EL SALVADOR Identity
Flying into San Salvador from London was arduous – 9 hours to my beloved Miami 6 hour stop over and then another 3 hours. We felt quite fragile getting off the plane and were conscious to have our wits about us in case of loss or theft. The airport was small with a little park straight outside flanked by a huge tree. We had to walk past cultural shows with young ladies in bright big hooped flouncy traditional dresses promoting mobile phone companies.
Picking up the rental car was as easy as anywhere else in the world – took ages. Not one car company in the world we have rented from in over 20yrs of travel, has it not taken forever. You can usually tell the state of country by the rental car they provide. Ours was a sparkling white Toyota, no scratches and pristine inside. Air con working. Radio working. We switched onto a random radio station, also a nice way to get the local vibe … ‘Take me down to paradise city…’ in folk style. Saccharine covers of classic hard rock. Sentimental coffee shop music. It was everywhere throughout our trip.
And may be that is a good metaphor for the place. It was very relaxed. Local people we met and interacted with were so gentle and quiet. A sort of flower petal softness despite a difficult history. Apologies if that sounds a bit colonial.
As soon as we drove out of the airport (on good roads), there was a wild exoticness, luscious palms and bright bougainvillea, and clear blue skies not yet lost to pollution from over development. We stayed a few days in San Salvador and checked out both the military museum and also the Museum of Contemporary Art. The military museum was full of random assorted tanks and planes from different eras in huge colonial buildings.
And the Art museum was small but had a lot of interesting work from traditional paintings to interesting sculptures and an exhibition of local young artists. There was some VR actually !
Not the same level of graffiti art as in Mexico or Colombia. But there were lots of commissioned street art particularly along the famous Ruta de Flores. Stunning brightly coloured adobe houses with murals of volcanoes and birds. We stayed in the colonial town with cobbled streets and a big market, called Apaneca which means ‘river of the wind’ in Nahuatl in the coffee growing regions. The obligatory grand colonial cathedral with fluttery bunting, towered above the main square. There was a long queue outside in the main front courtyard and I believe it may have been a confessional queue in the open because of COVID restrictions. There were a lot of sheepish looks. Confessing with the fear of being heard by the community surely creates the biggest shame and deterrent.
And, of course everyone thought I was a local. Persia my daughter looked particularly Salvadoran. So even when I said no I was born in Bangladesh, locals would resume talking to me in Spanish anyway, in a kind of not to worry it’s fine you are one of us. I feel Iike I have already written this before when we were in Mexico. I'm very ashamed to say sometimes when you travel a lot experiences blur.
As we were there during Easter holidays, a lot of the tourist sites were full with locals. There was this one sort of themed eco park with a very high hedged maze. I felt horribly claustrophobic in the maze, which my husband and daughter persevered with for a full hour.
There were also a set of zipline related high octane activities, which personally I think should be treated with respect. Respect the ziplines. But get this ….you could ride a bicycle on the zipline, one which you could surf on and one which was more like a bungee jump. There was also very very disorientating loud dance music with scratchy base. It wasn’t right. I watched gasping with fear and awe at those who dared participate. These were one entertainment derivation too far.
The one I did do, was high swing with my daughter- NO harnesses which I guess if you decided to let go or jump off would die. But why would you ?
Once the swing started, after the initial scream, I just couldn’t stop laughing. My daughter side eyed me with slight incredulous embarrassment and then also started laughing. I love being the most embarrassing mum ever.
International tourism has been steadily increasing in El Salvador. In fact in 2019 there was a 21.46% increase from 2018.
From our observations there seemed to be 4 types :
1) The time poor luxury tourists who had their own guide taking them around the highlights of Central America. We met an Indian family from San Francisco on our proper Ziplining experience which included being squished up with them on an open top jeep up the mountainous forest.
2) The backpackers and spring breakers…backpacking throughout Central America with no planned itineraries. The consensus was everything was booked out in Costa Rica and Mexico so they had come to El Salvador, as an overspill, with plans to stay longer than expected because it was more beautiful and easier than expected. We met some on our way up the famous Santa Ana Volcano in the west of the country, in the Cerro Verde National Park. We also met other tourists whose parents had emigrated to Australia in the 1980s, but now had themselves become adults, living in the US with 4 children (homeschooling!) working in Texas in engineering visiting El Salvador for the first time.
On a side note, Santa Ana Volcano hike didn’t start 10.30am (we got there at 8.30am), we had to wait for the guide to confirm if the government to safety sign it off due to weather conditions. And you have to have a guide (there were 3 guides for about 30 people). There were also 2 armed policemen and some stray mountain dogs cheerfully accompanying us to the top.
The walk itself was not difficult but I think after our long journey to the Americas I was a bit jet lagged and struggled up the mountain though back down was fine. I felt so lame. But it was worth it, the mist totally cleared up and oh my god the views.
There were lots of squealing college age selfie-takers. There was one girl holding a Canadian flag backing closer and closer to a sheer drop off the ridge of the crater for the perfect selfie, and my mum instincts in overdrive had to tell her off .. .I shouted to her that she was about to fall and die. She did move forward closer onto the main gravel but cheekily responded ‘I love living life on the edge’. I put my hands over my daughters ears.
A lot of these backpacker types, seemed to have visited El Salvador before through American Bible groups.
3a) Which leads me to the 3rd type - old school missionaries in white vans and guitars (groups of whole families) on Christian missions. Perfectly nice people but well … charity work ok but missions ?
And finally the 4th type or may be 3b) the other soul saving evangelists - Californian crypto surfers.
