Ruta de las Flores day trip

Inland from the coast, highway CA-8 climbs from Sonsonate into the coffee hills of the Apaneca-Ilamatepec range and strings together six small towns, signed in blue and white the whole way. A day trip picks two or three of them. Nahuizalco, at the southern end, is the crafts town, with a night market and the region's one museum of Nahuat-Pipil culture. Juayúa has the most to do: a weekend food fair of traditional Salvadoran dishes, snake and frog among them, a black Christ in the Santa Lucía church, and the Chorros de la Calera waterfall outside town. Apaneca sits highest and coolest, with a hedge maze of more than 2,000 cypress trees and ziplines beside it, and Concepción de Ataco has cobbled streets, 17th-century stone and stucco buildings and the best choice of small upscale inns on the route.

The flowers that give the route its name are best from November to early April, December above all, so a summer visit mostly misses them. Drive it in daylight; the road is better avoided after dark. Tour companies in San Salvador run the route as a day out with hotel pickup, and with a car you can go at your own pace.