Tag Archive: El Salvador

What does “authentic” mean? And pupusas!

I was still in love with El Cielito Lindo, but on my last day in Ataco I had to obey the part of my Traveler’s Creed that demands to try as many new… Continue reading

A beautiful little heaven. And pupusas!

A Beautiful Little Heaven… What could be better? How about when it has delicious food and drinks.   I spend a disturbingly large portion of my time abroad searching for my next meal.… Continue reading

The angel’s a jerk, the dog is proud, and the plane landed backwards. Time to go.

I’m no stranger to the jet-lagged delirium of a trans-oceanic red-eye flight. I dropped a class in college because the professor’s preposterously long, slow, erudite sentences were verbal valium. And I’ve seen The… Continue reading

I don’t believe you, but I love you anyway

They tell me this is one planet. All the same one. But I’m not sure I believe them.   Because I remember walking down a backstreet in San Salvador, where children stopped their… Continue reading

Juan the Priest

He made the pupusa girl smile. Her mother laughed, and I probably blushed. Their reactions were the most common, smiles and laughter, and I saw them again and again on face after face… Continue reading

Joaquin Media Barba

The buses all had places to go, and gas to burn to get there. The expressionless faces of passengers (some things are universal) turned towards me through rattling window panes as I waited… Continue reading

Passion, danger, guns and roses in Soyapango

El Salvador uses the US dollar, and since going to the ATM is always a good opportunity for robbery (by thugs, or even worse: the banks) and/or excessive “I’m Jason Bourne” playtime, I… Continue reading

Why would you want to go there?

I told a Salvadoran friend of mine that I would be passing through his country, and asked what he thought I should do there. His response surprised me.   “You’re going to El… Continue reading

The agony and the ecstasy.

I can’t believe it’s still like this, after all this time. In another of the contrasts and contradictions of human existence, the thing that gives me so much ecstasy, travel, insists on bringing… Continue reading