Excellent roads leading to incredible beach towns with unbeatable waves: that’s today's El Salvador. We stayed in Playa Tunco, where the pounding Pacific lulled us to sleep every night, surfers woke early to catch waves before siesta-ing much of the day, and culinary offerings ran an impressive gamut from street tortillas and tamales to shrimp or lobster in well-developed curry coconut sauces.
We got here because of a cheap flight deal on Travelzoo, promising to put us within forty minutes of some of the world’s best waves. I Googled a bit, I bought a Frommer's Nicaragua and El Salvador (Frommer's Complete Guides), and I checked in with the State Department and CDC about safety issues. Despite the various assurances of a beautiful country with substantial safety for tourists, the dominant El Salvador in our minds was still the El Salvador of the assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, the raped and murdered Maryknoll nuns, and a dreadful civil war settled rather recently through the 1992 Peace Accords.
We de-planed near 9pm and were literally whisked through customs. We walked into the humid night and saw our driver waiting with an “Eric Hartman” sign. I’d made arrangements with a beach hostel I found online – they ensured a $40 taxi trip from the airport to our first hostel that night in Playa Tunco, the Qi-X Surfcamp. On the drive to Qi-X we began to realize how distant our historic El Salvador was from our contemporary experience: we drove smoothly over perfectly maintained roads. The street signs were frequently posted and easy to understand, the traffic was amicable near the airport, and as soon as we left the city the night was completely calm.
We de-planed near 9pm and were literally whisked through customs. We walked into the humid night and saw our driver waiting with an “Eric Hartman” sign. I’d made arrangements with a beach hostel I found online – they ensured a $40 taxi trip from the airport to our first hostel that night in Playa Tunco, the Qi-X Surfcamp. On the drive to Qi-X we began to realize how distant our historic El Salvador was from our contemporary experience: we drove smoothly over perfectly maintained roads. The street signs were frequently posted and easy to understand, the traffic was amicable near the airport, and as soon as we left the city the night was completely calm.
Qi-X, unfortunately, was unimpressive. The room was only $25, but it was extremely small and the hostel was not on the beach. The next day we walked down the coast, checked out some additional hotels and hostels, had an excellent breakfast on a rocky point overlooking the Pacific, and found our home for the week at the lovely $35 a night Hotel Tortuga, where we had ample space, a private bathroom, and, most importantly, a second-story window opening immediately to the beach and Pacific Ocean beneath us.
Suddenly, only a day out from the frenetic pace of Philadelphia and Thanksgiving rushes in the states, our only concerns were where to eat each day and how long we would read in between dips in the ocean or pool. Our food was consistently good. We settled into a pattern of spacing grilled meats with pupusas, tortillas, and ceviches. Food prices were lower than in the states, but reflected our location to become pricier than local food: ceviche dishes would go for $5 - $8 and my generous (and scrumptious) lunch of a 6 oz. steak, a sausage, beans and rice, a tomato salad, an avocado slice, and a potato, was $6.
And there we stayed. We relaxed. I took a surfing lesson, standing up a couple times. Six-foot waves were commonplace. Shannon took some photos (promising to share a few here once we're home). And we pondered the great distance between the El Salvador of today and the country of rights abuses and Reagan-era CIA proxy-wars that I sometimes use as a (bad) example in my human rights classes. How that distance was closed became the subject of our inquiry as we journeyed to San Salvador and visited the Centro Oscar Romero, traveled to the mountain town of Suchito and hit other sites. And today's El Salvador will be the subject of my next blog post. For now, an excerpt from Monsignor Romero's homilies:
“Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is not an equilibrium of two opposing forces in a struggle. Peace above all is not reached by repressing until death those who are not allowed to speak… True peace is based on justice and equality.” (August 14th, 1977)
Suddenly, only a day out from the frenetic pace of Philadelphia and Thanksgiving rushes in the states, our only concerns were where to eat each day and how long we would read in between dips in the ocean or pool. Our food was consistently good. We settled into a pattern of spacing grilled meats with pupusas, tortillas, and ceviches. Food prices were lower than in the states, but reflected our location to become pricier than local food: ceviche dishes would go for $5 - $8 and my generous (and scrumptious) lunch of a 6 oz. steak, a sausage, beans and rice, a tomato salad, an avocado slice, and a potato, was $6.
And there we stayed. We relaxed. I took a surfing lesson, standing up a couple times. Six-foot waves were commonplace. Shannon took some photos (promising to share a few here once we're home). And we pondered the great distance between the El Salvador of today and the country of rights abuses and Reagan-era CIA proxy-wars that I sometimes use as a (bad) example in my human rights classes. How that distance was closed became the subject of our inquiry as we journeyed to San Salvador and visited the Centro Oscar Romero, traveled to the mountain town of Suchito and hit other sites. And today's El Salvador will be the subject of my next blog post. For now, an excerpt from Monsignor Romero's homilies:
“Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is not an equilibrium of two opposing forces in a struggle. Peace above all is not reached by repressing until death those who are not allowed to speak… True peace is based on justice and equality.” (August 14th, 1977)
Today's El Salvador is also escalating gang violence. An organization called Seeds of Learning just cancelled its service learning programs there due the increasingly violent atmosphere. Its interesting that your assessment is different, and it makes me think of Tanzania in some way: tourism infrastructure is typically all that tourists see, while indigenous people have little to no access to that infrastructure. For example, nice roads only serve those with cars; air conditioning only serves those with homes; and Facebook only serves those with computers. All are trademarks of Western consumer culture. Makes one wonder what symbols can be associated with "development" when there exists a major discrepancy between tourist quest for the exotic and local people's daily realities. Did you notice anything in El Salvador that points towards violence?
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