Is it safe? How do you keep safe? Do you ever get worried? Isn’t it dangerous there? These are among the most common questions I get asked when I talk about travels both past and future. Beyond the general ignorance involved¹ there is something wild about being asked if I feel safe in another country when the United Sates has had a dozen mass shootings since I left. But it was on this trip that the relative difference in perceived safety and security versus the reality of the USofA struck closest to home. We had not been gone more than 4 days when someone broke into, ransacked, and robbed our home in Oklahoma.

I won’t spend too much time on this other than to say that in the end only things were taken, the house was secured, a house sitter found, and by some miracle we didn’t have to return home. Also I have numerous friends and family to thank for going overboard to help us out, but I won’t name them because this is my blog and as mentioned before I am a narcissist.²

The twin crises of both a stomach and a house that needed to be plugged kept us in San Salvador for several more days. We didn’t do or see much, other than a mall and the pool at the bed and breakfast. We did have good Italian at least once, also a burger the size of a soccer ball. Finally on our last night we went to the famous Rainbow Slide at the Picnic Steak House in San Salvador. A $10 and 10 second experience that exists primarily for instagram and tik tok. It was fun of course, just very brief. The food was decent but extremely expensive, the most expensive thing we had in El Salvador by a factor of about 4. We then waited a half hour for an uber to take us back for our final night in the capital.

The next day we took the chicken bus to La Libertad, a Pacific beach city popular with locals. We arrived at the main bus station/metal shack next to a busy street with an extra lane for buses where we caught an old American school bus that slowed down enough for us to hop on without ever fully stopping. We paid the man and found seats near the front and settled in for the non air conditioned journey. Along the way we stopped for everyone who waved and our bus received long sales pitches from three passengers who mid journey got up and addressed the whole bus to hawk their respective snake oils. One of them was literally selling a liquid miracle health cure. As we reached La Libertad I tried to show our bus driver where we were staying in order to ascertain the closest stop, but a combination of my poor Spanish and his continuing to drive the bus produced mixed results. Finally we reached a point at which he told us to get out and wait for another bus. We exited and then he continued on still heading in the direction we needed to go. After waiting a half hour for the bus we gave up and once again called an uber.³

We arrived at our abode, a single room above someones house that for some reason was listed as a hotel on booking.com, though we have some difficulty because the property is so new the address doesn’t show up on either google maps or the uber app. So we have to drop a pin on the closest road and then direct the uber driver from there. We will have to repeat this step for the next 4 days. The room is halfway between La Libertad proper and the backpacker hangout of Playa El Tunco, a situation that on paper sounds perfect but in reality means we have an hour walk in either direction to reach beaches/beach towns of interest. This of course means lots of ubers. I should also mention that the road to our room is at what I must assume is the absolute maximum incline a car can climb without tumbling backwards, a fact that our uber drivers do not appreciate. We develop a routine for the next several days, walking 15 minutes down our mountain to the convenience store and neighboring beer store directly across the main road from our residence. There we split a beer and wait for an uber to take us to Playa El Tunco.

El Tunco is just about everything you want out of a beach town. It has numerous bars and restaurants and cafes. Everyone is a little buzzed all the time, it’s equal parts hippies, rich Salvadorians, and budget backpackers, and there are 500 places to buy sea shell necklaces. It is known for its unique black sand beaches, a result of the volcanic soil of the country. It also gets its name from a large rock formation that vaguely resembles a pig. We have good coffee and good beer and good food. Highlights include a satellite brewery bar with better than average craft beer⁴, a bao place that proudly advertised itself as “the only one in town,” and a little local corner comedor where I had one of the best burritos of my life. We swam as best as we could in the ocean, it having fierce waves and an even fiercer undertow. But mostly we enjoy the views, the brews, and each other. On our last night the town became absolutely swarmed with San Salvadorans enjoying the long Easter weekend. We watch a local woman in the smallest bikini I have ever seen do every instagram pose that has ever existed while blocking the only walking path on the beach for 15 minutes. After reading on the beach and enjoying a pizza we discover that finding an uber will be impossible. After consulting several bartenders and other local sources of infinite knowledge we find someone who will take us home for an absolutely reasonable $10, considering that after waiting 2 hours for an uber we would have paid 10x that amount. We are escorted up our mountain to our room for the last time.

The next morning we make our final trip down the mountain to the convenience store, but this time fully loaded with our bags. From there we catch a shuttle to Santa Ana, the second largest city in El Salvador. The driver shows up in what I can only assume is his personal car, and this is one of the rare instances where my Spanish is better than his English. We head out and I begin to suspect that our driver may also have been celebrating Santa Semana in El Tunco the night before. His relationship with lanes on the road can best be described as polyamorous. As we near our destination he asks us if we mind if he stops for fruit. We say yes because we are polite even though what we want to say is “no please take us to our hostel immediately we are tired and thanks to you car sick.” Because we do not say this he slams on the brakes to take the exit we had at this point technically passed and drives 20 minutes out of the way to buy fruit from a stand on the side of the road. “It’s for a special Santa Semana food” he says, never explaining why it couldn’t be purchased anywhere else. After this grudgingly approved but very unwelcome detour we are dropped off outside what we are told is our hostel but what appears to be a prison or fortress, however there is a tiny sticker on the door that says hostel and so we ring the doorbell. Fortunately the sticker is correct.

This is as good a place as any for a ramble.⁵ I have previously talked about the Civil War in El Salvador and the tragedy and destruction it left behind. Over 80,000 people dead or disappeared, over a half million people displaced, and further half a million people forced to flee the country. Even after the ceasefire and peace the poverty and underdevelopment of the country caused crime to remain high. Only in recent years has the country turned the corner. One of the results of this long period of violence and turmoil is the intimidating appearance of our hostel. When we checked into our first hostel in San Salvador I had some concern over the neighborhood we were staying in. Walls surrounded nearly every residence, often with barbed wire strung around the top. Even our Bed & Breakfast in the financial district was walled and accessed by a large metal gate that required a key to enter or exit. In addition every business of any importance had a security guard armed with either a shotgun or an assault rifle⁶ standing guard at the door. An impression of safety this does not give. But it turns out that El Salvador is quite safe. It is developing rapidly, people are very friendly, we were never advised not to walk at night no matter where we were, people jog in parks, women walk the streets alone, and cars and motorbikes are left parked outside. But I think when a place has been so violent for so long that you begin to build walls and arm guards, it is hard to walk that back. I mean it takes a lot of work to tear down a wall once built.⁷ So what you end up with is steel doors that people open without asking who you are, concrete walls with some the most amazing street art you can imagine, and armed guards who greet you with a smile and a “buenos dias” and are the best people to ask for directions or recommendations. Peace can be disjointed.

Santa Ana is only slightly less stiflingly hot than San Salvador, and of course our hostel is 45 minutes up hill from everything of interest. This means every morning we set out full of energy and excitement and every afternoon we trudge back up hill to our hostel overheated and exhausted. In addition we have arrived on Good Friday, so not only are we far removed from anything of interest but nearly every restaurant and everything else in town is closed. So devoid are we of options that we end up eating subway in a grocery store. Later, with nothing else to do and afraid that the whole weekend might go this direction, we return to the grocery store to buy food we can cook at the hostel, then in the most American of fashions we stop at a gastropub to eat on the way home with the groceries. The gastropub ends up being the worst meal we have had to date. My burger has half of a raw cucumber on it, the pit of a tomato, and the meat is a color charitably described as unappealing. Megan orders nachos as they are the only vegetarian thing on the menu. She receives extremely stale chips covered in cheese water, ketchup, mayo, and pickles. We leave wishing we had just ate subway twice.

The next day is an exploration day, we make the hour long trek to the city center, passing a market where I haggle a new phone charger down from $10 to $5. We eat at a China Wok, though the vegetarian options here end up being about as bad as the gastropub. Afterwards we explore the Santa Ana Cathedral, which has a beautiful exterior and modest interior, as well as the Santa Ana National Theatre, which has a modest exterior and an absolutely exquisite interior. Built by the richest families of El Salvador around 1905 with new wealth brought in by coffee growing; the theatre is intricately decorated, nearly every ceiling is painted and every staircase flanked by carved wood statues. Crystalline chandeliers adorn each room and reliefs of William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri watch over the ballroom. We return to the hostel but on the way hedge our bets with another stop at subway.

The hostel, called Hostal Natural, is a true backpacker spot. Communal kitchen, no bar or restaurant, big communal tables, no air conditioning, and very international collection of guests. It has a beagle named Cami, who follows you around anytime you have food despite a very large sign as you enter the hostel telling you not feed her. We make friends here in the way you always make the best friends in a hostel, sitting at the largest table with a beer and talking with everyone else who sits down. We discuss the pros and cons of walking with a Dutch couple, get recommendations for Antigua from a Danish guy, and toss a few pointers of our own regarding Nicaragua to two Australians heading that way. When it finally comes time to sleep, we barely notice the lack of air con as we lay spread eagle without a blanket in our separate beds immediately after having taken a cold shower.

We have another day of wandering which includes a visit to beautiful but mysterious abandoned art school about which we are unable to gather much information. We eat lunch in the town center at very cool spot with excellent personal pizzas for $4 each. That night we make dinner in the hostel, classic spaghetti and tomato sauce with toasted bread, and then settle in with a few friends to watch RuPaul’s drag race. On Monday we endeavor to take a public bus to another town for a waterfall tour. We are advised to rent a motorcycle and travel in that manner, but a combination of cost and two separate very bad incidents on motorbikes has left me skittish. This turns out to be a mistake. We wake up at 6AM to make our way down to the bus station. The bus station however is more a collection of 9 different street corners where buses might stop than an actual station and we receive conflicting reports as to where the bus we want stops, most likely due to my poor Spanish skills. When we finally feel confident we are at the right corner thanks to a driver insisting we are, we settle in to wait. And wait. Finally after waiting until 7:30 we admit that we might have missed our 6:50 bus. There being no other buses that run the route we need until 10, well after we are to meet our guide, we return to hostel in defeat. As solace we decide to investigate rumors about a mall with a Taco Bell and Panda Express which takes us through a more impoverished but every bit as colorful neighborhood. Our stomachs full of cheap fast food, we return to spend one last evening with our hostel friends before turning in early; the next day we have a 5AM shuttle that will take us out of El Salvador for good.

1I know this sounds harsh but I don’t know what else to call it. Like every country in Latin America is just a scene from Mad Max when in reality they are beautiful, welcoming, friendly places that want the same peaceful and prosperous life as everywhere else. Not to mention the majority of their problems, especially in Central America, are a direct result of the US prioritizing overthrowing slightly left wing governments over basic human rights.

2Also Internet anonymity.

3This is as good a place as any to mention that the average uber cost in El Salvador was about $2 so we made use of them a lot.

4The location probably had a lot to do with my enjoyment in this scenario.

5You should always be prepared for a ramble.

6I think. Honestly I don’t know much about guns and don’t care to.

7My most on the nose allegory of all time.