Ep 174 w/ Carlos Guardado – The Ultimate San Salvador Travel Guide

Hello and welcome to this week's episode. And today we have another local coming onto the podcast. This is Carlos Cuadero from San Salvador. I again booked a walking tour with Carlos and he agreed to come on the podcast to talk about San Salvador. Carlos is roughly the same age as me. So we get a different perspective on El Salvador as a country to travel to what it's like now compared to the past, but a great episode for a lot of tips and tricks in here. Lots of information on how to see

El Salvador and San Salvador the city. Another great episode. Thanks, cast, coming on. Let's get stuck in and let's go traveling in El Salvador. Do you love spontaneous adventures, travel tips and stories that will inspire you to pack up and go? Well, welcome to the Wiggin' It Travel podcast. I'm James, your host, and each week I bring you travel tales, practical advice and interviews with travelers from around the globe.

Whether you're planning a big trip or just dreaming about one, you'll find everything from hidden gems to epic fails. Because travel is not perfect, and that is what makes it beautiful. So grab your backpack and let's wing it. New episodes every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube too. You can find Winging It, and more fantastic travel podcasts from around the world at voyerscape.com. The link is in the show notes. Let's go and explore the world.

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode. I'm joined by a local in San Salvador here in El Salvador by the name of Carlos. I'll get him to introduce his full name because it sounds really cool. And this week we're going to discuss a bit about Carlos' growing up in El Salvador. He's going to tell us where to go, what to see in El Salvador and talks about his home city of San Salvador. And it should be a good episode. I'm really looking forward to it. So Carlos, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Carlos Eduardo Guardado Hernandez my full name, but yeah, I go by Carlos

I mean, it sounds a pretty cool name.

And mine is short. My grandpa's name, he was Carlos Alberto de Jesus Hernandez Quintanilla. So it's the two names plus the Catholic name and the two last names.

A lot of Latin American names have long names, right? There's lots of names. Okay, right, got it. We're going to talk today about you growing up in El Salvador and tell the listeners also where to, maybe some recommendations of seeing San Salvador and El Salvador if you have some. So first of all, can you tell the listeners, where did you grow up? A bit about your school and your diversity as well.

That's pretty cool. That's a tradition.

Correct. Well, I'm from San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador. I'm 30 years old and I grew up, I was born and raised in this city. So I know pretty much all the nice places to visit in the city. I faced all the big transition and all the big transformation of this city when it was really, really dangerous to now, which is a city booming, especially in the tourist sector. Sure. Yeah.

So yeah, I grew up in a neighborhood called San Jacinto, which is not that far away from the city center. yeah, I went to school and then to the National University, Universidad de El Salvador. I studied there, Industrial Engineering. I didn't finish a career, but luckily I love languages. I speak in a decent level English.

100 % better than my Spanish.

Also Portuguese and yeah, my native language. So yeah, I transitioned to the tourist sector, especially after COVID because COVID changed my life. I was working in these boring offices in a huge building. Then the company wanted us to work from home. So I worked from home like three years and a half.

I went to South America for traveling. It was really nice. And when I came back to El Salvador, I really loved meeting people. I love history. I love languages. So I said, yeah, why not? Let's go to work in the tourist sector. Yeah, that's why I'm here.

That's great because as we speak today, I have been on Carlos's tour yesterday and it was great. Lots of history. We got the history from Carlos from the start all the way to the modern day. So it's really great in terms of getting an understanding for the culture in the country. And we'll come to your tour in a minute because we'll talk about you and your tours later. First off, if people are coming to El Salvador, they're probably going to fly and they're going to land in San Salvador airport, I'd imagine. So they're probably going to see San Salvador first. So tell us.

things we should see and do in San Salvador, what are the tourist sites that we should check out?

Yeah, so the city is located in a valley called the San Salvador Valley. There are certain places I recommend that is a must to visit. First of all, the city center, which is really, really nice. We have a huge National Library. We have the National Cathedral, the National Palace, which is now a museum. People can freely walk around the city center. It's pretty safe. They can visit the local markets.

or the handcraft markets, which is nice. Also, I recommend people to visit the San Salvador Volcano. Up there in the volcano, there is a national park called El Boquerón National Park. The place is nice, but what I recommend is right after visiting the park, you can have a café and a little dessert in one of the restaurants on the way to the national park because the view from up there of...

The entire city is awesome, it's really nice, especially at night where you can see all the lights. cool. In third place, close to the city, will be Ilo Pango Lake, which is really surprising. It's the biggest lake in the entire country. Yeah. But it's not that touristy. Tourist. So, it's because in the past, all the towns surrounding the lake were full of gangs. Yeah. There are a couple of...

There there I recommend people to visit. A nice restaurant called Santa Cruz. There are a couple of trekking paths to go down in the lake. It's a volcanic lake, so you will see a big crater.

Awesome. Is that more impressive than San Salvador volcano?

It is more impressive, because there is... So the place is huge, the lake is huge, so it's not that touristy. Sometimes for the entire hiking, all the way down, you will be pretty much you in the forest. So not much people have visited, at least now, because the place is beautiful.

How long is the hike down to the lake?

is around an hour 45 minutes down and up. It will be a little bit more than two hours, two hours 30.

Is it quite steep, is it? Okay, so coming back will be a bit of a hike.

Yeah, it's a tough one. The easy part is going down, the tough part is going up.

Okay, that's great. That's awesome. And tell us a bit about the country as a whole. Where should we visit around the country?

Yeah, the country is really small from one end to the other one from the border of Guatemala all the way to the border with Honduras all the way east is around eight hours by car and from the Pacific Ocean all the way north closer with the border with Honduras it will be around three, three thirty minutes by car. So it's really small. The advantage of this country versus other countries, especially huge ones, is that

You can do everything from the capital city. So if you want to go to the beach, the beach is one hour away from the capital city by car. And if you want to go to the mountain, it's 45 minutes, it's right next door. If you want to go to a lake, it's around an hour from the city. If you want to go to like the colonial towns, it's a bit further, like two hours, but everything is so close.

So you can do a lot of things like from the capital city. The places I recommend is the beach. There are nice beaches in El Salvador, especially close to the airport. The place is called Costa del Sol, which is nice. For surfers, the government is advertising. It's a marketing name.

called Surf City, which is around five towns in La Libertad beaches. La Libertad is like a department, it's like subdivision of the country. So yeah, the towns I recommend people to visit is first, El Tunco. El Tunco is like one hour away from the city, from the capital city. In this place, this is a party and surfer place. So if you want to party, if you want to go

surf, you can go to this place. The beach is not that nice because it's rocky, so you cannot lay down in the beach. Another place I recommend is El Sonte, which is like the yoga beach, let's say. So the beach is nice, also nice waves for surfers. The place is quiet, so it's a nice place to relax. Cool.

That's where I'm going.

Then there is another beach called Atami that's more like exclusive. You have a resort there. You have private beaches there, Atami. Then another town like Tamanique and the other one I forgot, but there are five. So let me see. Suchitoto is a colonial city on the north side of the country, which is beautiful. Cobblestones like in the place.

is five along the coast.

Yeah, I can't wait to see it. I'm going there today as we speak. So yeah, really looking forward to it. Yeah.

Yeah,

I recommend people to visit also Santa Ana. There are a lot of things to do in the second largest city in the country. Right there we have the Santa Ana volcano, which is the highest volcano in the country, which is 2,300 meters above the sea level. Also, there is a couple of towns in that area called Ruta de las Flores.

Thank

you

Yeah, so there are like five times there. Salco a titan. Another one is Ataco Concepción de Ataco, Apaneca, Juayúa. And I forgot the last one. But yeah, there are around five.

I think Santa Ana is a bit like here where you can maybe base yourself in Santa Ana and then you can just go out to places, right? that's kind of rough on my plan before I go to the border. So far I've been here two days and it's been an amazing experience. So if people are listening right now, they have to come to El Salvador. I think it's on the way up. So everything is safe. Everything is geared towards tourism a little bit. They're starting to bring stuff in.

The park's really nice, it's clean in San Salvador. The free library with good Wi-Fi. You can go to the church, to the palace. Everything is accessible and not too expensive. So I to ask you about how has the transition been from maybe five, six, seven years ago to now? It must be a big, difference.

living in other countries around the world. yeah, now, just last year we had 3.2 million people and we had that exact same number in, if I'm not mistaken, September or August this year. So the government projects that in the entire, the rest of the year, we will get roughly around 4 million tourists. So it's slowly increasing. The tourism industry is slowly increasing in the country. Probably you noticed

By this point, the country doesn't have the tourist infrastructure. Sure. Yeah. So for example, in the city, there are like four or five maybe hostels. So yeah, just a few of them. In Santa Ana, there are a little bit more. We don't have, for example, big tourist companies like tourist agencies. slowly.

Yeah, slowly. I mean, you can't do it too quickly, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I read that article in the newspaper when I first arrived and it said, I can read some words in Spanish and it's like saying, you know, 4 million tourists coming this year. Yeah. Which is great. Which is going to obviously keep going up and up and up. That'd be great for you. Yeah. So it's been a, it's been an unbelievable journey, right? From, guess the history of the civil war, also

I hope so. I work in a tourist agency. Definitely.

the gangs where you maybe were growing up because you're 30, right? So I'm 35. So think that era of people would be the gangs I'd imagine. Correct. I met someone yesterday who's 10 years older than us, maybe 15 or older. He remembers the Civil War as well. So it's a different thinking. of remember different things. So unfortunately, he has seen Civil War, then gangs, you've just probably seen the gangs.

As I mentioned during the tour, the country was a battleground during the Cold War. And this war, this civil war was really, really bad that causes different problems. So for example, one third of our population migrated abroad. Pretty much any in two other countries around the world, but especially the US, the gangs were deported. The Salvador gangs were deported from the States in the Middle East. And yeah.

And yeah, I didn't experience the civil war, but you know, growing up, I realized that my parents experienced the civil war and they had a trauma about it. dealing with the trauma of my parents and then the violence of the gangs in the country. Yeah. So it was tough. It was tough.

We did certain things that for other countries around the world, it was like strange or they didn't do it pretty much. For example, me growing up, I couldn't go to parties. I couldn't go to like just there in the city center and go to a party because it was dangerous. The gangs target young people.

Two young, the gangs. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of shootings and a lot of fighting in certain bars. So it was dangerous for me to go there. So the only plans we had, me and my friends, is just play close to our houses. And that's it. Probably going to the beach. And yeah. Yeah. And then me growing up.

Because we are the generation that have access to the internet, computers, cell phones and everything. And then I realized that it was completely different in other countries. yeah, for me the normal was just staying at home.

Ah, so you're thinking the way you're living, you you play outside near your home and that's it, was normal. But then you go on the internet and you might watch, I don't know, a YouTube of someone growing up in Canada, it's like, oh wow, they can go outside. Yeah, I understand.

Different times, but luckily you're now in better times. Yeah. And this is going good. So I love to hear more about El Salvador. Got some questions here about things that people should do and not do. we mentioned activities and places to see, but what should people not do? That might sound a weird question, but you know, like when you read tourists go to a certain place and the locals get really annoyed and angry at certain things that tourists do. Is there anything that we shouldn't do here?

I think the recommendations I'm going to share with you are the exact same recommendations you should do in other countries. For example, if you come to El Salvador with the mindset that I am from a more developed nation, I have more education, and that most of the people living in El Salvador, or in this case El Salvador.

Just come with a humble mindset. It's really bad when you listen to someone say, this place is not that developed, like my country, or we have better roads, and we have better infrastructure. I know that. know that. Also, not to do. When you're traveling, you have to use your common sense. Although the country is safe now, if you walk in a street really late at night, and no one is there,

You probably shouldn't do that in first place. You know, use your common sense. Again, the country is safe for the centers of Latin America. But again, Just avoid dark places. Yeah. Those are my recommendations. For example, another one I just remember. We have a traditional dish called pupusas. And for us,

Eating pupusas with the hands is the traditional way of eating the dish. But if someone used, for example, a knife and cutlery in general, that is seen as... How can I call this? Snobbish? Snobbish. Snobbish.

Snobbish.

Yeah, like you're snob. Yeah, snobbish. I understand. Yeah, yeah. People know what that means, yeah. Yeah. So like, what I would, in UK would be like, snobbish would be like someone who's like upper class. Yeah, yeah. Like they have their like tea set and they have their knives, their forks, their spoons all laid out and it's very snobbish. I guess if they see a tourist doing that, would they understand that maybe they're not snobbish, they just don't eat without.

Like that.

Definitely, But whenever you travel, at least that's the way I think. Whenever you travel, you experience the local culture. You experience the way people live there. And there is a saying in Spanish, it's hard for me to translate, is donde fueres, haz lo que vieres. Which means wherever you go, do what people do in that country.

Big

Dirt Man show, yeah I like that. Yeah you should do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because then you feel like you're a local.

Exactly, exactly. You live the entire experience. It's not that you're just another tourist there and you're visiting places. You experience also the culture.

Okay, you mentioned food, pupusas, so let's go to food next. Tell us what we should definitely try in El Salvador.

we have a lot of food. We have this region, Central America, and especially Mexico is quite similar. So we have the same dishes, but different. For example, we have tamales. You can also find tamales in Mexico. Well, pretty much from Mexico all the way to, if I'm not mistaken, Costa Rica.

The traditional dish is definitely pupusas. You can find it here in certain areas in Guatemala and Honduras. Also the traditional either breakfast or dinner, which is the exact same thing, which is eggs, beans, plantain, avocado, cheese, bread or tortillas. Yeah. With coffee or chocolate. Yeah. Hot chocolate. Yeah. So that's the traditional food. And we have also like desserts. We have

Chocolate? chocolate? Interesting,

Yeah, I've just not gone in to get any desserts, that's on my list.

Yeah,

we have a lot of them. have the most famous ones is quesadilla. It's like a cheesecake. It's like a cheesecake, but it's different. So it's made of cheese. I'm going to... It's sweet. It's sweet. We have another dessert called tres leches. Three milk? Yeah, three types of milk. We have other desserts called canoa.

It's sweet, right?

Three.

Every time somewhere else? Okay.

which is like a plantain with condensed milk on top and cinnamon, which is so nice.

Sugar is always good. It can't taste bad. Okay, and what about drink? Coffee's good,

Coffee, yeah. We have a really good coffee. We have different varieties of coffee. So coffee is a nice option. You can also go for horchata. Horchata is... I don't know how to describe that. It's like... It's a beverage. It's kind of like... How can I say this? It's like a grey beverage. It's sweet. Sometimes it's mixed with milk. So yeah, people can definitely try it out.

It's not the exact same horchata as you can find in Mexico or even Spain. The one here is different. It's different. It's made of other ingredients. We have also tamarindo. We have something called the Rosa de Jamaica, which you can find it everywhere, especially at lunchtime. And Cevada. Cevada is another drink, which is like pink.

Is that what I had last night?

No, last night, I don't remember to be a- No, no, no, that was Rosa de Jamaica.

They got really sweet.

Okay. So I had a traditional

Drinking. Traditional drink.

Very sweet. If people are listening now, it's a bit like Ribena. They might know what that is. Yeah. I think that. Okay, next question for Al Salvador. The weather. So which months should people visit? Because obviously you're going to have, I guess, rainy season and dry season.

So in the country, because we are closer to the equator, we have only two seasons, which is, as you said, a dry and wet season. The wet season starts from May, sometimes very beginning of May, and it goes all the way to middle November is the wet season. Something interesting is that in the middle of the wet season, between July and August, we have something called canicula, which is like two or three weeks of summer.

in the middle of the wet season, which is, it doesn't rain for pretty much between two or three weeks. That's strange. That's really strange. And the dry season, the dry season starts from middle of November all the way to late April.

So right now is the start of the dry season. Really rained that much. I've seen it a few times. Like very odd, very odd occasion, right? But not all the time.

That's

usually how the weather is, but now because of the climate change, stuff are changing. So sometimes we have the dry season, it is extended a little bit more. yeah, but this is the standard. In the middle of the dry season, between December and January, we have winds. We call it winds from the north.

because in the northern atmosphere of the planet is winter and some of these wind and cold weather comes down to Central America. So we have around two, three weeks of cold weather. I'm talking about cold. Whereas it will be somewhere between 15 to 20 degrees Celsius. So that's in the city. But in mountainous areas, it can go below zero. Wow.

Yeah, what is called.

So, especially in the north, there is a big mountain there called El Pital, which the temperatures can drop below zero. Just only in this season. The rest of the year is not like that.

Okay, we've got a couple more minutes left because you've got your tour. The second last question is going to be, before we get to your tours, just a couple of phrases that we should say in Spanish to greet our Salvadorians. Is there like any special phrases or is it just a common Spanish? Yeah. What should we say?

We in El Salvador, we are part of a bigger region, Central America, and this is also part of Latin America and the Hispanic culture. pretty much the exact same thing greetings you can use in most of the countries in this region, you can use it here. For example, is considered a good manner if whenever you approach someone, you say something, the equivalent of excuse me, I need this and this and this in case you need something. So it will be, disculpe, necesito, and then,

You, what do need?

That's excuse me. And put on is put on is yeah.

Perdón is used especially with someone, whenever someone says something to you and you didn't get it, you can say, perdón, ¿podría repetirlo? It will be, sorry, can you repeat it again?

Okay, but the school pay is when you approach someone. Yeah. Okay.

For also, you also consider a good manner if you greet someone, for example, in an elevator. Or whenever you go to, for example, a restaurant, can say, depending on the time of the day, it could be either, dias, buenas tardes, buenas noches. will be good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Always greet people. Always use, por favor, please, and thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. So what else is going to say as well? I've seen you say when.

Gracias.

Buenas is the short version of either Buenos Dias, Buenas Tardes, or Buenas Noches. So you can use...

Can I

say that? think or would they accept that?

Yeah, definitely. So you can say, buenas. If you don't remember, for example, if it's buenos días, buenas tardes, buenas noches, you can just say, Buenas. And then you say, ¿qué tal? Buenas, ¿qué tal? ¿Cómo está? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas? ¿Buenas?

Not come a start.

No, you're not asking how they are, how are you? Because whenever sometimes you ask how are you in other countries, you expect a reply. I'm good. And you? Yeah. But it will be like just a greeting. Hey, hola, que tal? Says hi, how are you? And then you...

I see. so Katao is like, almost the same meaning, but no response is expected, but how do you expect a response?

Exactly, exactly. Sometimes for certain things it's difficult for me to express, especially in English, because it's not my first language.

Because one thing I've noticed in El Salvador is not many people speak English. So my recommendation for people is do have some Spanish. Yeah. Basic phrases, which I do have. Basic phrases. The problem I have is I can say the basic phrases, but the response, I'm like, I don't know what you're saying. So I'm trying to understand the response. Yeah. That's the difficult part for me. Part of learning.

Yeah, you can.

When we are taught in schools the magic phrases, ones I mentioned to you, greetings, gracias, thank you, por favor, please, and so on. As long as you use it, you will get a really nice response from people. also you can use Google Translator and any other apps. That will definitely help.

Yeah, I do have that. That's good. Okay. And to finish the episode, thanks so much, Carl, coming on. Can you tell us, the listeners, what you offer in terms of a tour and where people can find you to book the tour or find you on social media, whatever you want to say.

yeah, yeah. Well, I have a tourist company called Traveling Souls. You can find me in different platforms. I have a profile in Trit.visor under the name Traveling Souls. I have a profile in Viator and Get Your Guide also in GuruWalk, Civitatis, and other platforms. Usually, well, my main tours are city tours. So I do walking tours in the city center.

Pretty much every day in Spanish in the morning, in English in the afternoon. But apart from that, I have tours to other places in the country. We can visit Santa Ana Volcano. I love hiking, so. Okay. Also, I offer hiking tours all over the place, especially mountains and volcanoes. You can check it out. Also, people can check it out in these platforms, all these tours I offer. Also, I offer tours to the beach, but mainly in the country. Yeah.

So you can experience everything that this country can offer.

And just to pick one, if someone's to go somewhere to find you, which is the main platform they should find you, is it TripAdvisor or is it?

be

TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor, you can find me there. This platform is used widely everywhere in the world. So, yeah.

Okay. I'll put a link in or links in the show notes so people can just click on them and find you on all those different ones, right? Cause people use different ones for different things. Yeah. So Carlos, thank you for coming to the podcast. It's been a great chat. And also want to say thanks on record for your tour. Your tour was so good. Like the walking tour is three to four hours. We talked about the history, everything about El Salvador and San Salvador. I really got to know everything about the place and I can't wait to come back in there and catch up with you soon.

Thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate it. I love history. Sometimes I'd extend on my walking tours because for me, since I love history and I love meeting people from all around the world, I want them to understand everything that happened in this little piece of land. And so they have an idea of what to expect, what they can do in the country. I love all that.

I can tell you love it because you go into lot of detail. We walk around for a couple of hours, it's great. We'd highly recommend it. Thanks for coming to the podcast. it. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel, if you head to the show notes, you'll see some affiliate links below which help support this podcast. You'll find Skyscanner to book your flight. You'll find Booking.com to book that accommodation. Want to stay in a super cool hostel? You'll see Hostel World down there too.

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