The Travelling Teacher: El Salvador - An Ataco on the Walls of the City

October 28

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Ataco, one of the more northerly stops on Ruta de las Flores. A city awash with colours on its walls.

A mural found in the centre of Ataco

Birds fleeing with one of the main churches in the background

The red circle is Ataco. The blue circle is the waterfall you'll see later.

Apparently the reasoning for this was to make the town more attractive in order to win a national competition called Towns Full of Life (Pueblos Vivos). Ataco’s tactic was to attack their town’s walls, transforming them into vivid murals.

The full name of the town apparently comes from the
Nahuatl language and means 'place of elevated water springs'

These may be famous people, I have no idea

The result has been a relative influx of visitors and a ‘must-see’ vibe for the town on Ruta de las Flores. The murals themselves are as varied as they are colourful. My favourite is the mother and baby painting below, complete with a cheeky-looking dog.

I liked the contrast of healthy fruit on the murals...with
the sign suggesting you cover them in chocolate!

Can you spot the real dog in the picture?

There is more to Ataco than a splash of paint, of course. This is very much coffee country: El Salvador’s main export. You can take tours of coffee estates, which we’ve been told are interesting. We didn’t think our two dogs would be particularly interested, however, so will leave it for another time.

Faces were not like this when we briefly stopped at a coffee estate

The area is part of the Apaneca mountain range

It also has a busy market and two churches, one in the centre of town and the other at the end of one of the cute cobbled streets.

Ataco has a small population of less than 20,000

The church name translates as the Immaculate
Conception of Maria Sanctuary

There is more to do in Ataco, such as head up to spectacular viewpoints, but we were already quite tired by this point. This is because we had already made a couple of stops on the way.

Dogs: knackered

I've been pleasantly surprised by how
pet friendly El Salvador has been so far

We had a late breakfast at a place called Entre Nubes, which is on the RN8 just past Apaneca. We had actually gone next door to a restaurant called Jardin de Celeste the previous lunchtime but much preferred this place. It has a natural feel to it and a couple of walking trails behind its cafe. We’ll probably learn to tune out the pan flute covers of classic pop songs, though.

The main seating area, which I imagine is busy on weekends

The trails lead to a platform with a forest view

We had then gone slightly off the main road to find a waterfall. There are apparently seven lovely cascades in the Ruta de las Flores region. I had wanted to visit one near a pretty town called Juayua (no idea how to pronounce it) called Chorros de la Calera, but apparently it is no longer viewable by members of the public. As an aside, the town itself was visited briefly the following morning but we were too early to appreciate its weekend food festival.

Chorros de la Calera is now apparently on private property

A woman selling cut-up fruit in Juayua

Copious massive pineapples

We instead found Cascadas de Don Juan. A 10 minute drive from the main road, and a further 10 minute walk, takes you to a secluded paradise.

You pay $3 for access to the waterfall

Looking back from the falls is also a lovely sight

The twin falls are about 35 metres tall. I have read that they occur quite close to their source, only 500 metres away from the San Juan river, so retain quite a lot of force. I also read that the water is warm. This is not true. Refreshing, to put it mildly.

The area seemed well conserved and looked after

That's my head under the fall in the right of the picture

One of our dogs, Maxi, enjoys water. The other, Mini, does not. This made it quite funny when Mini tried to scrabble up a steep rock, couldn’t quite make it, and then fully submerged herself with her descent. Cold and embarrassed.

Mini: not a fan of the wet stuff

This was arguably my favourite spot during our short road trip. The tranquillity - only one other couple were there when we arrived and they left soon after - and the natural beauty of the Don Juan waterfall was a pleasant surprise. We’ll be back on Ruta de las Flores many times in the future, and I’m sure this will be high on our list. As well as checking out even more murals, of course.