So when the rest of the gang left, driving off in the vehicle held together by masking tape, I found myself standing in the central plaza of the city of Santa Ana, with absolutely no idea as to where I should go or what to do. I knew nothing about El Salvador! Essentially, I was clueless and in need of some guidance.
Luckily for me, I spent that first night in the home of an incredibly friendly and helpful man who was more than willing to share with me his wealth of information about his country. As he sat me down in his living room and spread out half a dozen maps in front of me, going into extensive detail about every city, site and volcano that I just had to visit, I was taken aback by his openness, geniality, and just plain friendliness - something that would become a major element of my time in the country. For the truth is, Salvadoreños are some of the friendliest, most likeable people I´ve met - so much so that I can say without hesitation that they were my favourite part of the country. Everyplace I went I was constantly astounded by their hospitality, outgoingingness and the treatment I received by them - whether it was an older couple coming up to talk to me and find out more about my travels, or the wife of the hotel owner who went out of her way to make sure I was comfortable and that all of my needs were very much met. Now, I´m confident that this characteristic is definitely a Salvadoran trait but I also have my suspicions that it is a result of the lack of tourism and thus, tourists in the country. Whether because of its small size, lack of Caribbean coast, or ill-informed reputation as a ´dangerous country´ (I´ve found other countries to be way more dangerous), there is a very noticeable lack of extranajeros traversing the country - tourism is so low that almost every Salvadoreño that I talked to would ask me what project I was working on, assuming that I was there to work, not travel. And when I replied that I was just ´paseando´, or traveling through, surprise, but also delight would appear on their face and they would begin to ask me a million questions about where I had been, where I was going and my general thoughts on the country. Minimal exposure to brash foreign backpackers has meant that Salvadoreños are still curious and very much welcome to outsiders, and haven´t become jaded to them as can be seen in so many other places.
After my intensive tourism tutorial that first night, I headed north, to the charming colonial town of Suchitoto, where I was incredibly fortunate to run into a young American shortly after arriving. After chatting for a bit, he invited me into the house he was renting with four other friends, and what do you know, I ended up staying there with them for the next three days! They were an awesome bunch and we had a great time together, as the young budding filmmakers showed me the movies and music videos they had been working on and I in turn introduced them to the seductive art of cliff jumping.
Next came the capital, San Salvador. Always a fan of big, noisy and chaotic cities, I loved it and ended up staying a few more days longer than originally anticipated. My first day was spent in the company of a really cool couchsurfer and together we lounged in the park, playing music and singing songs all afternoon. It was through Melvin that I found out that two other viajeros were playing at a cafe that evening, a celloist and a guitarist - which immediately stood out to me - my old roommate from Guatemala, Liz (who plays the cello) and her boyfriend and my old guitar teacher, Hafid, were traveling and playing music through Central America. Could it be a coincidence? I didn´t think so, so that evening I turned up at the cafe and sure enough, there they were onstage, warming up. It definitely was an unexpected, but very pleasant, surprise for all of us, and we took advantage of the situation to spend some more time together while I was in the city.
Through another couchsurfer I got to sneak on a tour of the San Salvador volcano, pretending to be the French/English bilingual tour guide in training. Luckily the Americans who were on the tour were so laid back and cool I really don´t think they would have cared had they found out the truth anyways. But it´s always a little fun to wear a different identity for a while anyways.
From San Sal I went south, to check out some of El Salvador´s 300km long Pacific Coast. Again, the intention of a few days turned into a few more as I extended my stay just a little bit longer. I mean, how many times in your life do you get a whole beach all to yourself, free of other travelers?
As the grand finale, I ended my tour of El Salvador in Perquín, a small pueblo in the northern mountains bordering Honduras. Steeped in history, the area was both the headquarters for the guerrillas and the area most devasted by the brutal 12 year long civil war that raged through the country in the eighties and early nineties. The proximity and abundance of resistance forces taking refuge in the densely forested mountains led to fierce and brutal reprisals on the part of the conservative, staunchly anti-communist military government, who felt no qualms about unleashing their wrath on the civilian population. The remnants of this devastation can be seen everywhere, from gigantic bomb craters in the middle of town to the remains of those bombs that are now located in the town museum. But leftover bombs and half destroyed helicopters were nothing compared to the intensity of the site of El Mozote. On December 11, 1981, government forces took the tiny hamlet by storm and in one evening led a massacre that resulted in over a thousand killed and only one person surviving. While the numbers will never be known for sure, what is known is that the majority of lives taken were innocents - 80% of bodies exhumed have been children under the age of 12. What stands now is a giant memorial to pay homage and respect to those fallen, who lost their lives way too early, and also to stand as a stark reminder of what war really is - a brutal and destructive force that serves no positive purpose whatsoever. For all the glamours that Hollywood or CNN may show of combat and armed force, it is clearly apparent to anyone visiting a site such as El Mozote that those projections are so far from reality. War takes - takes lives, takes innocence, takes any hope of a future and destroys them all, leaving nothing but death and destruction in its wake.
Clearly, visiting such a site was incredibly difficult - both frustrating and heart-wrenching. On very few occasions have I felt such strong emotions evoked in me, as I felt both pulsating anger that something like this can happen in the first place and overwhelming sadness when I reflected on the fact that this is only one of many places in the world where it does. But while some may say its macabre to visit, I think it is necessary - by visiting these memorials not only are we paying our respects to those we´ve lost, but we´re also standing up and saying that this can never happen again. Let us hope that we will finally learn from history and these memorials will be our last.
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| Suchitoto Cathedral |
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| Hanging out in the park of San Sal |
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| Sunset at Los Cóbanos |
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| Rufina Maya, the lone survivor of El Mozote |
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| We must live in peace with ourselves so we don´t lose life´s values. To value what we have, we must know our origin. Those who don´t know their history are condemned to repeat the past. |
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| The El Mozote Memorial - each plaque contains the names of those murdered by the army |
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