Food Festivals, Sleepy Towns in El Salvador

Check out up to date pictures, including more pictures from the food festival on our Picasa.

After nearly 2 full months soaking up (and getting wonderfully stuck in) Guatemala, we finally decided to head for the border. We loved a lot about Guatemala but were exctied about our next venture: El Salvador. We arrived in El Salvador about five days ago. A lot of travelers skip El Salvador altogether and head right for Honduras for ruins and scuba diving, but we had heard from people that had been here what a great country it is, and in our few days here so far we haven't been disappointed.

The first part of our time here has been spent in two small towns along a string of villages called the Ruta de Las Flores, for the flowers that bloom along the roadside when Kendra and Rich aren't here. Nevertheless, the towns of Apaneca and Juayua (hwa-YOO-ah) have greeted us with rolling green hills covered in coffee farms, few tourists, and pretty cobblestone streets. Also worth mentioning are the extremely friendly locals who seem eager to share their country with visitors who are now just starting to realize the civil war here ended 20 years ago. People here are very interested to know what you know and what you think about their country, and so far we love it.

After 2 sleepy days in Apaneca just strolling around and eating Pupusas (stuffed tortillas covered in salsa and greens), we headed to Juayua for food and more food. Juayua holds a famous food festival and Salvadorians from all over come to the town every weekend to taste delicious and sometimes exotic fare. We decided to try a few different items and really let ourselves go for the day...

We started with something easy... Grilled marinated rabbit! Delicious. If you've never eaten rabbit, it's really sweet if a bit tough, but both of us really liked it. The rabbit dish was served with pasta salad, rice mixed with refried beans, two very thick big tortillas, grilled green onions, tomato salsa, lime, and plain rice. Not a bad portion size for $5 (which is actually a very expensive meal for the area!). From there, we moved on to our favorite, 4 huge grilled jumbo prawns that were perfectly seasoned and served with rice, tomato salsa, grilled veggies, and 2 small thick crispy tortillas all for $6. Rabbit above, shrimp below...



We enjoyed a few snacks as well. Kendra almost lost her mind over the stick of chocolate covered strawberries covered in "Nerds" candies ($1), Rich really loved the fried Yuca Root (kind of like donut holes covered in syrup - $1) as well as the Ringua which are half cornbread, half pancake, half crepe, all delicious ($1.25 for 3). Finally, we managed to stuff down two pieces of Budin which was like a flan-cheesecake-poundcake concotion that was outstanding ($1 including coffee).

Top everything off with a few ice cold beers and you've got yourself a food festival. Our planned hike for Sunday was called off because of the rain, so Round 2 of the food festival is was on for lunch. We downed a plate of mixed meats as well as some great fajitas, checkem out... and we're just getting started in El Salvador.