Breakfast was served in The Mayan Grouper's pleasant garden. The weather and the view of Lago Suchitlan were perfect, and we enjoyed watching playful parakeets in the trees while we ate. After breakfast, the woman who served it left the premises, and we had the place to ourselves for the rest of the day.
Coffee in the garden
Typical Central American breakfast
Lago Suchitlan from The Mayan Grouper
Fun planter
Pretty parakeet
Today's main event was a boat ride on Lago Suchitlan. Puerto San Juan was within walking distance, but the road was steep and we didn't want to, so we chose to drive. At the port, we were able to select from a number of different boat tours, and we chose the 50-minute tour to Isla el Ermitaño, or Hermit Island. At first I misunderstood and thought it was $25 per person, which was fine, but it turned out that for $25 total, we got the WHOLE BOAT.
Puerto San Juan, Suchitoto
Lago Suchitlan
Menu of boat tours
Lago Suchitlan is the largest artificial lake in El Salvador, and Isla el Ermitaño is its biggest island. Our guide, Joel, spoke only Spanish, and our Spanish is extremely basic, so he pulled out his phone with its translator app, and we didn't miss a thing. I'm glad, because what he had to tell us was pretty interesting.
Our boat, "Veronica"
On the water
Rather small car ferry
In 2014, a Salvadoran Air Force plane carrying four souls crashed into the lake. One man survived because his seat broke loose in the crash, and he was able to swim away. The other three men sank to the bottom of the lake with the plane and drowned. Three floating crosses anchored at the site of the crash serve as a memorial.
Las tres cruces
The plane was soon retrieved from the bottom of the lake and moved to nearby Isla el Ermitaño during the investigation of the crash, which was ruled an accident. The wreckage remains on the island to this day and has become somewhat of a tourist attraction. Joel took us over to the island, where we climbed a long wooden ladder to see the destroyed plane.
Tied off on Isla el Ermitaño
Ladder to the top of the island
Crashed Salvadoran Air Force plane
Tom and Jana on Hermit Island
Isla el Ermitaño, or Hermit Island, is named for a solitary man who lived in a cave on the island from 1989 to 2012. Nowadays, there is a vendor selling sweets and trinkets set up on a platform outside his cave, and she spends most nights on the island herself, keeping an eye on her little store. We happily purchased a few of her sweets before returning to the mainland.
Lago Suchitlan from the island
La Cueva del Ermitaño
Sweets and trinkets
La Cascada Los Tercios is a 33-foot (10-meter) wall of sparkling hexagonal basalt with an occasional waterfall. We thought the water would be running today since there were torrential rains here a week ago, but it had already run dry. The basalt formations were worth the hike anyway, especially when you consider the astounding views of Lago Suchitlan along the way!
Entrance to La Cascada Los Tercios
Lago Suchitlan from the trail to La Cascada
A wider view
The hike was short, but it was a pretty good scramble down broken basalt to the bottom of the formation, and it couldn't be seen from above. So I clambered on down, while Tom prudently waited at the top to see my photos. Pretty cool.
La Cascada Los Tercios (minus la cascada)
Jana clambers over broken basalt
We considered driving to some additional miradors, but our amazing hotel beckoned us to return and relax. So we drove back to The Mayan Grouper, parked the car, and didn't move it again for the rest of the day. For lunch, we walked across the street to Casa 1800, which had quite a viewpoint of its own. Plus, the pizza was delicious.
Casa 1800, Suchitoto
Different view of Lago Suchitlan
The next few hours we spent alone at our hotel, hanging out in hammocks and admiring the view. After sunset, we walked to centro for dinner at Casa Flamenco Suchitoto, one of the better meals of the trip. It was a lot quieter on the square this Monday, so I'm glad we saw things more lively last night.
Relaxing at The Mayan Grouper
What a view!
An aside: On our way back from lunch today, a Salvadoran man a few doors down from the hotel greeted us, and we got into a conversation. He told us he'd fled El Salvador during the "troubled times," lived in Canada for several years, the US for another six years, and now lives in Costa Rica. He was in Suchitoto now to visit his mother. He then pointed to a wall in the alley where we were standing and said, “See those holes? That's where people were lined up and shot.” He told us he was gone by that time, but his mother witnessed it, right in front of her house. They were awful times, but things are hopeful now.
Presidente Bukele