The next morning, we were up to catch the sunrise from our room at Hotel Villa Del Angel.
We started with a traditional and yummy breakfast at the hotel. There were many vegetarian choices, including bread, plantains, and yuca, along with coffee and juice.
Our plan for the day was to drive to Juayua, a mountain town to the north. On the way, we stopped at Cerro Verde National Park. The drive up the mountain from San Salvador was around 1.5 hours. The national park has many trails, mostly guided that range from 45 mins to 4 hours. We opted to just walk around the top, that had food stalls, a park, and nice views.
One of the food stalls in the park had the best pupusas. Pupusas are an El Salvadorean traditional food, that is found everywhere. They are tortillas stuffed with cheese and veggies or meat. We got the ones with plain cheese, or jalapenos, or peppers.
On our drive down the national park, we could see the lovely Lake Coatepeque.
We then headed into the town of Juayua for a late lunch. Not much was open, so we settled for a cafe with mediocre nachos. I was looking forward to checking out the waterfalls close to town called Chorros De La Calera. It was around 4pm, and the cafe staff told us that it may be getting to closing time. She also recommended that we take a tuk tuk there (similar to an Indian auto), instead of driving, since it is safer. She called us a tuk tuk and we left our car on the street next to the cafe.
The tuk tuk ride took around 30 mins, and went down a bump road towards an indescript entrance. We then walked down a muddy path for 15 minutes, and were close to the waterfalls.
Though not as impressive of some other waterfalls we’ve seen, there was something refreshing and rustic about these. Several tiers of falls ended in a deep pool, surrounded by a wall you could sit on. The water was a bit chilly to fully swim in, so we were satisfied getting wet with the mist from the falls. Since it was towards the end of the day, there was only one other family enjoying the falls (and it was a large family with kids and grandparents). Whey they started clearing out, we decided it was time to head back.
We checked into the Hotel Juayua in town, which was pleasant and clean. I loved the lodge-like decor, and spacious rooms. It wasn’t too close to the downtown area, but we were able to walk to a nearby pupuseria for dinner.
Click here to see if Hotel Juayua is available for your trip!
Tomorrow, we continue our road trip to Santa Ana!
