El Salvador - San Salvador

 

Coming to the abrupt and costly end of this journey, El Salvador. I took a tourist shuttle from Antigua, Guatemala, to El Salvador, with the expectation to go to La Libertad, a beach city, and catching a bus from there to San Salvador, the capital. Somewhere along the way, on a well paved and fast road that ran parallel to the coast, the busdriver stropped, took my backpack out. set it on the ground, motioned me to get out and then told me that this would be the absolutely perfect spot to catch a local bus to San Salvador. I disagreed then, but bowed to his local knowledge, and still disagree with him now. It was an interesection of the coastal highway with two dirt paths, one leading to a nearby village, and one, on my side of the street, leading to the beach. I moved my pack away from the street, shouldered my frontpack, which contains most electronics and camera, looked down the beach path, and saw about three cars parked there, one of them a pickup with two people in the back. Normal for the region. On my left, facing the highway, was a sandwich stand. It was noon, and I was hungry, and I ordered a sandwich from the lady, while I was ordering that, a car rolled by toward the beach. Another came by and turned onto the highway. All seemed well, but when I turned, after ordering a refreshment to go with the sandwich, I saw that my backpack was missing, looking frantically around, I saw that the pickup also had disappeared. Apparently, it, too, had quietly come up that path, stopped long enough for the guys in back to lean out and grab my pack and then sped away on the highway. Needless to say, I knew immediately that my trip, that was to include part of South America, had come to an end, I went home, and, so that I may continue to travel in future, repurchased almost everything that was in my backpack, to the tune of almost $800. My fault for listening to the bus driver and not insisting to continue to La Libertad, my fault for not dragging my backpack around with me, and clearly, for underestimating the amount of criminal activity in that miserable little country. All of the 8-10 foot razor wire topped walls, with gates often manned by men with shotguns should have raised my level of suspiction and distrust to a much higher level. The manager of the hotel in San Salvador said that she knew that beach. She lets her kids go there to surf - with an armed guard.

 

Taken from the back of the shuttle bus. The country is poor, but quite lovely, and would be a real tourist paradise, were it not for the large number of criminals operating there, making everyone's lives miserable.

 

At this point the driver had dropped me off, and it was just seconds before my trip was ended. The sandwich stand. Clicking on this picture will take you to the maps and a satellite photo of the location. I found it.

 

There's surfing all along the coast, and right next to the nice hotel, where I first stopped, is a quite inexpensive guesthouse with a surfing school attached. You see part of the building in the background, by the rock.
Cesar, the Columbian, and his son Estaban, at the hotel, before we went to get something to eat and shopping for some supplies for me at a Walmart mall in San Salvador

 

 

 

 

 

On the way I thought realized that I probably would never return here, and started to take some pics

 

After shopping, we drove to the high security high rise apartment building where the Cesar lived. There were three bedrooms and he gave me one of them. His wife and youngest were currently in Columbia, and his son and daughter were living in Canada. He was trying to get everyone here for a family vacation. In the morning, this was the view from the window in my room.

 

Another high security high rise apartment building, not far from here

 

Later that day, Cesar and son drove around to get me into a nice hotel for one night, and in view of my predicament for a discount. We finally found a very nice one (see the hotel page) next to the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the World Trade Center, where he used to work for some time for the World Bank. Next, he drove me to the mall, since I wanted to do some more shopping, and said good-bye. Told me that it was not too far to walk back to the hotel. Just to look for the glass tower of the World Trade Center. Try as I might, there was no place around that mall from which I could see that building and was stuck. When I asked, no one knew of the place. Someone told me a bus number, but it took me deep into the bowels of San Salvador.

 

Finally, having to get off, in the center of the city, because the bus would go no further, having bags of merchandise from the mall with me, and my camera, which I did not dare to take out, I got on a bus going the opposite way, and got off here. From there I ended up catching a cab back to my hotel. The rest of the afternoon I stayed local.

 

 

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