February 8, 2025

Today is Saturday, so the town comes to life with the food markets that Juayúa is known for in the Ruta de las Flores. The streets radiating out from the main square are lined on either side with stands displaying their wares, typically rows of plates with samples at the front, and cooking pots and trays simmering on gas burners behind the counters. People call to passing visitors, although the feeling is utterly leisurely, the tables set up for customers in the middle of the road busy with mostly foreigners, which is also where you see the sheer number of tourists who come here. The streets are covered with canopies, presumably to protecting from the burning sun, as it does not rain at this time of year.

Given that we are in coffee country, the fact that we are surrounded by apparently premiere quality coffee plantations and that you can taste this coffee in local coffee shops – and that I love good coffee – my immediate mission is to seek out another place that has good coffee. How about Bloom, one of the top-rated places in town? It is small, with only a few tables and a cluttered, undersized counter area. I decide to splurge on their most exotic bean for a pour-over. Waiting expectantly, the coffee arrives – and is astonishingly underwhelming, inasmuch as the coffee lacks a flavourful profile, lacks structure, and just comes across as insipid. It would easily compete with the packet coffee I got the other day at the Santa Ana bus station, but that coffee only cost 25¢, while this one is $3.30

Seated at the table next to me is a wild-haired young Korean playing with what are obviously Leica cameras, which suggests he is a serious player in the realm of photography. It turns out he has traveled a lot, his ventures largely paid for by photographic projects, but in the end the trips have to generate subject matter that people will pay for. He prefers taking photos of people, but Koreans prefer images of landscapes, as they find images of people from other cultures too intrusive and jarring. I would love to be able to travel with high calibre cameras, but am always worried about what could happen to such equipment, although as he points out, the cameras are quite small and appear somewhat unsophisticated, so that to the novice, they wouldn’t warrant much attention.

We talk about the challenges for photographers, such as the those presented by the subject matter around us. For example, I find humans difficult to photograph in Europe, as they are simply bland in character. Latin America is challenging in that its visual paradigm is so consistent across the countries in South and Central America. Traveling with heavy camera equipment is doable in the short term, but considering the amount of time that you are en route, and often in a physically very engaged manner, heavier equipment makes a noticeable difference, even for a large male with a relatively strong back.

The continuous requirements of agility and strength in tandem with the weight on the back, having to maintain a firm, unrelenting grip on a heavy camera, all take their toll, never mind under conditions of intense heat and humidity. I find the experience of carrying a lower end mirrorless Canon EOS so much less daunting than the Nikon D750 I used to have, although the latter was so much more choice for being able to shoot photos with enormous detail. Perhaps I will return to that camera in the future, depending on how passionate – and masochistic – I feel. Or simply go the route of carrying an iPhone, and forget about carrying a camera altogether, although as a passionate photographer, the notion fills me with dread.

Time to do something constructive, or at least attempt to. The point of staying in this overpriced burg is for ambience and proximity to other towns in the region that are also high on ambience. The only problem is that the appeal of ambience runs out quickly as you rightly perceive the towns to be nothing more than locales with aspirations that essentially just cater to tourists.

I should have looked up the attractions of Apaneca, but didn’t bother, as I somewhat rightfully expected it to be a village offering some degree of tranquility and aesthetic redemption in the verdant hilly environment typical of the Ruta de las Flores. The town is largely in disarray, however, given that many of the central streets of the small burgh are being torn up and replaced laboriously with a tightly coupled mosaic of paving stones, rendering the experience of wandering around town annoying and diminishing the limited aesthetic prowess of the place even more.

Without an attraction of the likes of a weekend food market, there are few tourists in Apaneca, allowing for much more authentic interaction with locals, however limited that may be. Consistent with other towns in the Ruta – and for that matter, much of traditional Latin America – the houses are single-level, painted in single tones, with slightly-pitched roofs of layered terracotta tiles. The streets are undulating, as the terrain of the town is not flat, but that also makes the town visually engaging.

The typically narrower streets do not include trees, but there are many alluring colourful flowers, a byproduct of a year-round, temperate climate. One of the things I find particularly attractive here is that there are many viveros – plant shops – which to me reflects the values people place on creating an environment that is both natural and beautiful. Even intrinsically bleak environments can benefit tremendously from a few flowering plants.

The Catholic church on the main square is the focus of the town’s attention, as it is the most dramatic building in town, following the canonical neobaroque precepts of course, stately, clad almost exclusively in white, with heavy wooden doors, the interior a significant departure from the typically newer decors you see in churches in El Salvador.

Courtesy of street vendors, a trio of tasty tamales for a mere dollar a testimony to how much less things cost on the street vis-a-vis any kind of environment that may be frequented by tourists, although unraveling them is an unquestionably sloppy affair, and I doubt they are meant to be eaten while walking in the street.

Murals depicting scenes of tradition or nature add colour to the walls of the town; having completed a loop around a series of blocks extending from the main square, it may not be a bad idea to find out where the buses stop, as it is already late in the afternoon. One of the major attractions of the Ruta de las Flores is an outdoor park in this town that features all sorts of extreme sport-focused amusement park rides, although from the description thereof I have seen online and heard from other travelers am quite happy to pass on.

Back in Juayúa, I wander through the diminished fray of the day’s food market, scattered stands still in operation, my hands smeared with the detritus of the artfully-wrapped tamales, the single paper towel I had pocketed when leaving the hostel earlier on now degraded to a crumpled greasy mess.

I question the intent of the dogs aimlessly meandering around, and now seated at one of the available benches shaded by the dense canopy of the town’s square, one specimen makes it increasingly clear that he is interested in what I am attempting to eat. Pieces of blubber and bone arc into his open mouth, and then I am off again, the edible remains of the masa in my own gut, the leaves, the plastic sheeting that underlays the banana leaf, the plastic baggie and residual bones tossed into one of the available garbage bins.

A few steps to the central fountain where locals take pictures of each other, my hands dip into the fountain for a quick wash, and now I am off again to see what remains to be explored in the food market I had no interest in earlier on in the day, and for which I have just as little interest now.

I see my Korean friend standing at the edge of the plaza, obviously unsure as to how to proceed, and like me, he concedes that there doesn’t seem to be much to do here other than eat at the food market, although on the other hand, it makes no sense that it shuts down for the evening.

The big draw for an evening outing on the Ruta de las Flores is Nahuizalco just north of Sonsonate, but given that the bus service has probably already finished, the idea of going there to observe food stalls in an evening setting holds no interest whatsoever. The Korean has had his fill with my tangential musings and is off to his hostel, while I wander into the nearest supermarket and stock up on onions and tomatoes, which will allow me to prepare a marginally edible pasta later on in the evening.

It is Saturday evening and the evangelical church across the street is in full swing, the music blaring at full volume, penetrating to the deepest crevices of this small establishment. Simon is perennially in a good mood, but by his own confession, the religious fanaticism of the people – and its behavioral excesses – is quite trying. In this small town, there are apparently some 100 different evangelical churches, which seems absurd – and they are all intent on trying to put on a bigger show than their competitors. There is something curious about the mindset of locals that is utterly immune to the extreme volumes of music and noise in general that they maybe subjected to, but for someone from a western culture, it can be incredibly trying.

The Canadians staying in the CoLiving space are busy with their lot, making promotional videos for small hotels and resorts that are on their path of travels. They sift through the accommodation on the market in the region they are traveling to and make proposals for videos that would improve the marketability of said lodging. Since they only find out what the place looks like when they arrive, sometimes their work is particularly challenging, as the property could effectively be very low quality. They are currently working on a promotional video for a company offering local tours, and today they went out on ATV rides to some local lakes; the experience was a case in point, lacklustre, uninteresting, with little imagination invested.