By: Hugh C. Talley

Last Saturday afternoon Elizabeth and I decided to take another break from the heat and head to the mountains. We went to Sonsonate and picked up Route of The Flowers. Once you head toward Ahuachapan you feel the temperature cooling down, as I have said before this is a very beautiful and comfortable area of El Salvador.

Our first stop was Apaneca, this is the second-highest town in El Salvador (1450m) and is a very quiet little town, there was not much happening in town but it is a very beautiful area. There are some locally crafted furniture shops that are very nice. We learned that this area is noted for some of the best coffee in the world. They have places that rent 4-wheelers if you like off road and mountain trail adventures. This area is also noted for hiking and camping.
We then went to visit the Iglesia San Andres which is one of the oldest churches in the country; it was destroyed in the 2001 earthquake, but is being restored. It was here that we met two little brothers that had lost their Mother and Father in an accident. They were sitting in the church by their self and when we come in they said Hola and started talking to Elizabeth, they ask her for 2 pennies and she said why do you want 2 pennies that won’t buy anything and he said We need 5 dollars for our school uniforms and if you give us 2 pennies and some other people give us 2 pennies soon we will have enough for our uniforms. We could see that they were sincere, so we talked to them more and found out that they lived with their Grandmother but she was very old and they mostly took care of her. We took them to a restaurant and brought them lunch, after lunch we gave them 5 dollars each for their school uniforms, they were so grateful and happy it was like seeing a child at Christmas in the states. This was very rewarding for us also. We do plan to go back and visit them and see how they are getting along.

Elizabeth and I went to a Restaurant a little further up the route that we had heard was very good, “Las Flores De Eloisa”. They had beautiful flower gardens and it was decorated with antiques. They also had cabins for rent from $44-$71. They were all full because of a wedding party so we could not see what they looked like.

Elizabeth ordered the steak and vegetables and I ordered the grilled steak with potatoes and corn on the cob, I had the strawberry frozen and Elizabeth had the mango frozen for our drinks. I wished that we had eat where we brought the boys their lunch on a scale of 1-5 I would give this restaurant a 2.5. There are much better restaurants on this route.

Our next stop was the town of Ataco a small colonial town with cobblestone streets, a colonial church and is surrounded by beautiful coffee plantations. This day there was folk music in the park and the vendors were selling typical drinks and food. There are many shops that sell many hand crafts such as sculptures, embroidery, candles, paintings and much more. The outside of the shops and restaurants are painted in beautiful pictures of many colors. There is a handicraft shop named Diconte & Axul has a variety of crafts, textile art and they have local artisans that make colorful fabrics using treadle looms. You can purchase these fabrics from $6 to $10 a yard. This is a great place to see.

After this we made a quick visit to the Ave Maria church, they had a celebration going on so we did not stay long.

It was getting late and an evening rain was moving in so we started home. Elizabeth and I both had a feeling of enjoyment from our travels on this day.
I have attached pictures that we took, as always any comments or questions please contact us, we love to hear from you.