THE PLACE OF BIRDS & FLOWERS & Other El Salvador Destinations

Two things are true about travelling in El Salvador:

                One: You can cross the length of the country in about eight hours.

                Two: You are never out of sight of a volcano.

Both of these truths illustrate some of El Salvador’s realities.

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, measuring a mere 21,041 square kilometers. Guatemala borders it to the north-northwest and Honduras on the east. On the opposite shore of Golfo de Fonseca in the south is Nicaragua. El Salvador’s entire western side is washed by the Pacific Ocean.

A double line of volcanoes running from the north to the south forms El Salvador’s spine. According to the Global Volcanism Program, it has 20 Holocene Period volcanoes (that is, those that have erupted in the past 10,000 years) and 12 Pleistocene volcanoes (last erupted ±2.5 million years to 10,000 years). The most active are San Miguel (last eruption: 2023) and Santa Ana (last eruption: 2005). The tallest mounts are Santa Ana (2,365 meters), San Vicente (2,182 meters), San Miguel (2,130 meters) and San Salvador (1,893). This volcanic activity also makes El Salvador prone to earthquakes.

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                The People

El Salvador is the region’s most densely populated country, with approximately 324 persons per square kilometer. The population is predominately mestizo (of indigenous and European descent). Twelve percent consider themselves to be white. Less than one percent is recorded as being indigenous – primarily of the Lenca and Pipil nations. Like other parts of the Americas, the indigenous population was decimated by the diseases and harsh treatment of European invaders. A last hard blow came with the 1932 Matanza, in which an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 peasants, primarily Pipil, were massacred.

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                The Climate

Like much of western Central America, El Salvador has a prolonged dry season (called verano locally) which lasts from November to April. The rainy season (invierno) runs from May to October, usually with continuous rains in September and October. Temperatures are moderate. On the coastal plain, temperatures range from 25º to 29°C; inland, temperatures are a few degrees cooler. The hottest months are March through May, and the coolest from December through February.

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                Attractive Destinations

Even though it is a small country, El Salvador has a wide variety of beauties to attract travelers.

In San Salvador, check out El Rosario Church (4ta Calle Oriente, #23) – on the outside, it looks like an airplane hangar, but the inside is awash with rainbow stained glass; the Stations of the Cross are haunting sculptures. Also embark on the Saint Óscar Romero Trail, visiting his crypt in the Catedral Metropolitana (Avenida Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero and 2a Avenida Sur #213), and his apartment and the chapel where he was assassinated at Hospital Divina Providencia (Calle Toluca y Avenida Bernal, Colonia Miramonte).

The Ruta Maya, which begins in Mexico and extends through Guatemala and into northern Honduras, also stretches into El Salvador. Joya de Cerén (16 kilometers west of Quetzaltepeque) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is nicknamed “Central America’s Pompeii” as the village was covered in ash by the ±600 AD eruption of the Laguna Caldera volcano. San Andrés (32 kilometers from San Salvador) was an important political, economic and ceremonial Maya city. It had strong ties with Copán and Teotihuacán.

In the Chalchualpa archaeological zone (about 13 kilometers west of Santa Ana) are Tazumal, Casa Blanca and several other interesting sites. Cihuatán (36 kilometers northwest of San Salvador) is the country’s largest archaeological site, covering 55 hectares. Just north of San Miguel, in southeastern El Salvador, is Quelapa.

El Salvador is a world-renowned surfing destination. La Libertad is the most popular place to hang ten. Mountain climbers have their challenges, as well, with the many volcanoes dotting the landscape.

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Getting to Know El Salvador Back in the Day

During the 1980s, it was nigh impossible to visit El Salvador. The country was rent with a civil war, with the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, named after a Salvadoran revolutionary of the 1930s) on one side and the Salvadoran military (supporting dictators and the oligarchy ruling class) on the other. People disappeared in the middle of the night, many times by the feared Mano Blanca (White Hand) death squads. Villages were obliterated by massacres, napalm and white phosphorus, abd other operations by the country’s military and elite forces.

Citizens of most countries needed a visa which required, among many other things, a report from your local police department (which often would be refused: “It’s not our place nor yours to provide such information,” I was told – thus shooting down my hopes in visiting during my first Central American trip in 1988).

After the Peace Accords were signed in 1992, it became easier to obtain the visa. During my 1993-94 sojourn in the region, I dropped by the Salvadoran consulate in Tapachula, Mexico. Within the hour, the consul handed me my passport with the coveted ten-year visa, saying, “May you enjoy our country.”

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In that first visit to Central America’s smallest country, I entered from the south. In San Miguel, I learned it was now possible to visit any part of the country without hindrance. I traveled into Morazán Department, which was part of the guerrilla-controlled zone. The scars of the war were still evident: the ruins of abandoned villages, the swatches of napalm across the hillsides. I listened to the testimonies of the people. One that affected me most deeply was that of a woman in Perquín who recounted her cantón being bombed with white phosphorus. Another profound experience was meeting the people who had returned to El Mozote to rebuild their hometown after the 1991 massacre.

Travelling northward, I stopped into the port town of Acajutla and then the capital, San Salvador. In that city, I visited the chapel where Archbishop Óscar Romero had been assassinated while celebrating mass.

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I returned to El Salvador in 1998. I once more made a stop in the capital, visiting Romero’s chapel – and apartment (which was now open to the public) and his tomb in the cathedral (to which visits had been prohibited during my 1994 visit). I also witnessed the May Day march there.

I then set off to explore more of the country. I took a train from Sonsonate to Armenia, to add to my collection of poems and narratives of riding the silver rails in the Americas. I chilled at Lago Coatepeque, explored the Tazumal ruins near Santa Ana, and hung out at the coastal town of La Libertad. I also headed into Cuscutlán Department. Then I crossed over to Chalatenango Department, which was also part of the Civil War zone. There, women sang me a corrido telling of their exile in a refugee camp in Honduras and their return during the war to refound their village. Other women told me of their babies being stolen by the military.

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This present collection of my travel poetry, THE PLACE OF BIRDS & FLOWERS & Other El Salvador Destinations, invites you to journey with me on part of this 1998 itinerary. It is a collection of five photographic verses of everyday life in this petite country.

Our first destination is The Place of Birds & Flowers, Suchitoto – El Salvador’s best best-preserved colonial town – on the shores of Lago Suchitlán. Here, we pop into the village church for five o’clock mass.

We then go down lakeside, to Lago Suchitlán and catch the boat for San Luis del Carmen, the port on the opposite shore. Lago Suchitlán, El Salvador’s largest body of water, is an artificial lake also known as Represa Cerrón Grande. It touches Cuscatlán, Cabañas and Chalatenango departments. Young boys swimming in this reservoir is portrayed in the third poem, Short Distance by Stroke.

The next poetic adventure, After the Fiesta, takes us to another village on Lago Suchitlán’s north coast to celebrate the Holy Cross feast day.

We then journey to the Pacific Ocean and greet another day in La Libertad, watching the market come to life and A Town Awakening.

THE PLACE OF BIRDS & FLOWERS & Other El Salvador Destinations is now available in the Latin America Wanderer eBook Library.

Safe Journeys!