SAN SALVADOR, Jan. 19 - El Salvador, either you haven’t heard of it all or if you have the name generates negative imagery - civil war, gang violence, natural disasters and poverty.

The country sends millions of its countrymen to the United States where the per-hour minimum wage parallels the daily minimum wage in El Salvador. Unfortunately, we as journalists often see fit to promote the worst instead of the best whether we are covering our own part of the world or elsewhere.

El Salvador, once a war-torn country has evolved into a traveler’s panacea, a relatively un-crowded destination offering spectacular views, tasty food, great beaches with a Pacific Ocean as warm and inviting as the friendly and hospitable inhabitants of Central America’s third strongest economy. Michael de Zayas writing in Fodor’s travel guide describes El Salvador in these terms:

“Be careful with your heart because you might lose it in El Salvador….the country’s lovely landscapes, fascinating history, and genuinely friendly people—not to mention the utter lack of foreigners will win over travelers who are strong of will and long on patience.” So reads an entry in Wikipedia about El Salvador.

Click here for Wikipedia's take on El Salvador

Indeed once you leave the capital city of San Salvador, replete with the good-as-at-home creature comforts we have come to expect in our hotels, in-room coffee makers, irons, blow dryers and wireless internet connections, the accommodations became more Spartan and consequently less expensive and more appealing to the traveler with a sense of adventure.

Highways are good and well-maintained. The official currency is the U.S. Dollar. Modern U.S.-style malls and ATM’s are to be found throughout the country but the availability of chain hotels tends to radically decrease outside the capital city actually playing into the hands of the traveler looking for a real change of pace. During my five-day, four -night trip to El Salvador I reaped the benefits of both capital city globalization and the rural charm of isolation from their comforts and convenience.

Day One – Globalization in San Salvador

I arrived in San Salvador, capital of the country named “El Salvador,” on Christmas Day, December 25th as this date offered both an inexpensive seat (no one likes to travel on Christmas) and less crowded airports in McAllen, Houston and my final destination. I rented a four-wheel drive Nissan Xtrail SUV from Alamo Rent-A-Car and spent my first night at the Holiday Inn on Santa Elena Boulevard, across the street from the Nissan Dealership, Citibank and McDonalds. My seventh floor room offers a breathtaking view of an upscale neighborhood. Guadalupe Basilica and Cuscatlán Stadium are nearby and visible from my room. No cause for major cultural shock thus far though it was nice to eat a breakfast of eggs, fried plantains, beans and white cheese (the desayuno tipico or typical breakfast) at the McDonald’s, a local variation in the global giant’s accommodation to local taste. My room had all the conveniences you would expect in any stateside Holiday Inn including a strong signal WIFI connection for my laptop which I insisted on packing for the trip. After this first day it would prove to be superfluous. For my stateside-like accommodations I paid $99.00 for three.

Day Two – From the Holiday Inn to the Hostal Tercer Mundo (the Third World Hostel)

Day Two was very busy. After the “typical breakfast” at McDonalds I slowly began to sever the umbilical cord that bound me to home-style globalism. After having lunch at the Pollo Campero (a local chicken chain) I climbed a winding mountain road two to three thousand feet to a coffee farm ten kilometers past the village of San Andres, some forty minutes west of San Salvador to attend the wedding of Balthazar and Maria Aracely a young Salvadoran couple who tied the knots on a hillside adjacent to the bride’s farm.

The four wheel drive SUV proved to be just the ticket for this rustic, meandering dirt road that I often shared with cattle be driven from one pasture to another. The jungle like appearance of the country-side is an illusion created by a myriad of rotated and intermingled crops such as coffee, bananas, corn, beans, papayas and coconuts all growing on the same hillsides. Having wished the best to the newly-weds we climbed into the Xtrail and descended on the same mountain road to the Pan-American Highway and continued our trip to the volcanic crater lake of Coatepeque some two hours to the west.

We stayed at the Third World Hostel (Hostal Tercer Mundo), a basic but beautiful guest house where I rented three cottages for less than the single hotel room at the Holiday Inn. The Tercer Mundo actually sits on a pier over the lake of unbelievable tropical splendor and beauty. Food was prepared to your liking (we ordered breakfast only) and served on an open-air dining room on a pier overlooking the lake. While the Tercer Mundo doesn’t accept credit cards, I was able instead to deposit money into their Citibank Account in San Salvador prior to making the reservation. The telephone to Tercer Mundo is 503-7822-4051.

Click here for Wikipedia's take on Lake Coatepeque  

Day Three – Life on a family farm

We eat a typical Central American breakfast of eggs, plantains, beans and cheese accompanied by orange juice and coffee and hand-made tortillas made of fresh-ground corn and resume our journey up the mostly dirt or poorly paved steep winding road back to the Pan-American Highway, destination, Santa Ana , less than one hour away.

Santa Ana may be the second largest city in El Salvador but it bears little resemblance to the capital. The buildings are more colonial, the multi-national chains of Office Depot, Burger King, and McDonalds etc are not to be found. Population is a small fraction of the capital. The feel is much more that of a small town than a big city. In the plaza two buildings dominate the cathedral of Guadalupe and the City Hall or Municipal Building. We ate lunch at the BAM BAM, a Salvadoran bakery chain.

Click here for Wikipedia's take on Santa Ana, El Salvador

From Santa Ana we begin a journey east bound on the Pan American Highway of approximately two hours that takes us through San Salvador and Soyapango, an infamous suburb known for violence, murder and mayhem. It looks tough and smells tough. I mistake a walled and razor-wired compound for a penitentiary. It is actually a transport company. Fifteen minutes from Soyapango is San Martin where we eat dinner at a Pupuseria. Pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador are hand-made tortillas stuffed with your choice of chicharrones, cheese, beans or a combination of the three, garnished by chopped raw cabbage and mild sauce. Proprietor Oscar Gonzalez shares his thoughts with me on the politics and economy of El Salvador as a soccer match between two national teams plays in the background. Pupusas at most restaurants in El Salvador are available for $0.50 each. Three make a decent meal. Two blocks from the Pupuseria is the Red and White Municipal Building bearing the colors of the ruling FMLN party, a leftist party that until the early nineties was a guerrilla insurgency that battled with the ruling business class for twelve years in one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of Latin America.

Night was falling and eager to get to our next destination, the finca or ranch of Mariela’s family we began our thirty minute journey up another steep and winding road past the community of San Jose Guayabal to the family ranch of Agustin Gomez and his children and grandchildren. Son Alfredo Torres Gomez and daughter Alicia Torres Gomez all live in separate structures on the same property. Agustin, 93 years old shows the frailty of his age but still works in the fields, planting and harvesting corn, beans and coffee because it “keeps (him) young” in his own words. Although the family ranch has electricity, Agustin refuses to connect to it, preferring to live in an adobe structure, illuminated by candle or kerosene lamp. His son Alfredo lives with his family in another adobe structure within ten meters of Agustin’s home. Below lives Alicia Torres Gomez with her two sons in a three-bedroom brick home with a tin roof. The kitchen and toilet facilities are outside. There is no running water on the property, nor is there a well. Water is brought by truck and loaded into a cistern that lies at the entrance to the property. Agustin and his children and grand children live a self-sufficient life, living off the crops they produce on their own land and the livestock and poultry they raise. One of Agustin’s grandchildren operates a small brick-yard on the family farm for additional income. I am given an entire bedroom on the largest of the four structures on the finca but must go outside for bathroom facilities which are in an outhouse.

Day Four – The Pacific Coast and Sol Bohemio Hostel

We are not really sure where we are going to stay tonight, our party of twelve. We have spent this last night with family. I am going to travel back to Texas on the following day. We do want to get to the Coast for some bathing and body surfing in the Pacific. We eat a breakfast of sweet bread, plantains and coffee, say our goodbyes to the Gomez Torres family and make a brief stop in San Martin en route to La Libertad and its beaches. I return to the Red and White Municipal Building of San Martin. It has a sign indicating closure for the holidays with soldiers inside guarding the structure. I ask for a municipal spokesperson in order to conduct an interview with someone politically familiar with the history of the FMLM and its tenure in San Martin. Lady Luck has smiled on me today as at the same time I was arriving, so was Rudy Alvarez, the communications director for the Municipality of San Martin.

Rudy very graciously grants me an on-the-spot Blackberry recorded interview and answers all my questions candidly and courteously. I wish it were the same interviewing a lot of our politicians stateside. Rudy provides an interesting prospective on the rise of the FMLN in a former bastion of the right and comments that governing is a lot more complicated than watching as an onlooker from the outside but seems to be involved and dedicated. On the day before I had interviewed shop-keeper Blanca Guerra who spoke in glowing terms of the FMLN both locally and nationally as an honest, dedicated and hard-working party that was unselfishly working on behalf of the local and national citizenry.

From San Martin we journey for approximately two hours before reaching the coastal port of La Libertad. It is a long descending trip to the coast that from the higher, cooler altitudes of San Martin and San Salvador to the steamy 90 degree temperature of the Pacific Coast. Six to Nine feet pipelines await the non-existent surfing enthusiasts on black volcanic sands with mountains and lust tropical vegetation in the background. After searching for an appropriate spot to eat and bathe we select the Sol Bohemio, at Playa San Blas, a beach community within ten minutes of Puerto la Libertad.

We pick Sol Bohemio because of its relative isolation from the crowded beach resorts, its abundance of tropical vegetation, its restaurant and open dining although covered dining area facing the beach, and inexpensive although clean but simple accommodations. Lodging for the three of us that stayed at the Sol Bohemio this evening was only $35.00. The room was not air conditioned but had a ceiling fan which we did not need when the cool of evening set in.

While there was not a bathroom inside the bathroom with a shower was just outside the room in the lobby. The lobby and lodging section is covered by a thatched roof which gives a tropical and quaint appearance. There is something very calming about pounding surf in a quiet and serene ambience. The Sol Bohemio features both. There was no noise at all in the evening as we were the only people staying overnight. We slept well and awoke well rested.

Click here to visit the official Web site for Sol Bohemio

Day Five – McAllen Bound

All good things must find their end. I paid the bill and set out for Comalapa airport some 30-40 minutes away along the coastal highway (La Litoral). The drive is quaint and picturesque even the detour through a rural village due to construction providing some unexpected scenery. Village women washed the family laundry along the banks of a river. Cattle occasionally roamed onto the highway forcing motorists to make unscheduled stops to navigate around the ruminants. Here as elsewhere in the countryside there is the ever present sight of village women carrying baskets atop their heads and rural men walking down the highways with machetes in hand or holstered against their left leg. Upon arrival at the rental return center for Alamo Rent-a-car, Mayra, the same young lady who had helped with checking out the vehicle warmly greeted me by my first name.

The service was so friendly and pleasant. It is bittersweet to spend five days of quality time with your loved ones only to have to say the sad goodbyes. The Continental flight, packed to the hilt was delayed by being completely full, late arrival of the inbound flight and heavy security procedures in the San Salvador airport. Once I took my seat my companion for the almost three hour flight to Houston was an attractive Salvadoran woman living in Rogers, Arkansas , a pleasant companion that I also assisted in completing the landing and immigration documents and accompanied almost to her gate once we arrived in Houston.

On the flight Maria Gomez relates her somewhat tragic life story. She has two sons in El Salvador who she had been visiting during the Christmas holidays, both in their late teens and studying economics at the University level. Maria a widow, works at a hospital in Northwest Arkansas, eventually hopes to immigrate her two sons. She has been trying for some three years. Most of her family now lives in Arkansas but she remains separated from her sons until she can complete the immigration process. She doesn’t expect it to happen anytime soon.

The climate was definitely different upon returning to Texas, forties and raining both in Houston and McAllen versus the sunny eighties and nineties in El Salvador. Such a trip is indeed bittersweet. Paradise is not forever--so sweet while you have it in your hands, so bitter when you have to let it go. Wish I were still there. But isn’t that what we all say?

Bill Rovira covers Latin American issues for the Guardian. The Guardian will post more of Rovira’s pictures from El Salvador in the coming days.

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