Cerro Verde National Park and Joya de Cerén Archaeological site, El Salvador
We woke up this morning to the first day of our Central American odyssey. The first country on our list is El Salvador. This name usually evokes images of a chaotic civil war fought from 1980 to 1992 up in the mountains of farmland. However, the war has been over for a few years now and this small but varied country is doing its best to get away from its sordid past. It is now waiting with open arms and wonderful people, like our local guides, for a new part of their history: their future in tourism.
El Salvador’s most dramatic feature is its landscape: volcanoes arising from flat valleys and greenish-bluish waters filling in ancient calderas. One of the country’s gems is the Cerro Verde National Park, which lies on top of an old volcano, with breathtaking views of two others, the Santa Ana and Izalco volcanoes. Lying within the tropical lower montane wet forest Life Zone, this park provides a home to 127 species of birds. Walking through its trails, we got the chance to grasp our first feel of the tropical forests.
Coming down the mountain onto the lowland tropical dry forests of the Pacific slope, we reached the Mayan ruins of Joya de Cerén. In AD 600, when the Laguna Caldera volcano erupted, a small Mayan settlement was buried under four to six meters of volcanic ash. Luckily, it seems that the inhabitants could evacuate the area on time since no human remains have been found, but the intense heat and the depositions of tephra (volcanic ash) resulted in unusually favorable conditions for preservation. Not only did the housing structures survived, but the pottery, plants, seeds, animal remains and even uneaten food in plates and pots were preserved. This is the only site that gives evidence of their way of life, their daily life; their farming techniques, gardens of flowers and vegetables, kitchens and storerooms all remain for our future understanding. We left the site for lunch and a little shopping opportunity, before heading back to our home away from home: the M.V. Sea Voyager.
