Tacuba
EL SALVADOR
El Imposible National Forest
By AARON
Saturday, June 28, 2008
The next morning, we left Ahuapac Hostel and headed to the small town of Tacuba. Anyone who has picked up a travel guide and turned to the pages about Tacuba, El Salvador has read one name: Manolo. Manolo has basically put Tacuba on the map for tourism due to his famous tours around and in El Imposible National Park. (The park surrounds the area of Ahuachapan, and is a tropical forest that was declared a National Park in 1989.) Everyone in the tourist industry all over El Salvador knows Manolo, and I do mean everyone. He is actually so popular as a tour guide, that even to this day, there is some guy in Tacuba who is claiming to be Manolo. The real Manolo hasn’t found him yet, but if you do go to Tacuba, just go to Hostel Mama y Papa, which is Manolo’s house and hostel, run by him and his mom and dad. I will say, that when we arrived in Tacuba, our expectations about the trips and tours were pretty high, and let me tell you, Manolo did not disappoint.
We got to Hostel Mama y Papa around 12:30 to watch the Euro Cup Finals (Spain won), and Manolo’s dad told us that Manolo would be back around 5 that night, so to just make ourselves at home. There are 6 tours to choose from, and Lyndi and I decided to do the waterfall tour, seeing as that we love jumping off waterfalls, and this one didn’t just take you to 1, it took you to 7! We were stoked. We let Manolo know when he got back, and the next morning, we set off with Cody, another traveler, to do some waterfall exploring.
Now any guide can take you to the different spots, and say “here’s one waterfall, and here’s where you can jump in”, but Manolo had such a knowledge of the area, showing us different plants, animals and trees as we walked through the tropical forest and followed the river to the waterfalls. Any question we asked, he had the answer, and he answered each one passionately, as if he took a great pride in the area that he lived. When we got to the different waterfalls, fun would be an understatement as we jumped anywhere from 4 meters to the final jump of 12 meters, right next to the 60m waterfall that concludes the tour. We finished the tour with an uphill hike through the tropical forest and through a coffee plantation that led us back to the road home.
A lot of people call Manolo “Crazy Manolo”, and they are right, but crazy in a good way. He and his family make you feel right at home from the minute you step foot in their home, and from the first time Manolo meets you, he’s talking to you like he’s known you for years, slapping you on the back, joking with you. Yet when it comes to the tour, he still maintains that high level of professionalism you definitely appreciate – especially when you are jumping in a cavern off a waterfall 10m from the water below. Like I said before, the guide books definitely put this guy high up on a pedestal, but he lives up to every word of it. Oh yeah, and one other thing, if you’re ever there, ask him for some “chicha”- it’s an indigenous drink made of fermented corn, sugar, and ants. Yeah, ants.
I’m sure Lyndi will say this as well in her blog on El Salvador, but it’s sad that this country gets such a bad rep. Even on current blog sites, everyone warns of this dreaded country of crime and murder, but from Lyndi’s and my experience, that’s not so. In fact, ironically about half of the peoples comments I’ve read that talk about the dangers of this country, HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN HERE. But I guess their cousin’s roomate’s best-friend’s dog’s groomer knows best. Sure it is dangerous, but you take the necessary precautions like you would in any other Central American country, don’t walk around at night, keep valuables safe, etc.
The fact of the matter is this: this country is beautiful, with some of the most friendly and helpful people I’ve met not on this journey but in my life, and with mountains, waterfalls, food festivals, great art and music scene, and killer surfing – it boasts just as much as the other Central American countries. And if that doesn’t draw you in, I need only say one word: Pupusas.
