Tacuba and the Impossible Park

We left Juayua with the intention of spending the night in a neighboring town but Ataco proved not to live up to expectations.  The guys had checked into their hotel and then offered to drive me to my hostel.  What seemed like 20 loops and circles later, in a miserable attempt of following the various Spanish directions we were receiving, we managed to track it down.  However, it turned out that the cheap and highly recommended
 hostel had been converted to an expensive bar and hotel.  The benefit of all this was that the 20 loops we did around town were sufficient to make us realize that there was nothing there to keep us for the day.  Compared to Juayua, Ataco left much to be desired. So we went back to Colin and Dave’s hotel, checked them out, and continued on our way to Tacuba.

Tacuba is a small town literally at the end of the road.  It abuts to Parque Nacional el Imposible. Its name derives from the perilous gorge that claimed the lives of farmers and pack mules transporting coffee to the Pacific port.  We didn’t explore this perilous gorge, but did tackle a set of seven waterfalls and numerous smaller cataracts.

Yet before I get to the adventures in the park, I should mention our lodging in Tacuba.  We stayed at Mama y Papa’s Hostel where we were welcomed like family into the guesthouse.  Mama would sit down and chat to us about her dentist appointments, would check whether we had hot water to shower under and would pat us the back whenever she saw us happy.  It was also her who recommended the best pupusa place in town, where we had to wait nearly 45 minutes in line as the ladies prepared order after order for delivery. The pupusas are round cornmeal dough cakes stuffed with a combination of cheese, refried beans, chicharron or all three and grilled.  They are then topped with a fantastic mixture of pickled cabbage and vegetables.  Selling for a mere $0.50 a piece with three sufficing to stuff you for 6 hours we were set.

Mama y Papa’s son, Manoloo, organizes a variety of tours into Park Impossible.  Ours was a 7 hour hike down into a canyon and the through a number of waterfalls.  Some you had to jump off of, others you were lowered down (on the most unsafe and improper belaying in the world), and still others could be climbed down.  It was an adventure packed day that started with an off-road ride in the back of a pick-up truck holding onto a metal bar.  The ride was way too bumpy to be seated and we all stood right behind the cab holding on for dear life.  This, in combination with the state of the art belaying and waterfall jumping, would never in a thousand years have passed all the safety requirements of Canada.  Yet we survived and had a blast.  The seven waterfall hike by far outdid the trek through the Somoto Canyon.

A side note about Manoloo.  He is an amazing personality running a fantastic operation.  Yet what makes him more impressive, especially for El Salvadorian standards, is all his travel.  He had just come back from a few weeks in Switzerland where he attempted air-boarding and ice climbing.  Before that he had been in France.  He has drunk $12 beer in Sweden and lived in Germany for several months.  He speaks Spanish, German and English quite fluently and maybe some other languages as well.  He has traveled across Central America and enjoys surfing and scuba diving. This is definitively not your average local tour operator, but definitively a fascinating person to sit down with and simply chat.