Misadventures of the Jocote... Festival?

Shortly after arriving in El Salvador Elsa shared with me her deep love for jocotes, a fruit that grows in many tropical regions throughout the world. After trying one or two and getting passed the unique texture of the fruit I began to understand her passion for jocotes. They have a flavor that is hard to describe but full of fruity goodness. A while ago, Bea, her stepmom, informed us of a Jocote Festival in the area. It was to take place at Cerro Verde, approximately 30-40 minutes away… or so we were told. We had heard many other things about this festival as well, the diverse presentations of artists such as the National Folklore Ballet (not sure what that means… but would have loved to see it! Any combination of folk and ballet must be amazing!), marimba and andina music, a vast array of typical Salvadoran food, and all sorts of foods and drinks made form jocotes including jocote juice, pie, honey, and ice cream. We had high hopes for what we might find at the jocote festival.

Our adventure began as we arrived at Elsa’s friend’s house where we were informed that the 30-40 minute drive would actually be more like an hour and a half drive. That wasn’t long enough to deter us from experiencing the wondrous jocote festival. We all piled in the car and pulled away from Elsa’s friend’s house in her Jeep Liberty and hit the road. It was smooth sailing until we started driving up the foothills and realized if we didn’t get gas we might not make it back down. Unfortunately this meant going back to the last gas station about 15 minutes behind us. This was just a minor set back. After all, the jocote festival would be well worth it. We filled up and were back on our way. As we climbed higher and higher closer to the park we started seeing many locals selling jocotes along the side of the road. This was a little strange but what was stranger was that all the cars coming down from the festival were stopping to buy jocotes. Had they not gotten enough jocote at the festival? After stopping at a lookout for pictures, we finally pulled up managing to squeeze between the parked cars that lined the street and the people walking every which way and landed a spot just outside the entrance. Couldn’t have been more perfect! We could avoid paying the extra 60 cents for parking.

As we walked up the last band was just finishing their last song. But we were so hungry after the long drive that we didn’t dwell on that for too long. We started looking for food, but unfortunately as we made the rounds to all the tents and stands it seemed as though they were all out of food… or had an hour wait. Hungry and disappointed we started to search for the jocotes. Yes… search. You’d think at a jocote festival it’d be more obvious where the jocotes are but it was not the case. We finally found some but they were more expensive than the jocotes at the market we pass multiple times a week in San Salvador. We searched for the other jocote food only to discover that there wasn’t any. After standing in line for 15 minutes and paying 10 cents to use the smelly bathrooms we found a place that had pupusas… or at least that’s what they called them. After praying extra hard that they wouldn't do a number on my stomach we ate the pupusas. (Which thankfully God granted.) Then we took a picture and left, glad that we hadn’t paid the extra 60 cents for parking.

Although the jocote festival was a bit of a failure, and not much of a festival, it was a fun trip nonetheless. Mainly redeemed by the view from the park, which was beautiful.