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On the Saturday morning of my final week in Suchitoto my friend Rodolfo picked Abi and I up and took us to the beach at El Tunco to party. Rodolfo is Salvadoran artist living in Paris who is staying with his family in San Salvador for three months whilst he has an exhibition. I had met him at the beach some weeks previously and had great fun partying with him and his friends. We had reconnected by facebook but I bumped into him by chance in Suchitoto the previous Sunday and arranged to go to the beach the following weekend. So that Saturday we drove down to the beach along with Rodolfo's friend Reinita. We stayed back in our old friend Codi's hostel in Sunzal and partyed hard at a salsa night at D'Roca beach bar.
The following day we returned to San Salvador, went to the anthropological museum in the afternoon, and drove Abi back to Suchitoto in the evening. Rodolfo very kindly offered that I could stay with him so I decided to stay for a few days in San Salvador. Rodolfo was staying with his Mum and Grandparents and they kind of adopted me as part of
Reggie and I
at Bennigansthe family. In fact Rodolfo's Mum called me her other son. They fed me, did my washing, and generally treated me as there own - so great after three or four months on the road. I'm very grateful to them, and to Rodolfo, for their hospitality.
Each night of the next week of heavy partying kind of blurred into each other. We went out every night to meet various of his friends, including those I met at the beach. Our favourite spots included Bennigans in the mall, Las Leyendas and other bohemian bars in San Luis, the pool hall on General Escalon, and Republic and the other bars in Zona Rosa. Many nights culminated in an unusual clandestine late night bar in the playground of a kindergarten school, and we often arrived back home in the early morning where we drank Chaparro (a very potent local firewater) before bed.
San Salvador was one of the hidden treasures of my journey so far. It has great nightlife, a vibrant bohemian art scene, and lots of live music. Rodolfo, as an artist, is well connected here in the art scene and we visited a number of his artist friends, the
gallery where his work is exhibited, and an art lecture at the French club. The friday after I arrived we went to an open air Jazz concert by a touring American group in the grounds of the Anthropological Museum followed by a salsa night at Cafe La Te. I danced with quite a few people including a lovely girl I met there, Marielus, and struck up a friendship with her and her brothers.
I met Marielus again several days later and we spent a couple of evenings together, including dinner with her family in San Marcos, a little way out of the centre of San Salvador. I met her mother, brother and his wife, and her three small, cute but naughty, children. Marielus' story is poignant: her husband was murdered in the street five months ago leaving her alone with three small children to support. It appears, however, that he used to mistreat her and was involved in dubious things and that she is better off without him. Her family have rallied round to support her as much as possible: her brother owns a business and employs her to provide her with enough money and her mother provides childcare
whilst she is working. They make enough money to survive but Marielus rarely can afford to go out. The genuineness and friendliness of the family towards me and the way they rally round to help each other made a strong impression on me.
The contrast between her, pretty typical story, of life in El Salvador and that of many people in San Salvador is quite striking. There are many professional people there with good well paid jobs and which appear to have a reasonable amount of disposal income. They appear to enjoy a comfortable life, go out at least a couple of times a week, and travel to the beach or Suchitoto at the weekends to party. They are well educated at good universities, often speak good english, and work hard but are rewarded reasonably well. The rest of the population earn very low wages, live in dangerous areas, don't have the opportunity to study or learn english, and rarely can afford to go out. Of course, this is a common theme all accross Central America but it appeared most noticeable there.
I met so many great, friendly people who went out of their way to include me
and I felt one of the group from the start. Out all the places I have been to so far, this is by far the place where I have assimilated the most with the local people and made new friends. I left San Salvador, and in fact El Salvador, with fond memories of warm, friendly, confident people and the resolve to return for a longer time in the future. Thank you to everyone I met in San Salvador!!
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james
non-member comment
dude
that place sounds incredible - in terms of the people I mean, the harsh difference in wealth is obviously terrible. You're seeing some amazing things dude. On a lighter note this particular blog appears to be mainly you showing off latino girls in photos with you!!!!