El Salvador

January 2014

El Salavdor Photos

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From Nicaragua, we walked a kilometre over a bridge which spanned a large river and into Honduras. At their immigration, we filled in a form, were stamped in and paid a $3 entry tax. Our ‘Tourist Visa’ was valid here. We also changed our remaining Nicaraguan currency into Honduras Lempiras. Although we were on our way to El Salvador, we had to cross part of Honduras that sits on the Pacific Coast. From the border, we walked up a hill to a bus which took us to Choluteca. The surrounding countryside was dry with low lying vegetation. With around 160,000 people, this is the largest town in southern Honduras. A connecting bus took us on to El Amatillo on the El Salvador border two and half hours away. After being stamped out by Honduras immigration, we walked out of the country over a bridge crossing over another large river and entered another new place. El Salvador would be my 130th Country.

El Salvador’s immigration at El Amatillo seemed very casual. There was no form, no stamp and no charge. We boarded a bus to San Miguel for $2 and discovered that US dollars were the currency. The first impression was that this country was very cheap, at least the transportation was. The journey took us via Santa Rosa de Lima. Initially, we were hoping that we could get a connecting bus from San Miguel to closer to the capital, but arriving at dusk, it appeared that nothing moved after dark. The guidebook said that San Miguel had a bad reputation around the bus station (“Although gang violence has quietened with new security measures, the city centre is still the wrong place to be once the sun sets” (Lonely Person’s Guide), but we felt safe enough exploring the vicinity for a hotel before settling on the Central Hotel, which was really a motel.

The Lonely Person’s Guide also called San Miguel (pop 220,000), the ‘ugly step sister to San Salvador…an intense working class city, it’s sticky heat rises up from calamitous streets”. It is a bustling, hot and flat city and the country’s main trade centre.

The first thing we noticed was that when we turned the TV on, every channel had the current President making some kind of election speech. We had spotted a supermarket opposite the bus station and rushed down before it closed only to discover that alcohol sales were banned for three days because of the Presidential election tomorrow (Sunday). We were reduced to buying ice cold chocolate milk and lemonade which made a radical change but was welcome in the humid conditions. The TV channels had returned to normal by the time we returned. We then ventured out for food. There were two fast food chicken places – one with a security guard, the other with a couple of homeless men lying nearby. Both places had already closed at 8pm when we turned up at 8.05pm. We settled for the only other option, a street BBQ cooked by two women on the pavement. They didn’t speak English but we ordered by pointing at options - cheap steak, sausage, salad, rice and coffee. We sat in a small tabled area where others were eating. It was cheap and tasty. Back in the hotel room, the air conditioning was very cold and we couldn’t adjust it. We had to watch Spanish TV under duvets to stay warm! Welcome to El Salvador.

The CIA website says: El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America (Pop 6.2 m). The increased use of family planning has substantially lowered El Salvador's fertility rate, from approximately 6 children per woman in the 1970s to replacement level today. At least 20% of El Salvador's population lives abroad. The remittances they send home account for close to 20% of GDP, are the second largest source of external income after exports, and have helped reduce poverty. 36% of the population are below the poverty line and the annual income is around $7500. The US Dollar is the official currency.

El Salvador has the third largest economy in the region. It achieved independence from Spain in 1821 and from the Central American Federation in 1839. A 12-year civil war, which cost about 75,000 lives, was brought to a close in 1992 when the government and leftist rebels signed a treaty that provided for military and political reforms. It is now a Republic. Agricultural products include: coffee, sugar, corn, rice, beans, oilseed, cotton, sorghum; beef, dairy products while its industries are: food processing, beverages, petroleum, chemicals, fertilizer, textiles, furniture and light metals.

The Lonely Person’s Guide said “It has the region’s fewest tourists…Once only a trickle passed through its rigorous border posts but now a new breed of traveller is pushing through in search of an authentic experience in an under-visited land.” Rough Guide said “Known for the vicious civil war it suffered through in the 1980s and gang violence that occurred in the 1990s, the country has struggled to gain tourists trust. Those who do make it here, however, are well rewarded by the hospitality of its proud inhabitants and the sheer physical beauty of the place.”

With the prospect of no beer for the next 24 hours in El Salvador, it was imperative that we left the country as soon as possible. In reality, it was more a case of our trip being so short that unless there was something really worth visiting we kept moving. El Salvador had no world famous sights (as far as I knew) and it was small enough to cross in one day. We were down at the bus station by 6am on the Sunday morning – not sure what buses would be running. I had read that an express bus could get us to the capital San Salvador in two hours 135km away. When we arrived, we saw a bus pulling out heading for San Salvador and climbed on. What followed was not an express ride but a five hour journey where the bus stopped at every tree between San Miguel and the capital and also stopped for every chicken crossing the road.

On the one hand, we were thinking we’ll never get to Honduras at this rate but on the other, it was a perfect way to see El Salvdor. With a backdrop of picturesque volcanoes for the journey, locals dressed for church or in their Sunday best to visit family and friends would board the bus and disembark a few miles later. The bus took us off the main highway and into endless small villages where we saw daily life from our window. I think we went through Cojutepeque. It was certainly an attractive country to look at. But five hours is a long time to sit on a basic wooden seat with no idea of when you would arrive and where. Our backsides had had enough by the end of it.

The sprawl of San Salvador across the Valle de las Hamacas, lies at the foot of the San Salvador Volcano. Not that we noticed it. Founded in 1545 it was destroyed by earthquakes in the 19th and 20th centuries and bombings during the civil war in the 1980s. Consequently, most of the historical stuff has gone and there was nothing of interest for me. We would just be passing through.

We didn’t really know which bus station we had arrived at but it wasn’t the Terminal del Oriente which is what we expected. I think it was the southern bus station called Terminal del Sur. We needed to get to the Oriente Terminal to get a connection north. There were buses pulling up on the road outside, but there didn’t seem to be anyone to ask. One was headed to the centre and we got on. The fare was 25c (an American quarter). The locals on board looked at us like we were from out of space. As I was staring out of the window, I spotted a sign to the ‘Terminal de Oriente’ and suggested to Trev that we get off and catch a bus on that road. We walked to the nearest bus stop and asked some locals for the bus we needed. No-one spoke English but they indicated that a bus would take us there. It turned up with 10 minutes and we were waved on and were dropped at the bus station we needed.

Bus station was a generous description. I was expecting a terminal building, but this just seemed to be a parking area for buses. It was a sleepy Sunday lunchtime. I wandered around asking for a bus to El Poy which was on the Honduras border. No-one understood that so I looked on the map and asked for La Palma, a major town in the north. We were pointed to a busy bus and off we went. It was another slow one, and there were traffic jams on the CA-4 (Troncal del Norte) road which made the journey even slower. On some buses in Central America, you leave your backpack at the back. But we were advised to keep our backpacks with us in case of ‘robbers’.

We rolled out of the capital pleased to be away easier than we thought considering that we had winged it. 35km later at Aquilares, someone told us to get off the bus and get a connection to La Palma and then a local pointed us back to the bus we had just got off. So we got back on again. I think the problem was that it was the Presidential Election day and that no public transport was running to La Palma. Passing the western extremity of the Cerron Grande reservoir, we could get as far as the scrubby town of Amayo but then the buses stopped.

At the Amayo junction, we got off with a local man called Sergie. He told us to follow him. He was heading to La Palma just south of the border and he had a cunning plan. There were lots of minibuses and 4 wheel drives dashing around to pick up voters and return them. Those funded by the current President picked up voters who were voting for him. Other vehicles run by the opposition picked up their voters. Some had flags hanging off them. Sergie flagged down a large red four wheel drive with it’s back full of voters, asked the driver something and we were ushered aboard with our packs. We squeezed on the back and grabbed hold of rails and flew down the road, around the sharp curves and over the pine forested hills of the Cordiller Metapan Alotepeque. Eventually we were dropped at a Tejutla road junction 22km south of La Palma. We stayed on the main road while the voters were taken to a village to vote.

We waited with Sergie and he flagged down a minibus which was empty of voters. The driver said he was heading for La Palma. We headed further north. En route, the minibus radiator overheated and he was forced to stop while his mate refilled it.

84km north of San Salvador, La Palma was a small place but full of colourful public murals. It had some hotels if we got stuck. Sergie was dropped off and told us in English that for $3 the driver would take us to the border. Having not paid for the previous journey, this wasn’t a problem but he didn’t actually go as far as that. We were dropped about 2 miles from the border and had to walk down a hill on a wide empty road to immigration. El Poy was a small village, virtually asleep on a late sunny Sunday afternoon. The officials looked at our passports and waved us through.

We were in El Salvador for about a total of 24 hours, so I can hardly say I am an expert on the place. It was also strange because the country seemed to have shut down for the Presidential Election. What I do know is that it is an attractive land of volcanoes, a cheap place to visit, the locals are friendly and will help you if they can and may stare if they are not used to seeing tourists (which they are not). Apparently, the beaches and food are great. We were just passing through. One day I will have to return to do it justice.