Suchitoto is a teeny tiny colonial town in central El Salvador. It’s actually a full-on cowboy town and the cowboy culture is the most predominant factor of the people here. The place has also managed to keep some of the colonial characteristics of some of its buildings, making it a gorgeous colorful town.
Things To Do in Suchitoto El Salvador
As we went for a little walk around the central park, we got lucky enough to see a horse show with a bunch of cowboys in full cowboy gear getting drunk atop their steed. So always hang out a little at the central plaza. You might come across something fun.
I too fell into the swing of things, got me a cowboy hat, and had a blast showing my boys the different horses and their odd saddles.
While exploring the town we even came across a group of locals making music on the street and simply having fun.
If there was no horse parade, that walk would probably have been 15 minutes, the show added on another 15. We ended the self-made tour with a yummy pupusas, El Salvador’s staple food. This is an absolute must-try dish and extremely cheap.
The other thing to do here is to go on a boat tour of Lake Suchitlan. It is an easy way to relax and enjoy the scenery.
When asked where is the lake, someone cunning said it’s only a 15 minute walk. This sounded appealing to my husband and I, but with a 6-year-old lazybones, we decided to drive.
Thank god! I don’t know how fast this guy runs, but it’s about 15-minute DRIVE – up hill!
The tour can be picked up at the Pier of Lake Suchitlan. There are group tours, but the private tours are $35 for 1 hour per boat. Why would you ever want to do a group tour which isn’t much cheaper?
There are 3 tours you can take:
1. To bird Island – an island, obviously, full of birds
2. Caves
3. Bird Island and caves ($45)
We went for the Bird Island tour for a couple of reasons, going to both places is way too long with a baby of 6 months old. And both my husband and B boy are bird obsessed, so why not doing that!
That day some sort of algae invasion happened on the lake and it took almost 30 minutes just to get out of the bank. I was totally freaking out that we would never make it back since it was 500 meters of this
weird stuff. But once we did, the tour was fun.
During the tour my infant immediately fell asleep, my theory as a defense from the new experience and the crazy wind that took hold of us as we got out in the middle of the lake.
I was also freaking out that we won’t be able to get back to the pier, but the boat driver took us right next to there where it was much easier to get to shore. The only catch was we had to hike to the other pier and let’s just saying it was quite challenging. I was ok with it, since my husband took the baby and was fully in his element of walking through the woods!
that’s a heck of a lot of lilypads. i’ve never seen so many!! what a great time you had!
Ah Marina, you make me crave Central America! I can’t wait to get back there!