Pato Canales Hotel & Resort

Founded in 1977 as a countryside restaurant along the highway to Comalapa, Pato Canales Hotel & Resort has since added a hotel wing and a water park on the same plot. The grounds run to six manzanas, planted with old shade trees and gardens that back onto a small animal shelter. Nine rooms make up the hotel, each air-conditioned with a 42-inch flat-screen and a marble-tiled bathroom. Rooms are grouped as single, double, triple and family, with the triple and family layouts adding extra single beds for children. The restaurant has run for more than three decades, serving charcoal-grilled meat, poultry and seafood alongside fresh seafood cocktails and quesadillas from a wood-fired oven. Outside, four connected pools form the water park, ringed by palms and built around a rock-face waterslide for younger guests. Palm-thatched ranchitos, fitted with tables, chairs and hammocks, sit around the pool circuit for families who want shade rather than sun. Football and volleyball courts and a children's play area fill out the grounds. It draws mostly domestic travellers and weekending families from San Salvador, roughly forty minutes down the highway. Check-in runs at 2pm. The pace here is set by the pool schedule, not a front desk.