THE BECALMED LAND OF VOLCANOES AND PUPUSAS [El Salvador].

Flickr Photo Link

El Salvador, and its previously equally dangerous neighbour of Honduras, had been the only two Central American countries that I was yet to visit, having put them both on our no-go list due to their decades-long rampant gang violence and competition for the world's highest murder rate, over ten-fold that of the USA, and also several times higher than Mexico's. However, I had been aware of news stories regarding a crackdown with mass incarceration of gang members, and the more I looked into it, the more it seemed things had changed considerably, and now was the time to go. I had regretted missing out on Libya, when it transiently became a reasonable destination in the post-Gaddafi, pre-Benghazi years, and The Ukraine, prior to Putin's invasion. On the other hand we had succeeded in visiting Colombia in 2016 [which has largely maintained its safe for travel status], and Myanmar in 2019, which unfortunately underwent a devastating and repressive military coup two years later from which it is yet to show any sign of emerging.

What led to the change? The simple answer is Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's president since 2019, and former mayor of its capital city of San Salvador since 2015. Bukele is the grandson of Palestinian Christians [who have disproportionate political and economic power, despite tiny numbers, in the country], who all emigrated around 1921. His late father, however, converted to Islam and had opened several mosques in ES, although his mother is Catholic. He himself has stated "I am not a person who believes much in the liturgy of religions. However, I believe in God, in Jesus Christ. I believe in his word, I believe in his word revealed in the Holy Bible. And I know that God does not reject anyone because of their origins", pretty moderate stuff in a typically Latin-American Catholic / Evangelical, "Dios" on every truck or bus -obsessed country [there were even rumours that he really is an atheist at one point].

Bukele's attitude towards the Israel / Gaza conflict is another breath of fresh air, having strongly condemned the October 7th massacre. On October 9, 2023, Bukele took to social media to denounce Hamas, stating, “As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I'm sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians.” He then likened Hamas to El Salvador’s notorious MS-13 gang, framing both as criminal entities that harm their own communities. “Anyone who supports the Palestinian cause would make a great mistake siding with those criminals. It would be like if Salvadorans would have sided with MS13 terrorists, just because we share ancestors or nationality. The best thing that happened to us as a nation was to get rid of those rapists and murderers, and let the good people thrive. Palestinians should do the same: get rid of those animals and let the good people thrive. That's the only way forward,” he courageously stressed [wikipedia].

The two countries already had warm relations in part due to the heroic WW2 actions of Colonel José Arturo Castellanos [now recognized by Israel as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.”], who saved 40,000 Jews during the Holocaust. As El Salvador's consul general in Geneva in 1942, he orchestrated a clandestine operation to issue, free of charge, over 13,000 Salvadoran nationality certificates and passports, each able to save an entire family due to ES's neutral status.

El Salvador had, along with the rest of the region, gained independence from Spain in 1821, and was briefly part of a Federal Republic of Central America [again transiently revived in the 1890s], before undergoing a century of coups, repression and conflict [including the 1969 Football War with Honduras, sparked by violence during FIFA qualifier matches, although underpinned by demographic, land reform, and immigration issues] leading up to its massacre-filled civil war from 1979-92. Shortly afterwards the violence morphed into the mafia-like gang-based rule of Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha-13 [both of which started in Los Angeles as a way to protect Salvadoran immigrants], with ordinary business owners killed for refusal to pay for "protection", making news on a daily basis.

Exactly how Bukele managed to so rapidly correct the situation when prior attempts failed is not completely clear to me, however jailing over 70 thousand gang members [El Salvador currently has the world's highest incarceration rate at 1.6%], certainly has played the main role. Regardless, he has been very successful, and therefore enjoys very high approval ratings, confirmed by our many conversations with the locals. We saw no evidence of gangs or any criminality while there. There is a large, but friendly and unobtrusive police/ military presence in public areas and events [especially at San Miguel's carnaval, where the president apparently made a showing], but there were no roadblocks in the 1200km we drove while criss-crossing the 270x142km country, the smallest, but most densely populated country in the continental Americas. ES now at least claims to have the lowest homicide rate in Latin America, on par with Canada's, and we essentially never felt unsafe during our time there. Is Bukele becoming a dictator? He has already extended term limits [although they were very short to begin with], and has referred to himself as "the coolest dictator in the world" and the "Philosopher King". For the moment most, including us, don't seem to care given the enormous benefits he has brought to the country. Hopefully he is not an Ortega-in-the-making.

In another bold move, Bukele made El Salvador the first country to accept bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. However this maneuver is now considered a failure as few ever used it [only one young lady among about a dozen people we asked], and the status was rescinded earlier this year, although large grocery stores do still accept it. ES has been using US dollars as its only currency, replacing the colon in 2001. On the whole ES's economy seems to be doing very well, and its GDP per capita has recently passed its neighbours. With over two million emigrants now in the USA [vs 6 million in-country population], it is not surprising that remittances play a major role in it.

El Salvador's geography is dominated by its volcanoes, having between 20 & 240 of them, depending on how you count, and they are the travel highlight, with at least one almost always in view. I hiked up two of them- San Miguel and Santa Ana. The former, a sparsely

San Miguel volcano

trodden, grueling 4-hour one-way 1400m ascent over 6.8km distance, initially through steep coffee plantations, then through volcanic shrubs and scree to 2190m that I did [with an impressed guide] in 1hr 55min. We then spent another hour slowing circumnavigating the rim, while staring at the crater's spectacular throat and fumaroles below, before running back

San Miguel Volcano

down in 1hr 10min, with the volcanic

pebbles literally pummeling a hole through one of the heels of my relatively new hiking shoes [I threw them out last night, and will be wearing sandals as I re-enter Canada very shortly]. Then the much easier, but much more popular and crowded latter, [together with Jiak Chin and the compulsory guide- we paid $40 for a private one in order to avoid the huge, slow-moving instagrammer-dominated groups, many of whom have underestimated the still moderately difficult hot weather ascent], whose stunningly beautiful multi-hued caldera rim is

Santa Ana Volcano

punctuated by a large turquoise blue lake of boiling water about 300m below, making it the country's must see and photograph sight. Additionally, from it, there are spectacular views of very close by and steep Volcan Izalco, the country's youngest, which apparently had constant lava flows for decades until the 1950s, visible from ships on the ocean, earning it the nickname "The Lighthouse of the Pacific". (Speaking of spectacular volcanoes, as I type, we are flying by snow-capped Mt Hood, Mt St Helens, and Mt Rainier in rapid succession over Oregon/Washington State!)

Other volcanic wonders visited include El Boqueron National Park, several crater lakes, a Pompei-lite styled buried village, and a hot springs river / waterfall! El Boqueron NP is an old, massive extinct vegetation-covered crater with a small nipple-like mini newer interior peak called El Boqueroncito inside, with the 1893m rimside viewing platform reached via a long winding uphill, but surprisingly well-paved, road from outside the capital city, which it overlooks. I swam in three beautiful and warm crater lakes- quaint Laguna Apastepeque, which I had entirely to myself while JC had a $5 fish at a laguna-side restaurant, as well as the much larger Lago Coatepeque [which AI claims "has an approximate diameter of 7 to 7.2 kilometers (4,300 to 4,500 meters)"- apparently AI fails grade 3 math!!] and several times in Lago Ilopango.

We stayed at an airbnb on Lago Ilopango,allowing for several swims [and use of an unwieldy inflatable kayak, and better quality paddleboard] with the high crater rim making for perfectly calm waters. The 8x11km lake was formed by a massive eruption around the year 450 CE at a rating of 6 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) making it one of the

Lago Ilopango

biggest volcanic events on Earth in the last 7,000 years. [the VEI scale is, like the Richter scale, base 10 logarithmic, with the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens a 5, 1991 Pinatubo and 1883 Krakatoa also 6s, 1815 Tambora the largest recorded at 7, but Sumatra's Lake Toba (the world's largest volcanic lake at 100x30km, and where I spent my 32nd birthday, a fews days before hanging out with orangutans and then going to Penang for the first time pre-JC, and a month later, Vancouver)-74k yrs ago and Yellowstone NP 640k and 2.1M yrs ago both 8s!].

Joya de Cerén is an archaeological site often referred to as the "Pompeii of the Americas", however this greatly oversells what is to be seen there, and it is only worth a half-hour visit if closeby. The small village was rapidly blanketed by ~10m of ash in the space of a few hours, and there are some interesting structures to see, as well as some casts of plant

material in the small museum, however the evacuation was felt to have been successful as no human remains were found, and the lone unfortunate domesticated animal victim, a duck, is no longer on display "so that it can be preserved". As far as Mayan or Aztec- type ruins, Tazumal is the best on offer, but is mediocre compared to what can be seen in neighbouring countries.

Much more impressive was the hot springs waterfall of Salto de Malacatiupán along the Agua Caliente ("Hot Water") River. In fact I've never been to anything like it. Standing downstream on a rock opposite, you can feel the hot steam of the mist, just as one feels the cold of the mist generated by standard waterfalls. We then walked back to the river

upstream of the falls and tested its temperature- perfect-same as a hot tub! We found a little pool along the narrow but fast flowing section of the flat rock and multi-streamed river, JC put one foot in, while I slowly got in deeper and worked my way towards the center of the channel- paradise! I even swam several strokes staying even with the flow in a de-facto thermal river treadmill.

But things then got rather gross on getting out. I saw tiny black strands on my arms, which I at first thought was either soil or plant material, but on closer look they were wriggling like tiny worms or maybe leeches and I was covered in dozens to maybe over a hundred of them. There were no shower-type facilities at the off-the-beaten track site 5km down a difficult access dirt road, so I stripped off my bathing suit, and started rubbing myself vigourously with our small towel [thanks once again, Teng!] all over. They were only a few mm each, and none were stuck on, but there were so many [JC later soaked my bathing suit in a basin before putting it in the wash, and there were still dozens extracted]. Thoughts of schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis [river blindness] were running through my head, although my later confirmed recollection was that the fast following water, and the visible size of my attackers were not in keeping.

By chance, while I was completely naked along the sparsely crowded hot river, came our only very brief moment of feeling slightly unsafe in ES, when someone walking by on the near side was talking loudly with a possibly inebriated tone, and we turned to see he was carrying a machete. However there was someone with him, and they continued on their way, paying no attention to us. A local selling drinks told me the black things were nothing to worry about, and a later google /AI search was also reassuring. AI seemed convinced that they were harmless black fly larvae [although the descriptions / images were not a great match and I remain uncertain as to what they truly were, with the only good visual match being to an unanswered reddit query in Southeast USA], claiming that their presence was actually a marker of a healthy ecosystem. On the other hand it may not be long before AI concludes that an even better marker of a healthy ecosystem is the absence of homo sapiens...

El Salvador's other geographic draw is its Pacific coastline, with long, wide, often black-sanded, beaches. Great running, snorkeling [where possible] forgettable. Most of its tourism occurs along these, with surfing being the major long-time draw, especially at El Tunco around which Bukele is building an infrastructure corridor he has named "Surf City". Although we saw more Norte Americanoes in our hour at El Tunco than the rest of the trip, it is still low-key, bungalow style resorts at the highest end. Most of the coastal beaches, including the Airbnbs of our first day, at Costa del Sol, and the last few, east of Los Cobanos, are nearly empty other than a few locals. Worthy of a Jeopardy answer, ES is the only country in North or Central America without any Atlantic / Caribbean coastline. At least in part to remedy the economic consequences of such, Bukele is a proponent of Central American reunification, and has already signed an agreement with Guatemala allowing him to build a port there.

El Salvador's third city, the eastern, rarely tourist-visited San Miguel, is home to Central America's largest carnaval, held late November to coincide with the city's patron saint's day instead of lent. Finding this out by chance, we made sure to attend the festivities! The party

starts late afternoon and goes until the next morning although for party animals like us two hours of watching the parade, with impressive floats, but heart-pounding levels of music [despite earplugs] and especially bass was enough to send us indoors at a large KFC-like [and admittedly excellent] Pollo Campestre to complete dinner before trying to make our way home [we intentionally took an Uber in from our very modern gated suburban detached home development complex Airbnb], after having been eating stuff from the local stalls. There was a heavy, but very friendly, police presence at the family-friendly event, which shuts down most of downtown. We only saw one other "Western" couple while there, although starting this year it is apparently being used as a draw for international tourism.

Our trip totalled two weeks. From San Miguel we also drove to La Union, and took a short boat ride on the volcano-lined Gulf of Fonseca, which is shared between ES, Honduras, and Nicaragua, with the city's name derived from their former union. On the way to Ilopango lake we stopped at San Vicente, and climbed its six story clock tower for great views of the city and its same-named volcano, followed by stops at Laguna Apastepeque and the cobblestoned colonial 1528 capital of Suchitoto. The next day we spent 50 minutes each way to drive about ten hectic highway kilometers to the traffic-filled capital of San Salvador. The pedestrian-only central square area, however, was very nice, and full of Christmas-themed installments, as well as the National Palace and an impressive 2023-opened, China-funded, National Library. Working at a Froozy slushie store, we met Valentina, an impressive 15 yo girl who spoke perfect english, wants to be a forensic pathologist, and is a big fan a Bukele, showing us a picture of her with him, wearing a hijab at her school principal, Bukele's brother's wedding!

We then spent several days outside Santa Ana [ES's 2nd city] , where in addition to the volcano, Tazumal and the thermal waterfall, we spent a day driving the "La Ruta de las Flores [flowers]" , that includes several quaint colonial towns to see along a mountain range [the road itself is nothing special, not especially flowery, despite this being the right time of year- the start of ES's dry season, which they call "summer", from Nov-Apr]. Features include a food festival at Juayua every weekend [we had an excellent yuca and sauerkraut dish prepared by internationally-trained chef returned home, Jose Carlos] and adult extreme adventure park outside Apaneca, where we enjoyed the hamster wheel in the sky, despite my negative attitude going in. Our last stop was back on the Pacific coast, near Los Cobanos, where we had a home with a private pool on a near empty endless black sand beach.

We had great, if at times hot, weather, with only two brief downpours. The food was good, with the country's specialty being pupusas, thick corn tortillas which are commonly stuffed with combinations of cheese, refried beans, pork or chicken. Much like Mexicans, most El Salvadorans are overweight. Insects were everywhere at all our accommodations- many large red ants, countless tiny ones, some mosquitoes and flies, and lots of no see ums, making dinner on our patios trying. A presumed spider bite under my clavicle itches as a type a week later. We didn't see anything special in terms of birds or other wildlife.

The drivers were equally trying, with often very slow large trucks or cars taking up the left lane [where 2 lanes present], and making no effort to facilitate passing on the often windy, although generally very well-paved roads and highways. Similarly motorbikes would ride mid-lane in what seems to be ES's driving culture, only at times partly justified by busy shoulders, crammed with food stalls and bicycles. One very common very small car of note was the low-powered Bajaj Qute, an India-built "quadricycle", intended as a replacement for 3-wheeled auto-rickshaw- very "cute", unless you are stuck behind one.

As seems to always be the case, car rental companies and airlines provided the major hassles of the trip. El Salvador seems to play the same car rental scam as Mexico, requiring additional purchase of third-party liability insurance despite no mention of such when booking, more than doubling costs. I switched companies, from Budget to Easy Car, at the airport on principle despite the same cost. However, I now regret my choice after being charged $75 for an irrelevant bumper scratch of unknown, and potentially fraudulent [as we had to leave the car unattended on returning it as the agent was not where he told us he would be and we needed to check in], origin, and now am having difficulty getting the documentation from Easy Car so that I can reclaim it from my own insurance.

We had booked the flights to ES on Avianca with transfers of 1hr in SFO on the way down, 2.5hrs in LAX on the way back. We were concerned with the short interval on the way down, to begin with due to the now longest ever US Gov't shutdown leading to unpaid air traffic controllers not going to work requiring flight delays and cancellations [it ended before we flew]. This was compounded when I later realized that our Thursday date was US Thanksgiving [although the busier days are actually the Tues and Wed before]. Further concern was due to our first leg being on Air Canada, with their terrible track record of delays [I just googled this- there is an article shockingly stating they have gone from worst to best in 2025, although there is an accusation in it that they are cheating by cancelling and then recoding flights with expected delays]. I called AC customer service to confirm, my ultimately correct, understanding that 1hr should be enough as we would not need to go through immigration in the USA, having done so at YVR, nor need to collect our bag, however, despite checking with a supervisor, the best he could give me was an "I think you are correct". I started tracking AC 564 performance on flightaware.com, and was encouraged when near on-time performance rose from ~60% to ~75% after the shutdown ended, however I found it strange that almost all the misses were by nearly exactly 2 hours- was Air Canada playing games?

We awoke to emails stating that our 10am flight had been delayed to noon, and that we would miss our connection. At least they had rebooked us on Avianca's red -eye [made more miserable by seats that don't recline], but we would have a 10 hour delay. AC's flight disruption page details $1000. compensation per passenger for final destination arrivals delayed by over 9 hours, but then notes below only if "a final assessment determines that the most significant contributing factor was within our control and not related to safety". So, in other words, only if the pilot decides he'd rather go to the movies? Or, maybe more seriously, if management calculated that there were too many empty seats and they are better off just cancelling your flight because all that matters to them is their bottom line. I have just submitted the compensation form [which was admittedly easy to do- they provide links to an easily-filled on-line form], and in the highly unlikely event that we get paid, I will addendum this, that is if I survive the shock.

However there actually is a fabulous silver lining to our delay. When life gives you lemons, you should at least try to make lemonade, and this time, thanks to the flexibility of an old friend, I succeeded! Selina is a friend of mine from when I trained in Rhode Island, who I had not seen since. However, we had stayed in touch, and I knew she was living in San Francisco. I decided to call her while waiting to board at YVR- and she was available! Four of us had a great time walking around Embarcadero, and then going for Indian food at Udupi Palace. Thanks again, Selina, and great seeing you and Mahendra! She then drove us back to SFO to face our red-eyed fates...

Getting back to the topic of El Salvador, we clearly made the right decision to go, and had a great time. We'd recommend it to anyone who likes something off-the-beaten-path. But take the non-stop flight from Toronto instead of transfering in the USA.

Stu