In which Layla and Roz laze in hammocks and swim in a volcanic crater lake

By Layla

We spent our final evening in Suchitoto dining in Las Puertas, the other posh hotel with restaurant. We sat out on the square and watched the town go about its business while sipping cocktails and eating incongruous (but very nice indeed) Italian food. Pleasing. And then headed home trying to trick ourselves into not being jetlagged. Alas we failed; we were both sound asleep by… ahem… 9pm.

This of course meant that we were up at the crack of dawn, and used the time to sort out our kitchen installation via Skype from the patio of the Artex café on the Suchitoto main square. Again incongruous: arguing over work surfaces and cupboard space while the church clock loudly chimed the hour, the ice cream seller rang the bell on his cart, and the tortilla van played loud music as it circled the square. Mission accomplished, we returned to our own hotel for our final helping of glorious breakfast. The pancakes they make may well be the best in the world… Back to the Artex Café for a final kitchen argument and then it was farewell to Suchitoto. El Gringo (the American ex-pat guide) picked us up and conveyed us past volcanoes and along the pan-American highway to our next destination, Lake Coatepeque.

I had deliberated long and hard about whether to stay overnight at said Lake. The guidebook said it was unmissable – a beautiful, ‘pristine’ lake in a volcanic crater with lovely little hotels, with great swimming and kayaking. All the rich El Salvadoreans have their summer house here, including former presidents. It was a certain amount of drama and expense to get there, so when El Gringo deposited us on the doorstep of Hostel Amacuilac we didn’t like to voice our trepidation. It looked a tad dodgy, after the glamour of Los Almendros. And they’d given the private room with bathroom which we’d booked to someone else. Pleasingly El Gringo saved us from our resigned acceptance of the rather miserable dorm room and after some vehement conversation in Spanish he got the manager to agree to move the people in the private room to our rather less salubrious dorm, and make us something vegetarian for lunch. We waved farewell to El Gringo and his language skills, and launched ourselves into a land of Spanish-only conversation.

We settled ourselves at a little table overlooking the lake, which was indeed rather pretty. However not especially more so than Lake Suchitlan, despite the hype. And furthermore the adjacent dock was home to a bar containing a hundred Ibiza-style partiers, complete with thumping music. As though to add to this vibe, an array of speedboats pumping competing music zoomed around. A few jetskis contributed to the cacophony. We’d come for serenity and seemed to have found Ibiza. Alas. I begged forgiveness from Roz. She sniggered.

We got increasingly grumpy, then realised this was because they still hadn’t brought lunch. After a full hour of preparation, a hard potato with a little tomato sauce was produced for each of us. They proudly asked how we liked it. “Mmmmm” said we. It may not have been gourmet, but it cheered us up, and we settled comfortably into hammocks overlooking the lake, reading our books and drinking beer in a shady patio with a beautiful lake view. Later we realised we’d better start indulging in the aquatic delights we’d come for. The hotel people retrieved another hotel guest to translate the news that we shouldn’t kayak as the water was choppy. It didn’t look very choppy, and feeling responsible for ensuring Roz had a good time in this bizarre resort, we hired a dugout canoe.

Luckily it wasn’t actually very choppy and we had a lovely time paddling up the coastline where we spotted several other club-style docks, and a rather odd potential dinner destination before heading back to our hostel. We settled back into our hammocks, but both of us knew in the back of our minds that one of our main reasons for going to the Lake was our enthusiasm to swim in a volcanic crater. When it came to it, we didn’t feel very tempted… and then a group of gung-ho American surfers appeared, fellow hostel guests who launched themselves vigorously off the pier, and down the slide into the water. We decided to brave it. I am a wuss, and Roz is a wuss who has never been on a slide before, on water or land. Clearly it was up to me to go first. With much terror, Roz followed. The surfers enjoyed our shrieks as we shot down the chute and into the chilly water. And, in fact, we enjoyed ourselves. The water wasn't quite as chilly as the waterfall, and we had some cheery chat with the Americans.

After our swim, we returned to our books and hammocks. Soon the hotel staff informed us that they had just told the people in the private room to swap. I was mortified when I realised it was the same surfers, and that they were somewhat dismayed at having to pack, and losing their private bathroom, TV, fan and nicer décor. I felt some desperate need to justify moving them with something other than ‘we’re very precious and demand nice surroundings’. Which is how I somehow got them thinking that one or both of us have some mysterious issue that means we need a private bathroom. Oh dear… They duly swapped, feeling virtuous, and we settled guiltily into a much nicer room. The shame.

We now lie antisocially in said room, listening to the drunken shouts and cheers of our hostel-mates through paper-thin walls, and contemplating a walk in search of Hotel Torremolinos and its allegedly rather good restaurant… A curious day – but quite jolly, all in all.