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  • Day 49

    San Salvador, El Salvador

    March 5, 2017 in El Salvador ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We've skipped the capital cities of our last two countries but for El Salvador we made the exception to visit San Salvador, even if it was just to see a local football game. The problem with these capital cities is that aside from the lack of attractions and things to do, they're also generally the epicentre of each country's dangerous gangs and violence. Short and sweet visit coming right up.

    San Salvador is a strange city. The downtown area was pretty grim. Rubbish everywhere. Mostly derelict buildings, punctuated with a couple of colonial style buildings: a cathedral, a palace and a theatre. The only other building worthy of note down here looked horrific from the outside - picture an old school library or government buildings - but the inside was a different story. Iglesia de Rosaria is a church the shape of a rainbow (hence the name), complete with a rainbow of different coloured stained glass through which the sun projected beautiful colours into the church. A diamond in the rough one might say.

    Contrasting the downtown area is Boulevard de los heroes which houses a huge relatively new mall where the boys finally braved the barbers and Cat was able to replenish her sports gear collection after accidentally leaving most of hers behind in El Tunco. Then there's Zona Rosa, which had almost every fast food chain you could think of plus a few hotels, but also some semi-nice suburban streets. Every single house has a fence with circular barbed wire across the top though, so you can still sense the need for security in what seems like a nicer area.

    Feeling like we needed to learn a bit more about El Salvador and its history, we aimed to visit one of the museums about the civil war that took place in the 1980s. Unfortunately it being a Sunday in a highly catholic country meant that our museum choice was somewhat limited, so instead we headed for the anthropology museum. The exhibition we saw there was predominantly about migration over the years, going as far back as a few hundred BC and up to the current day. The amount of El Salvadorians in the abroad in the US alone has reached 2 million, many of which their families rely on sending money home - so much so it takes in $3 million USD per year and 20% of the national GDP. Crazy.

    Sunday afternoon rolled around which meant it was football time. We headed to Estadio Cuscatlan to watch an El Salvador premier league game - San Salvadorian Alianza F.C vs C.D Luis Angel Firpo from Usulután. The stadium was large, taking around 32,000 people at capacity. We opted for under cover seats as a break from the sun and the 35 degree heat for just $6USD a piece. The stands quickly filled up with fans, most of which were wearing t-shirts supporting their team. Like any football game the home fans were separated from the away fans, both by fences and riot police but of course that didn't stop them chanting and yelling at each other. Venders were constantly walking through the stands with various snacks and drinks, from plantain chips to icecream and beer. You never even need to leave your seat really!

    A good display of football followed, with a 1-0 win for the home team much to the delight of their fans. Piling out of the stadium the passionate away fans had to be separated again, similar to games in England as Mike tells me! Even the referees get escorted off the pitch with riot police to prevent anything happening to them as a result of any calls made throughout the game. Pretty impressive security in that respect but I guess it also shows how intense the fans can get.

    By the time the game was over and we'd made it out of the stadium, the sun was almost setting so we thought it'd be best to get a taxi back to our homestay. A rickety taxi ride followed with the axel sounding like it was going to snap or drop off at any point, so we were thankful to make it in one piece. One last set of pupusas from the roadside stall down the street and we signed off on our short time in El Salvador.

    I'm not sure quite how I feel about El Salvador, I've not quite been sold on the place. There are some nice areas and people around but it's marred by the amount of rubbish absolutely everywhere and it doesn't seem to have the same kind of unique culture that sets it apart like some of the other Central American countries to date - but I'll admit, it was always going to be hard to follow on from Guatemala. Next up we've got a big journey to Nicaragua, with transit through Honduras. We've opted for the local transport again in the hope of saving some cash, but thankfully the homestay owner Edwin was kind enough to drop us to the first bus stop at 6am. Wish us luck!
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