The Ruta de Flores is a chain of pretty towns in El Salvador not too far from Santa Ana. Each town has it’s own character and must see activities and people spend anything from a few days to a few weeks exploring what the area has to offer. We had opted to base ourselves in Juayua in the middle of the route.
We caught a taxi from our hostel in Santa Ana to the bus station, to board an old American school bus that would take us on two hour journey to Juayua. We got to see even more brightly and eclectically decorated buses here, and managed to perfect our pronunciation of the destination town sufficiently to find the right bus on first ask of one of the friendly locals. The bus ride went quickly as it wasn’t nearly as busy as we experienced in Nicaragua, and before too long we were checking into Hostel Doña Mercedes in Juayua which was small and family owned. We decided to walk around the town which was small, pretty and very quiet. At the weekends there is a locally famous food market and it comes to life but in the week it was just a pretty rural town. We found a proper pizzeria in the evening where we had probably the best pizza we’ve eaten on this trip. I did mention this when we paid to the man who I presume is the owner and he seemed quite unmoved, I think he understood me, maybe he’s just accustomed to hearing this night after night from the string of tourists who kept all five tables filled the whole time we were there.
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