Our original trip itinerary had us landing in Colombia, heading up to Panama, moving onto Costa Rica and then somehow arriving in Belize some weeks later. We had wanted to keep the itinerary flexible to see what we fancied and following some rapid Google action we settled on a series of flight hops to see some countries that were not originally on our radar.

I imagine lots of people have not even heard of El Salvador, indeed if it weren’t for a certain song in the 90s which I LOVED I may not have heard of it either. Its a small country bordering Honduras and Guatemala.

The capital San Salvador has the unenviable reputation of being the murder capital of the world. Things are however improving thanks to efforts from the new President. As ever we took care and blended in as much as a couple of el cheles (Salvadorean version of gringos) and an objectionable toddler can!

The decision to go to El Salvador was driven by a couple of things. When you read travel posts it feels like it might be a special place – great nature, volcanoes, friendly people (gang members aside) and it is compact meaning we can see stuff relatively easily. We also loved the idea of hopping into a new country which is still relatively unexplored by tourists.

Because El Salvador is a bit more risky we chose a four night break staying in the capital in a nice area and booked Salvadorean Tours take us out each day. That means we didn’t have any planning to do for a few days – no buses timetables to figure out, no decisions to make except where to have dinner. Result!

We got a great taste of El Salvador, touring the capital, visiting volcanoes, national parks, Mayan ruins and…churches. John’s highlight was inadvertently getting his ‘energy read’ by a Mayan Shaman (I saw him more as an old dude out for a picnic near the Mayan ruins). John sleeps easy at night now he has been told he has lots of positive energy. I didn’t rate the Shaman’s abilities much though as he missed the obvious chance to tell us we have an grumpy child 😂.

What we saw sadly was a little unremarkable. We have no regrets visiting El Salvador and seeing somewhere new, but the lack of wildlife and limited tourist attractions, aside from historical monuments (not our thing), meant it only held our attention for so long. James was sympathetic to this and helpfully suffered a bout of travel sickness putting pay to our final day’s tour. I write this from a McDonalds soft play area…and aside from the blooming cold air conditioning I’m quite happy 😆!!

We can also say that life in El Salvador is never dull – whilst in town the military stormed parliament to demand better equipment. They were fully armed, although a bit like Bogota everyone is fully armed all the time so I guess that’s not news worthy. Whilst we were warned I don’t think any of us expected to experience two earthquakes. Neither caused damage but I couldn’t have put it better myself when after the second one John suggested it was time to leave the country before it falls apart!

Leave we did and we took a short flight to Honduras. If we had doubts about the security of El Salvador then Honduras was looking even more sketchy. Serious gang crime keeping the country in poverty, foreign office guidance not to take public buses, but has a government that says it is open to tourism? The answer to all of this is Roatan island in the Caribbean. It hosts a million or so cruise ship day visitors each year and is just beautiful. 40km long and a few km wide we think we may have found our beach paradise. Life on Roatan is still not totally safe – we were warned against taking the short path around the bay we were staying at, it just isn’t safe even for locals unless in large groups.

We booked four nights next to the best beach on the island (world?), West Bay. Golden coral sand, crystal clear waters, a reef wading distance from shore. Here’s to a little bit of Caribbean paradise!

I don’t really have much more to say about Roatan. We sunbathed, swam, built sandcastles, swung in hammocks, had some beers and repeated. You’re welcome 😊.

James has been practicing his swimming wherever possible on the holiday. He apparently swims better than the guy who looks after us in our accommodation… he’s an embarrassed 18 year old living on an island and cannot swim! James also got to give snorkelling a go…and is starting to get the hang of it.

All good things come to an end. We fly on to our last country in Central America – Belize. First stop a jungle lodge with no electricity- dear god!