Isela Post

Short answer: Salpicón salvadoreño is a cold, finely chopped beef salad, bright and refreshing: tender beef minced small and tossed with chopped radish, white onion, fresh mint, and plenty of lime. The radish and the mint are the signature, the two things that make the Salvadoran version taste like itself. It is served cool with white rice and tortillas, a light, sharp dish for a hot day. The technique is simple but exact: everything is chopped to about the same small size so each forkful is balanced, and the lime…

Short answer: A quesadilla salvadoreña is not a folded cheese tortilla. It is a sweet, dense cheese pound cake, made with rice flour and a salty hard cheese, topped with sesame seeds and baked until golden. It is breakfast and coffee-break food in El Salvador, sold by the slice from bakeries and home cooks, and the surprise is the savory edge: the cheese makes it sweet and salty at once, more like a cheese loaf than a dessert cake. Two things make it Salvadoran. Rice flour gives it a tender,…

Short answer: Pan con pollo (or panes con pollo) is El Salvador's great celebration sandwich: chicken slow-stewed in a deep, spiced tomato sauce called recaudo, then piled onto a crusty roll with mayonnaise, lettuce, sliced tomato, cucumber, radish, and watercress, with the warm sauce spooned over the top. It is not a quick grilled torta. The whole thing turns on the sauce, built from a toasted spice blend called relajo, which is what makes a Salvadoran pan con pollo taste like nothing else. This is holiday and party food, the…

Short answer: Salvadoran enchiladas are not the rolled, sauce-covered enchiladas of Mexico. They are flat, crisp-fried corn tortillas, closer to a tostada, piled with seasoned ground beef or refried beans, a layer of tomato sauce, tangy curtido, crumbled hard cheese, and a slice of hard-boiled egg. They are a street and party food in El Salvador, eaten with your hands, and the whole thing rides on the crunch of the tortilla against the cool, sharp curtido on top. If you order enchiladas in San Salvador expecting a Mexican plate, you…

Short answer: Horchata de morro is El Salvador's horchata, and it is not the rice drink most people picture. It is built on toasted morro seeds, the seeds of the jícaro (calabash) tree, ground with sesame, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, cacao, and cinnamon into a fragrant powder, then soaked, blended with water, strained, and sweetened. The result is nutty, toasty, and a little chocolatey, served cold over ice. If you have only had Mexican rice horchata, this is a different drink with the same name. The morro seed is the heart…

Short answer: Yuca frita con chicharrón is El Salvador's great snack and street plate: cassava boiled soft, then fried golden and crisp, piled with fried pork and a mound of curtido and tomato salsa over the top. Boil the yuca first until a fork slides in, then fry it; that two-step is what gives you a crust outside and a fluffy middle. It is the same plate you eat with pupusas, built around the cassava instead. If you have spent any time around Salvadoran food, you already know the rule:…

Short answer: Bacalar is the Lagoon of Seven Colors, a long freshwater lagoon in southern Quintana Roo that runs from pale turquoise to deep blue. It is the easy northward extension of the Belize corridor: about 45 minutes from Chetumal, so if you are crossing at the Chetumal border you can be floating in it the same day. Come for the water, kayak or sail it at dawn when it is calm and the colors are best, see the cenotes and the old fort, and respect the stromatolites, the fragile…

Short answer: Lake Atitlán is a volcano-ringed lake in the Guatemalan highlands, and the trip is really about which village you base in, because they are very different. Panajachel is the gateway and the easiest; San Pedro is the budget and party town with Spanish schools; San Marcos is the wellness and yoga village; San Juan is the quiet Tz'utujil Maya town of weaving co-ops; Santa Cruz and Jaibalito are the secluded upscale corners. You get between them by lancha, the public boats that cross the lake. Pick the village…

Short answer: The Ruta de las Flores is a string of five small coffee towns in the western highlands of El Salvador, linked by one scenic road: Nahuizalco, Salcoatitán, Juayúa, Apaneca, and Concepción de Ataco. The headline is Juayúa's weekend food festival, the feria gastronómica, but the whole route is murals, coffee fincas, waterfalls, and cool mountain air. Come on a weekend for the food fair, base in Ataco or Juayúa, and drive or shuttle the towns from San Salvador, about two hours west. This is the prettiest, most visitor-friendly…

Short answer: Roatán and the Bay Islands sit on the same Mesoamerican reef as Belize, which makes them some of the cheapest world-class diving anywhere. Roatán is the developed one, with West Bay's beach and resorts; Utila is the budget, backpacker dive island; Guanaja is the quiet one. The islands are an English-and-Garifuna Caribbean world a little apart from the mainland, and they are Honduras's safe, easy-going coast. Fly into Roatán (RTB) or take the ferry from La Ceiba. For a Belizean this coast feels like home, because it is…

Short answer: Copán is the great Maya city of western Honduras, famous for its carved stelae and the Hieroglyphic Stairway, the longest Maya inscription anywhere. You visit from the easygoing town of Copán Ruinas, a short ride from the archaeological park, and it pairs naturally with a trip through Guatemala since the border is close. Give the ruins a half to a full day, then the town's coffee, hot springs, and the Macaw Mountain bird park fill out a second. Check the current entrance fee at the gate; bring cash.…

Short answer: Flores is the base for visiting Tikal. The ruins sit about an hour and a half northeast of the island, and you get there three ways: a shared shuttle (cheapest and most common), a local colectivo from the Santa Elena bus station, or an organized tour with a guide. The park is open daily from six in the morning to six at night, with a special pre-dawn entry from four for the sunrise. Decide first whether you want the sunrise: it shapes the whole day. Most people see…

A guide to Honduran food: what is good to eat?

Catracha, baleada, enchilada hondureña, tustaca, pollo chuco, anafre. All explained.

Short answer: There are two ways to reach Tikal from Belize. Go overland, west to San Ignacio, across the one land border at Benque Viejo into Guatemala, then on to Flores, with Tikal a short trip beyond. Or fly Belize City to Flores on Tropic Air in about half an hour and skip the border on the ground. From Flores, Tikal is an easy day trip, about an hour and a half out by road. There is no ferry between Belize and Guatemala, and a Belize rental car usually cannot…

Short answer: From Chetumal you reach Belize two ways. Take a ferry across the water to the islands, San Pedro on Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker, in about an hour and a half to San Pedro. Or cross the land border at Subteniente López into Corozal and continue south by road. Both need a valid passport. There is no fee to enter Belize as a tourist. The crossing is fast now that the new bridge carries most of the traffic. If you are island-bound, the ferry is the move. If…

Short answer: There are four real ways to get from Cancún to Belize. Fly direct to Belize City on Tropic Air in about an hour and a half. Take the ADO bus south, when it is running, an overnight overland trip. Book a private shuttle door to door. Or travel down to Chetumal and cross there, which is the route if your destination is the islands. There is no boat that leaves Cancún for Belize. Whatever a booking site tells you, that direct ferry does not exist. The ferries to…