January 18, 26
Hello everyone!
Late in 2024 I signed up for a trail run which goes up and down El Salvador’s highest volcano: Santa Ana, also known as Ilamatepec. As events transpired, the run itself was the easy part when compared to getting there…
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| Finishing the UltraVolcanes 2025 race |
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Maxi wasn't as keen on the idea of
me running up and down a volcano |
Readers of previous blogs will be aware that we have had a variety of car troubles since arriving in El Salvador in 2022. The vast majority of these are connected to our first car, a Chevrolet Captiva we named ‘Frijoles’, or beans.
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| September 2022: when it worked |
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| Many times after September 2022: when it didn't work |
The problems it was causing us led to the purchase of a second car, a Suzuki Gran Vitara. This car was magic…until a freak problem led to radiator coolant getting into the engine. That was at the end of September 2023. We had lent Frijoles to friends until December, with the only time we used it being when we went to San Miguel in October…and had yet more problems.
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| September 2024: when the Suzuki broke down |
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October 2024: when Frijoles decided
that our kayaking holiday was over |
Finally in the first month of 2025, after a ridiculous amount of time and too many US dollars being poured into it only for something else to break down, we decided that enough was enough with Frijoles. It wasn’t working again on our return, the latest problem being the gearstick.
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Maxi staring longingly at lakes in what
was probably her final trip in Frijoles |
The car had been on the market - specifically, Facebook Marketplace - since late 2023. At that time, I was desperately trying to recoup as much money as possible, almost making a profit on the car. That was never going to happen. By early 2025, I was desperately trying to get that car out of our lives forever more.
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| A lot of buying and selling in El Salvador uses Facebook |
One Saturday morning, 8 days before needing a car to undertake the volcano run, I readvertised the car at a lower price. The advert went live at about 10am. Within half an hour, the number of people who had contacted about the car was in double figures. My poor mechanic, helping me sell the car but spending his day at the beach, was suddenly fielding multiple phone calls.
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| Page 1 of many bidders |
By midday, about thirty different people had messaged about Frijoles. A man was driving down from Ahuachapan, in the north of the country, to look at the car. Another man was incessantly messaging, saying he would buy the car today. I started messaging with him, and agreed to meet him at 2pm. I cycled over, hoping my Spanish would be sufficient and that he would agree to remove Frijoles from our lives for good.
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| Well I couldn't drive to the car's location... |
Brian looked at the car, drove it around the block (at this point I realised the gear stick could work, but no going back now!), and agreed to buy it. We told Ahuachapan man to turn around, visited an ATM and then went to a lawyer’s office to do the paperwork. Well, two offices - the first was shut. Part of the reason for not waiting for the Ahuachapan man was that he wouldn’t have made it in time to sort the paperwork before closing time, meaning it would have dragged on into the following week.
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Lawyer in Spanish is 'abogado', which to me is a lovely word to say,
making it an oxymoron when compared to the nature of its workers |
The relative lack of money received for the car is more than compensated by the release of stress. No longer worrying about what will break next, whether the part will be easy to find (for this car, they never were), the dashing of future plans because it wouldn’t turn on. It’s gone. The buyer’s phone and Facebook have been blocked. Good luck to him.
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| Frijoles having a final check before being taken away |
Of course, this didn’t solve the volcano conundrum. Eventually, I had to bite the bullet and rent a car for the weekend. My friend Charlie and I left Santa Tecla at about 5:15am for a 7am start.
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| Car rental is generally $30 a day |
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| Even before we woke up, some people were starting their race... |
Ultravolcanes is a race like no other. If you’re fit/crazy enough, you have the option of running up and down three volcanoes in one race: Santa Ana, Izalco and Cerro Verde. The distances for those races, 50km and 35km, are well outside of most people’s range, including mine. The race therefore gives other options for one volcano: 16km for Izalco, 11km for Santa Ana, and 6km to run around the Cerro Verde volcano area. Having climbed Izalco last May, I knew that it wouldn’t be the nicest experience. I thus plumped to scale El Salvador’s highest volcano.
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| This is part of the Latin American Trail Running Circuit |
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| Izalco: not this year! |
Many people at the start line had climbing poles in addition to the usual gear. That was a clue that many were not going to ‘run’ the 11km. After running downhill for the first two kilometres - the highlight of which was undoubtedly the drone filming our start crashing into a tree as the driver wasn’t focusing on where they were going - we turned left onto the hiking trail. By jogging this section, I overtook a lot of people.
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As I didn't care about time or position at this point, I'm
not in this picture showing people at the start of our run |
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| That's what I was scaling |
Having been up Santa Ana a few times now, I knew that running up the whole thing wasn’t going to happen. Deciding to enjoy the experience rather than run for a time or position, I stopped often to take photos. An older man and a stray dog helped to pace me up towards the top, until he disappeared over some steeper rocks.
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| You wouldn't get blown down to the lake, don't worry! |
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This gets narrower as you get closer
to where the picture was taken from |
Heading back down, I needed to be careful. Not just due to the terrain. The route went up and back the same way, meaning that many were coming up as I was descending. I also got reminded of how idiotic some of the runners are when heading downhill. Seemingly without a care for their mortality, many runners zoom down the rocky and occasionally slippery route. I was still only focused on my own enjoyment and foot placement until a man I passed shouted in English, “Go, go, go! You’re in the top 20!” How he knew that I have no idea, maybe he was counting people coming down, but it startled me somewhat, and made me push a little bit more.
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| Parts of the trail were a bit more precarious |
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This man vaulted past me. When I saw him at the
end, he didn't have skin on either knee. |
I pushed further when noticing many idiots aggressive downhill runners stopped at the rehydration and snack stand at the 9 kilometre juncture. They took a while to finish - I assume they walked the last part. Many people did, actually, as it was almost entirely uphill for the final 2 kilometres, taking the form of oversized steps under the shroud of a forest.
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The long steps defeated many runners,
reducing them to slow walks |
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| A chunky medal as a reward! |
I finished the race and waited for Charlie to do likewise, before we munched a pupusa and drove home. The engine light coming on in the rental car terrified me, thinking that my lack of luck with Frijoles had transferred to this machine. That car, like the volcano race, is gone but will not be forgotten.
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| I'd have been happy to push Frijoles into the caldera |
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| Volcano conquerors! |
Love you all,
Matt
