There is a paved road that goes nearly all the way to the top, and a gravel road that takes you within spittin’ distance of the summit. It is a winding and severely steep road with beautiful views while you worry about on-coming traffic and over-heating the engine. Well very beautiful views for me, and Dave worrying about the vehicular concerns.
12 usd was entry to the park and camping for the night for the two of us. We found a cliff-side spot as the afternoon light faded towards a sunset.
Dave admires the view from our camping spot.
Then we set up to cook dinner and opened a bottle of wine. We enjoyed a glass of Tempranillo and watched the sun set into the clouds that were drifting in to surround us for the night.
The clouds made me pull on the most layers of clothes this whole trip.
We enjoyed dinner by lantern-light and had the company of the most amazing moth.
The picture fails to do it justice. The wings were neon blue and transparent only when it was very close to the lantern.
After cleaning up from dinner we made popcorn and crawled into the van to watch Milk. We both really enjoyed the movie. I won’t say more because I am at a loss for anything but clichés to describe my reaction, and the awards and reviews and publicity it received are widely available with a google search.
The next morning we headed for the very top, a whole 15 minutes walk. In the parking lot we saw a group of 10 to 15 Salvadorans holding a horn (think cow horn you can blow and make noise), wooden bow with wooden arrows, two small plastic swords, a bottle of wine, a bottle of oil, a couple of guitars and a few backpacks. They went one direction; we went the other and didn’t think anything of it. I assumed they were having a picnic.
We topped out El Salvador just as the clouds started to roll in, so there wasn’t much in the way of a view. Then we headed for the giant boulder that sticks out the side of the mountain just down from the summit. We took a trail through the cloud-forest of tall trees dripping bromilidads and coated with moss. Then we heard strange sounds: yelling, moaning, and guitar. We stopped and peered through the forest, listening and trying to decide what to do.
**Warning, this could be loud if you have your speakers turned up**
We could make out a few of the exclamations, including “Amen” “Hallelujah” “Power of Jesus Christ”. When the singing/chanting/yelling died down, we started moving down the trail and intersected with the group near the fallen tree that acts as a bridge to the boulder.
They were all very friendly and encouraged us to wait a few minutes until they were done crossing and then come across ourselves to check-out the rock. We said we didn’t want to interrupt, they assured us it was no problem, they just needed a few minutes first. So we stood back about 10 feet and tried not to feel like we were invading. They poured oil and wine on a spot on the tree, read some bible verses, talked about having power over sin and Satan, then started crossing over the spot. The ones with swords hit it with the swords and yelled at the spot. Others stomped on it before they crossed. All but one of the group went across. The woman that stayed was probably in her mid 60s. Before we crossed we talked to her just a little.
We crossed the tree-trunk, Dave more gracefully than I, and walked around the rock, but the clouds had engulfed it and we couldn’t see anything. So we headed back.
Dave returns via the tree-trunk bridge.
As we were headed back across the group was increasing their activity with more call-and-answer yelling, waving flags, and blowing the cow-horn. Once we were back on the other side, we started talking to the woman who had stayed behind, singing while she was alone, and found out a little more about her and the group.
They were an evangelical church group from Sonsonate (near the start of the Routa de Las Flores) and had come up for the day. She was a retired dentist. Her mother is 90 and lives in San Francisco. She goes to visit once a year, but her mother is coming back to El Salvador to visit later this year. She asked us about our travels. And after a little more conversation about the USA, El Salvador, and the van, she hugged and kissed us good-bye.
As we drove down we passed people walking up towards the grounds at Cerro El Pital from small town where the paved road ends and the buses drop-off. It looked like most were going to camp for the night as they were carrying lots of supplies. Nearly everyone waved hello. More than one person shouted a greeting in English or Spanish. We had a few surf references and one teenager sang a little bit of “California Dreaming” to us.
The remarkable thing about El Salvador is that the tourist industry is largely based on Salvadoran participation. The infrastructure is there, moderately priced hotels providing clean and friendly service, food, hiking trails, signage; but the majority of users is Salvadoran instead of hordes of gringos. I don’t want to mislead, there were other gringos in most places. With the exception of Cerro El Pital, we always saw a handful of other gringos. El Tunco was mainly gringos, but there were multiple private clubs on the beachfront that were obviously for wealth Salvadorans during weekends and holidays.
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