THERE’S a big sign outside the only Irish bar in San Salvador, the buzzing capital of El Salvador, which rather disconcertingly asks you not to take your gun inside.
But I needn’t worry.
The staff and revellers bopping around to a rock band inside Republik, in the city’s buzzing Zone Rosa district, couldn’t be more welcoming.
I’m ushered to a high stool by the bar before a cold glass of excellent Cadejo draught beer is plonked down in front of me.
I only have to raise my gaze for another one to arrive.
At €2 a pop, I could drink it all night.
To be honest, there’s not much Irish about the place apart from a “Temple Bar” sign on the wall and another saying “Póg mo Thóin”.
Nor do I spot anybody drinking Guinness.
But, hey, it’s still a splendid evening.
Little wonder, then, that El Salvador’s tourist board boasts that the country “is great like our people”.
It’s taking time, though, to get the message across about this friendly little Central American country, nestled between Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Because history has not been kind to El Salvador.
Fifty years ago it went to war with Guatemala over a disputed football match.
Then the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a hero to the nation’s poor and downtrodden, led to a bitter civil war which left 75,000 dead.
And for a while the city of San Salvador was saddled with the unwanted title “Murder capital of the world”.
Finally last year, to add insult to injury, Donald Trump dismissed the place as a “sh*t hole country”.
So a place best avoided then?
Well, no. After all, what does Trump know?
El Salvador now has a young new president called Nayib Bukele, elected this year on a pledge to end corruption and crack down on the crime gangs.
He cleared up the capital during his three years as mayor there.
And if he does the same to the country, then those in the know are already tipping El Salvador to be one of the holiday hotspots of the 21st century.
Hot it certainly is.
The temperature soars into the 30s during the summer and it hardly ever rains between December and March.
About the size of Wales, you can see most of the country in a week.
And cheap too, take a bus ride from one side to the other and you’ll still have change from a $10 note (they use American dollars here).
Of course, despite Bukele’s spell as mayor, San Salvador still has some areas where it’s probably wise not to stray after dark. But what city hasn’t?
Far better to drive past the volcanoes – you can even swim in some of the flooded craters – surrounding the city to explore quaint former colonial towns with cobbled streets and walls painted with brightly-coloured primitive murals.
Or if you fancy a hitting the Pacific coast beaches, take a short bus ride to Playa El Tunco where there are two world-class surfing waves called Punta Roca and Punta Mango.
I make tracks for La Ruta des Flores – literally the road of the flowers – which snakes past sprawling coffee plantations while winding through the western mountains from Sonsonate to Ahuachapan.
They take their coffee seriously in El Salvador.
People once made their fortunes with “el grano d’oro”, or the grain of gold, and the country was the world’s fourth biggest producer until the 1970s.
Aficionados, who fork out up to $90 a lb for the best local beans, talk like wine buffs in hushed tones about “subtle chocolate flavours” and “hints of honey, berries or fruits”.
We stop at a cafe in the pretty town of Ataco where El Salvador’s champion barista Jonatan Mendoza carefully weighs 15gms of a freshly-ground brand called Bourbon, grown high in the mountains, into a neatly folded filter paper before pouring 180gms of water heated to exactly 94C over it.
A look of horror passes over my normally smiling guide Julio’s face as I add a drop of milk to my brew.
“Would you,” he chides, “pour Pepsi into a 20-year-old single malt Irish whiskey?”
Er, no, I admit sheepishly. “Well,” scolds Julio, “it’s just as bad to add milk to good coffee.”
As we leave, a mangy dog outside, as if to show its disapproval of my gaffe, barks angrily at me.
Then it cockily raises its leg and pees all over a rickety wooden cart laden with heaps of fresh flowers.
Suddenly a gleaming silver pick-up truck, pressed into service as a makeshift hearse with hymns blaring from the radio and an ornately-carved wooden coffin perched precariously on the back, roars round the corner.
It backfires and farts out clouds of diesel fumes before stuttering to a halt in front of weeping mourners outside the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
I’m tempted to stay and watch, but we set off for nearby Nahizalco where a sombrero-wearing campesino is playing a traditional wooden marimba in the main square.
One of his three sons scrapes out a rhythm on a metal cylinder called a guira, while the others strum guitars.
I slip them a dollar and, delighted, they launch into a haunting love song.
We head back to the capital for a visit to the must-see cathedral and its shrine to Archbishop Romero, assassinated by a right-wing death squad during Mass for bravely speaking out against poverty and social injustice.
He was canonised last year to become the country’s first saint, and no nation could be more proud.
There’s a Centro Monseignor Romero devoted to the bespectacled cleric and huge pictures of him everywhere.
Check out too the fascinating Museo de Arte, behind the Monumento a la Revolution, and the Museo Nacional de Antropología.
Both are within walking distance of the comfy Hotel Barceló, where I stay.
And it’s worth tracking down El Arbor de Dios (God’s Tree) to see the work of Fernando Llort, who died last year.
Part art gallery, part workshop and part gift shop, you can’t miss it with Llort’s graffiti, reminiscent of Spain’s Joan Miro, splattered over the walls outside.
The next day we set out for Suchitoto – the name in the local Indian language means “place of birds and flowers” – the country’s capital during the 16th century when it was centre of the lucrative indigo trade.
These days it still claims to be the “cultural capital”.
Certainly the beautiful colonial buildings lure artists, sculptors and writers to live here, while every weekend crowds cram the cobbled square outside the white-painted Santa Lucia church for an art and food festival.
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Just outside town is the 75 sq km Lake Suchitoto, formed when the River Lempa was dammed to build a hydro-electric plant that supplies most of the county’s electricity, and now a birdwatcher’s paradise.
Julio, an expert “twitcher”, points them all out: ospreys, storks, herons, egrets, white-tailed kites, whistling ducks, black and white swallows, mangrove swallows … and thousands of cormorants flying in formation.
Driving back to San Salvador, we pass Joya de Cerén, a small Mayan village buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago, and dubbed the “Pompeii of the Americas”.
The residents had time to flee to safety – but one family’s dog was not so lucky.
Finally, I say farewell to Julio after solemnly pledging never to add milk to good coffee again, and set out for what during the civil war was the FLMN guerillas’ mountain stronghold in the north-east of the country near the Honduran border.
Bizarrely, it costs $12 for short taxi ride from my hotel to the Terminal de Oriente bus station – then just $4 for a 90-mile, two-hour coach journey to San Miguel and another 50 cents to spend three hours sweating in a jam-packed, rickety old American school bus that belches out clouds of black diesel fumes as it slowly chugs along 50 miles of narrow winding roads to the village of Perquin.
I’m dropped off outside the Hotel Perkin Lenca, built into a hillside by former American aid worker Ron Brennerman.
As I check in, I buy a book he wrote about his experiences during the civil war.
Just down the road is El Mozote, scene of the war’s worst massacre when troops from the infamous Atlacati Battalion rounded up residents, tortured them, raped girls as young as 10 and finally killed everybody.
The death toll is put at between 800 and 1,200.
Nearby I meet Bernito Chica Argueta, who while still a teenager joined the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), one of the five Left-wing guerrilla organisations that formed the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN).
He shows me photos of himself then – some strumming a guitar, others clutching a rifle about to kill.
“As Christians and human beings, we had to fight,” he explains.
“We were accused of being Communists, but that wasn’t true. We just wanted to make things better.
“The people fought because we had empty stomachs. But we also fought for justice, for human rights. “We fought so our children could get an education and go to university and so our women would be treated with respect.”
And now? Does Bernito hate his former enemies?
“No, we never hated them. We volunteered to fight, but most of the soldiers had no choice.
“They were taken from the streets and forced to join the army.
“Sometimes cousins and even brothers found themselves on different sides, not because they wanted to but because they had to.
“Now the men we fought against are our friends. We sit down and have a beer with them. Our struggle is the same.”
Did they succeed in making things better in El Salvador?
“There is still a lot to be done,” Bernito admits. “There is still not justice or truth.”
However, he has hope that the new president will unite the country.
I, too, have hope for El Salvador.
Despite its past reputation and some of the scary stories I’d heard, I never once felt in any danger. On the contrary, people couldn’t have been more hospitable.
Oh, I nearly forgot. Make sure you try some pupusas before you leave.
Flatbreads stuffed with cheese, pork or refried beans along with curtido, a sort of spicey cabbage slaw, they’re the national dish and absolutely delicious.
Leticia, a bustling woman who speaks no English but smiles a lot, makes great ones in Suchitoto for 40 cents each.
A true feast. Tell her I sent you!