The very best unknown festival in all of Central America.

Our trip through El Salvador coincided with the greatest event that no one knows about: The Hammock festival of Concepcion Quezaltepeque.  To say Kaytie and I like hammocks would be an understatement.  When we were dating, we spent more than a few nights in a hammock, watching a movie or listening to music on a beach behind my house.  Ever since then, we never turn down the opportunity to hang up a hammock.  So you can imagine our excitement when we stumbled upon Concepcion Quezaltepeque's annual festival.  This little town in the northern part of the country is known for it’s hammocks and most of the hammocks you see for sale on the side of the road or in tourist shops throughout Central America come from Concepcion Quezaltepeque.   Not only does the town have the best prices on high quality hammocks, it also boasts the world’s biggest hammock.  Now this we had to see… 

We pulled into town on Friday afternoon and found out that other than the parade, not much was happening until the next day.  So we sat and chatted with a couple store owners for a while.  More than talk about the town, they just wanted know what they heck we were doing there.  Apparently, the festival typically only attracts people from neighboring towns.  We were definitely the only white people and probably the only ones who traveled further than 20 miles to get there.  We stuck around for the parade and had dinner- pupulsas and pizza.  Not together, that’d be gross.  Kaytie had pupulsas, I had pizza. 

The parade kicked off by introducing all the town royalty.  Then they piled up on the one float and drove off.  It wasn’t the kind of parade that you sit and watch from the curb.  That would be pretty short and lame.  In this parade, the whole town crowded around the float and walked the streets on an undefined route and for an unplanned amount of time.  Many of the streets had low hanging powerlines so one dude walked ahead with a tall T-shapped stick and lifted the lines to give space to the float.  Central American ingenuity at its best. 

After wandering around with the float for bit we decided we better find a place to park for the night.  We asked one of the ladies we had been chatting with earlier for recommendations.  She said we could park in her driveway, which was on a fairly steep slope and across from a bar.  With our sleepless night fresh in our minds we told her thanks but we were going to get away from the noise and action.  Then she graciously offered her living room.  Again we said thanks but declined.  I’m sure if we would have stuck around, she would have offered her bed.  We drove out of the town a little ways to a grassy patch we had spotted earlier in the day.  Before parking and setting up, we figured it’d be best to ask the neighbor.  I went to his gate and knocked.  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t have a problem with it.  A minute later he came back out and opened his gate.  He insisted we pull inside where we would be safer.  We had a great nights rest and in the morning he offered his bathroom and shower to us, of which I took advantage.  Nice folks in Concepcion Quezaltepeque   (It kinda makes me wonder what I would do if someone knocked on my door in the dark and asked to camp in the vacant lot next to my house…)

Getting ready for the World's Biggest Hammock.

The hammock festival did not disappoint.  We arrived right as the worlds largest hammock was being rolled down the main street.  The thing was probably 100 meters long and as wide as the street.  Up at the top, it was attached to a powerline pole and at the bottom they brought in a big back hoe.  After about 30 minutes they had the thing completely rolled out and attached to the back hoe.  Then a big box truck pulled up.  Apparently the only road big enough for the hammock is also the only road big enough for moving trucks.  You could almost hear the townspeople yell “Car!” as they rolled the hammock back up and then “Game on!” as the truck passed.  Another few minutes later, they had it back into place.  As they raised the hammock, someone noticed the powerline pole starting to lean.  Someone called the towns best shimmier.  He came and shimmied up the pole, tying a rope off near the top.  Someone else tied the other end to a tree.  Problem solved.    Again, I’m glad for classic latino ingenuity.  Because of it, we got to see one very big hammock.

We spent the morning talking to a few hammock makers and learning all about techniques and materials.  It was pretty interesting stuff but even we can only handle so much when it comes to hammocks so we bought a couple fruit drinks in bags and hit the road.  According to our map, there was a ferry that crossed a big lake.  If it was real, it would take about 3 hours off our trip so we bounced down a very rutted trail toward, based on the road, what seemed to be a town without cars.  I was skeptical as we pulled up but sure enough there was a pretty nice ferry parked waiting for us.  We grabbed some lunch to-go at the restaurant next to the dock and loaded up.  The lake was beautiful and the food was delicious.  They could have called it a dinner cruise and charged twice as much.

The lake that we crossed on our Dinner Cruise.

The food was actually really REALLY good.

We unloaded and made our way to the Pan-American Highway.  For all of the Pan-American travels we have done, we have spent very little time on the Pan-American highway.  We may have to do it more often.  It felt amazing to have more than 2 lanes and to travel at more than 60 mph (gasp!). 

After two weeks in El Salvador, we decided it was time to get moving.  We are running out of time on our little adventure.  And as we have found over and over again, there is far more to see than there is time to see it.  If we kept going at this pace, we would never make it home to the day-to-day life we left behind.  (Wait… why are we going back??)