then west to Juayua

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Juayua
   Day 4 details

   We leave Suchitoto at about 8:30 am and drive about an hour and a quarter to Joya de Ceren, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. Around 1,400 years ago an eruption of the nearby Loma Caldera buried this Maya farming village in ash so quickly that houses, storerooms, a sweat bath, pots and even the rows of a manioc field were left in place. With a local guide you walk the roofed excavations, which show how ordinary people lived rather than kings and temples, and the small museum. After lunch nearby we drive about an hour and a half west, past Sonsonate and up into the coffee hills, to Juayua on the Ruta de las Flores, a string of small towns along a ridge between volcanoes. We arrive mid-afternoon. The evening is free: walk to the plaza and the church, which holds a Black Christ carved in the 16th century, and find dinner where you like.

   Included

   • Joya de Ceren with a local guide, entry included
   • Sit-down lunch on the way
   • Drive to Juayua on the Ruta de las Flores

   Free time: Evening free in Juayua

   Activity: Joya de Ceren is closed on Mondays (open Tuesday to Sunday, about 9 am to 4 pm), so departures are planned to avoid a Monday here.

   

5. Day 5: The Santa Ana volcano

   Juayua to Los Volcanes National Park at Cerro Verde and back

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Juayua
   Day 5 details

   An early breakfast and a drive of about an hour to Cerro Verde, in Los Volcanes National Park, where three volcanoes stand close together: Santa Ana, Izalco and Cerro Verde itself. The park only allows the climb with a guide, and groups leave at set times; we take the earliest one available. The trail drops through cool forest, then climbs out onto bare grey and red rock, about 3.5 km each way and around 450 to 500 m of climbing. At the rim, at about 2,380 m, the highest point of any volcano in El Salvador, you look down into the crater at a lake of milky green water, steaming at the edges, and out to the near-perfect cone of Izalco and the deep blue caldera of Lake Coatepeque. We are back at the park for a sit-down lunch, then in Juayua by mid-afternoon with the rest of the day free. If a departure falls on a weekend, this is the evening to walk the food fair.

   Included

   • Los Volcanes National Park entry
   • Guided hike to the crater rim of the Santa Ana volcano (Ilamatepec)
   • Sit-down lunch at Cerro Verde or in Juayua

   Easier option: Stay at the park: the short loop trail on Cerro Verde and the viewpoints over Izalco and Lake Coatepeque, with a coffee, while the others climb.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free in Juayua

   Activity: The hardest morning of the trip: about 7 km there and back, around 450 to 500 m of climbing on loose volcanic rock, 3 to 4 hours with stops. The rim is windy and cool. The trail can close after storms or for volcanic activity; if it does, we walk the park trails instead.

   

6. Day 6: Coffee, Ataco and down to the Pacific

   Juayua to a coffee finca, Apaneca and Concepcion de Ataco, then to El Tunco on the coast

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in El Tunco
   Day 6 details

   We start on a coffee finca in the hills above Juayua. The grower walks you between the shade trees and coffee bushes, explains how the red cherries are picked, washed and dried, and ends with a tasting, in the harvest months among the pickers. Then we drive west along the ridge through Apaneca, one of the highest towns in El Salvador, to Concepcion de Ataco, where whole streets of house fronts are painted with murals and small workshops weave and dye cloth. Ataco is at its best in the morning light, before the weekend crowds. We have lunch in town, then leave the hills for the coast, about two and a quarter hours down through Sonsonate and along the coast road, with the Pacific opening up below the cliffs. We reach El Tunco, a small surf town at the mouth of a river, in time for sunset over the rock the town is named after.

   Included

   • Coffee finca walk with the grower and a tasting
   • Apaneca and Concepcion de Ataco with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch in Ataco
   • Drive to El Tunco on the Pacific coast

   Free time: Evening free in El Tunco

   

7. Day 7: A surf lesson and a day on the coast

   El Tunco

   • Breakfast
   • Stay in El Tunco
   Day 7 details

   El Salvador's Pacific coast is known to surfers for long right-hand point breaks, and El Tunco's black-sand beach break is where many people stand up for the first time. This morning, early, while the sea is glassy and before the onshore wind picks up, an instructor takes the group for a two-hour lesson: safety and paddling on the sand, then out into the white water with a soft board that is easy to balance on. If you would rather not surf, walk the beach to the rock arch, swim at the hotel pool, or watch from a beachfront cafe. The rest of the day is yours. You could take a short drive to the fish market at the pier in La Libertad, sit by the pool, or book a massage. In the evening, the bars and restaurants along El Tunco's two lanes fill up for sunset.

   Included

   • Two-hour group surf lesson with an instructor, board and rash vest included

   Optional experiences

   • Second surf session or board hire
   • Massage

   Easier option: Skip the lesson: the beach, the pool or a cafe on the sand.

   More active option: A second surf session in the late afternoon, or a short drive to a point break to watch the experienced surfers.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free

   Activity: Swim only where the instructor or your guide says it is safe: the Pacific here has strong currents.

   

8. Day 8: The Jaltepeque estuary and back to the capital

   El Tunco to La Puntilla on the Jaltepeque estuary, then San Salvador

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in San Salvador
   Day 8 details

   We leave El Tunco at about 8 am and drive about an hour and three quarters east along the coast to La Puntilla, at the tip of the Costa del Sol, where the Jaltepeque estuary meets the sea. The morning boat goes in among the mangroves while the birds are feeding: herons, egrets, pelicans, kingfishers and frigatebirds, and fishermen checking nets from wooden boats. We stop on a sandbank or a small island, depending on the tide, and come back for a long lunch of fresh fish and shrimp at the water's edge. Then it is about an hour and a quarter up to San Salvador. The late afternoon is free at the hotel. In the evening we go out for a farewell dinner together in the city.

   Included

   • Morning boat trip through the mangroves of the Jaltepeque estuary
   • Sit-down seafood lunch at La Puntilla
   • Farewell dinner in San Salvador

   Free time: Late afternoon free

   Activity: Bring insect repellent and a hat for the boat.

   

9. Day 9: San Salvador and home

   San Salvador to Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport (SAL)

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Breakfast
   Day 9 details

   The morning is free. If your flight leaves after about 2 pm, your guide can take you to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia David J. Guzman, a short drive away, for the Maya and Pipil finds that put Joya de Ceren and the country's other sites in context, or to the craft market for indigo cloth and painted wood from La Palma. Otherwise sleep in, pack and have a last coffee from the hills you have just visited. We leave the hotel about three hours before your flight for the drive of about 45 minutes down to Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport (SAL), where your guide sees you to check-in and says goodbye. With an early flight we go straight to the airport after breakfast, and we help you choose the timing when you book. Lunch today is your own.

   Included

   • Drop-off at Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport (SAL)

   Optional experiences

   • Museo Nacional de Antropologia David J. Guzman (entry at your own cost)

   Free time: Morning free

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 2 pm if you want the museum or the market.

Wildlife and weather: November to April is dry and sunny, hot on the coast and cool in the evenings on the Ruta de las Flores. The coffee harvest runs through these months, and migrant herons and egrets winter on Lake Suchitlan and in the Jaltepeque mangroves.

• San Salvador1 night
• Suchitoto2 nights
• Juayua2 nights
• El Tunco2 nights
• San Salvador1 night