This is the national tree of El Salvador. I understand they come in pink and purple color too.
Although I did not get to see them. The yellow ones stood out exquisitely against the blue clear sky as the background.

This picture was taken from a running car. (explains the light smudges)

This highway – claimed to be the worlds’s longest highway – goes all the way from Alaska to the southernmost tip of Chile. There is a portion of it which is a “gap” in Panama called Darien Gap that is swampy and infested with gangs and cartels. You do not want to be there. One of my friends once cycled on this route and had to give up his bicycle as ransom to get out his kidnapping.

I have been on this road in Chile, Peru and the USA. Now El Salvador gets added to that list.

After a great day on the beaches and another day on the volcanoes, today is going to be the day to get to know the country and its people a little more intimately. We are going to visit small towns and see what goes on there. Experience a few local stuff and talk to local people.

Very excited about this part!

We are going to cover from one end to the other end of Rutas de las Flores. The first thing I learnt is that this “Route of the Flowers” does not refer to flowers but coffee plantations. Apparently, this country used to produce a lot of coffee at one point of time. Not as much today.

Did Didi win in El Salvador too?

(As a background to the rest, after Trinamul party won the elections in West Bengal, their leader, Mamata Banerjee – commonly known as Didi – lit up all the lamp posts in Kolkata with blue and white colors. You can still them if you go to Kolkata).

This was on the drive back from El Tunco to San Salvador after an ocean side dinner.

I saw this guy asking me “quieres un helado?”

Wait, am I seeing this right? There is a guy selling ice cream on the top of the lip of the crater. How did he get here so easily?

“Soy Rajib. Cual es tu nombre?” I put up a brave front.

“Carlos!”

For the rest of the conversation, I had to get my interlocutor Gabriel to help.

Turns out Carlos climbs up the volcano … every single day… with 100 ice creams on his shoulder. He charges $1.50 per ice cream.

That is his livelihood.

I could not get past the climbing up to the tallest peak in El Salvador everyday.

I gave him 3 bucks and told him that I do not eat ice cream. But he could offer free ice cream to two customers of his choice on this day.

And that I wanted a picture of him! To which he readily obliged!!

Standing up on the crater lip, about four to five thousand feet above the hot, sulfurous lake, I was trying to catch as many pictures as I could. The wind was howling around me.

What struck me as odd was a loud hissing noise I could hear. My first reaction was that it was the sound of wind splitting thru some cracks in the mountains creating a corridor effect. But the hissing part did not match with the howling or whistling that I would expect.

I explained my perplexity to Gabriel. He solved it for me.

Way down below – see if you can see the marked red areas – the pictures do not do justice to what the eyes could see – you can see steaming hot sulfurous vapors escaping from a gap in the wall just above the water level. That is the raw heat and furor from the lava layer escaping into the free air!!!

Impressive to even realize the scale!!

I am on top of the highest point in El Salvador!! You can see the crater lake behind me!!!

I would have jumped up for joy if not for the fact that any jumping up would be a 50-50 toss up between hurling myself down a steep four to five thousand feet of cliff side into a smoldering sulfurous water body or rolling down nearly seven thousand of mountain side bouncing off trees till I drowned in the cold lake.

Opted for a demeanor with far more gravitas.

Internally, I was gyrating between – “I can’t believe I made it” and “How the hell am I going to go down without seriously damaging my knees?”

It was an incredible sight though. And I mean every bit of it.

Took it in as long as I could.

I was only ten minutes away from dragging myself to the top. The winds had picked up. I had put my jacket on. The slope had eased up. I was fairly sure I would make it.

But looking back, I saw what I had to come up. You can probably see the folks trying to clamber up. That sight gave me the necessary fillip – if I could do that, the rest was going to be fairly easy.

By now, the rocks had started flattening out. I could see the rim… and the small silhouettes of people on the top. Could not be more than ten minutes more at that point of time. But at that point of time even one minute felt like a month.

I think the congratulatory board was strategically placed there just for me. For some reason, I thought I was already there.

I was not. But it did not matter. The board told me I was there. The rest was about just taking some nice pictures, right?

The last 30 minutes have been incredibly tough for me. The trail simply lost itself and asked to stay close to the rocks with yellow markers. Gabriel was jumping on the rock juttings like a mountain goat. Forget my physical strength. My fear of heights took over. This meant, I had to stay out of the edge of the rocks and stay inside a bit. Which had a lot more pebbles. Which meant I had to be wary of slipping. It did not help that I did slip a couple of times. Plus, I could not look to my right. Acrophobia would freeze me immediately.

Every ten minutes, I stopped and sat down on a rock. Slowly, I would open my eyes and look down to acclimatize myself. And then after a few minutes, I would slowly stand up and stand still. (Quickly getting up would invariably give me the dizziness).

Gabriel, who I suspect realized that I was running on fumes, volunteered to take a picture of me.