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part of it. So when the customs officer stamped our passports, after making us wait more than an hour for his lunch break, we were torn between curiosity and concern for what awaited us. A few kilometres were enough to convince us that the Salvadorans are proud of their small nation and are nothing more than victims of the wicked policies of the two major political factions that divided the country with a real civil war that lasted 12 years and cost the lives of more than 75,000 people. It ended in 1992 with a peace agreement and in 2016 with the ruling of the International Court of Justice that put an end to the attempt to cover up the trials for crimes against humanity of the guerrillas of the two parties. Today the danger is the two drug trafficking gangs that, despite the ironclad security policies of successive governments, continue to reap violence especially in the outskirts of large cities.
We took refuge in Santa Ana in the small hostel that allowed us to meet Roland, the German biker who was treating himself to the Pan-American trip for his retirement. From there we climbed to the top of the volcano of the same name, admiring the lake of acidic waters created in its crater. But above all we traveled the Ruta de las Flores along which some of the most famous coffee factories in the world are located.
We visited“ El Carmen Estate” and
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