Shore Excursion from Acajutla: Tazumal Maya Ruins, Casablanca and Santa Ana

A great way to learn about some of the history of El Salvador. Miguel was fantastic! Gave us a great invite to the history of the country.

This tour was awesome. They picked us up at the port in front of the cruise ship and texted us to let us know where they were. Francisco was a great guide with lots of info about the country. He was very nice and conversational. The casa blanca was a small area with mostly pyramids covered in dirt. It had some interesting info but not a lot to look at. Tazumal on the other hand was unbelievable. Really, i cant believe they can build such a large structure in that time. The sites had almost no tourists which is nice considering cruise ships usually bring large crowds. I felt we had adequate time at each site. The last stop was the plaza which was so much fun looking at the beautiful structures, local goods, and trying local foods. I recommend trying the pupusas rather than the restaurant they provided the menu for. I thought the tour could be improved by having a menu for traditional food for the area. Our guide did bring us to a spot for pupusas which were only $1 each so we got to try lots of types. The pork/bean/cheese was our favorite flavor. Overall I would definitely recommend this tour, it seemed to be the only one (at the time of writing this) that went to tazumal from the cruise port and is really the most unique Mayan pyramid in the region in my opinion.

This tour was awesome. They picked us up at the port in front of the cruise ship and texted us to let us know where they were. Francisco was a great guide with lots of info about the country. He was very nice and conversational. The casa blanca was a small area with mostly pyramids covered in dirt. It had some interesting info but not a lot to look at. Tazumal on the other hand was unbelievable. Really, i cant believe they can build such a large structure in that time. The sites had almost no tourists which is nice considering cruise ships usually bring large crowds. I felt we had adequate time at each site. The last stop was the plaza which was so much fun looking at the beautiful structures, local goods, and trying local foods. I recommend trying the pupusas rather than the restaurant they provided the menu for. I thought the tour could be improved by having a menu for traditional food for the area. Our guide did bring us to a spot for pupusas which were only $1 each so we got to try lots of types. The pork/bean/cheese was our favorite flavor. The van was comfortable for 8 people with strong AC. Overall I would definitely recommend this tour, it seemed to be the only one (at the time of writing this) that went to tazumal from the cruise port and is really the most unique mayan pyramid in the region in my opinion.

The ruins were so interesting. Unfortunately our guide was getting backhanders so took us to certain places. We went our own way for food and avoided the shopping.

Overall, this was a good tour. We are interested in ancient ruins in Central America, and though El Salvador didn't have many ruins near our port, we were glad we got to see the ones we did. We learned a lot about the history and culture of the Maya. The Casablanca site had a good museum attached to it with informative displays (with English translation) on the culture of the ancient Maya. The Tazumal ruins had been altered due to the good intentions of archeologists from the 1940's -- they tried to preserve the structure with cement so the locals would not continue to remove stones to use for their own homes. The city of Santa Ana was not impressive, particularly compared to other Central American cities -- but it is difficult to maintain good colonial buildings when earthquakes continually destroyed them. (Our tour guide knew his history and gave us lots of background on El Salvador -- unfortunately, from time to time he had difficulty expressing what he wanted to say in English). We started out the morning "on the wrong foot" -- we paid for a tour for just the two of us but were joined by a group of six who had paid for a tour for just the six of them. They were just as surprised to have us join their tour as we were to have them join our tour. It is our understanding Viator will reimburse us, so that we will be charged at the same rate the other group paid per person.