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Published: January 6th 2009
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Surfing!
Welll as close as I could get today... but it was close enough to tide me over for one more day. Tim Version:
* Breathtaking views on the bus ride from San Miguel to San Salvador, unfortunately with a loud preacher for most of the ride!
* Found San Salvador to be incredible! I love this city! El Salvador and El Salvadorians, once again brilliant.
The version that I´m so happy to write in direct opposition to the Lonely Planet entries:
Maybe El Salvador has changed in a big way since last year when the guide should have been written, or maybe there is some other legit reason, but the guide book could not be more wrong! Anyway, thats not what I'm here to write about...
The trip from San Miguel to San Salvador, chicken bus as always, gave some insanely good views and made me fall all over again for El Salvador. The roads are brilliant, the litter far less of a problem, the bus drivers more knowledgeable, there are bump warnings in the roads for school crossings, streetlights, its incredible! The road, the Interamericana, skirts around the volcanoes and mountains, gaining and dropping altitude all the time, with views that just keep blowing you away. Everyone on the bus was El Salvadorian except myself. We picked up
Religious enough?
The statue in the middle of the roundabout near the Plaza de Las Americas - Christ feeling on top of the world. a guy that I jokingly thought looked like a bible salesman but very shortly I sadly found out that he was a preacher! Heh they always remind me of the line in I think it´s Gone In 60 Seconds where Nicolas Cage says to Angelina Jolie in the bar "bam! Youre healed!" after she says he looks like a bible salesman. At least thats what I remember... knowing my memory thats probably totally wrong but I had a laugh anyway! This guy preached for over a freakin hour, talk about stamina! He even got raised fists and "Amen!"s from the crowd. These guys love the whole evangelical thing! On an Aussie bus he woulda been booted out but here in these madly religious places instead of receiving hatred and annoyance he was loved and lots of people donated. The nature of it all though brings me to a religious note...
*Block your ears, theres a mental note ramble coming on... as per usual, skip this bit away. I know its a travel blog but hey, its my backup diary too!*
This sounds harsh but to me, it all of a load of trained monkey fire and brimstone rambles! Often
fake to the core, although I don´t mean the people are fakes... they do honestly believe it all. Those with strong religious faith, please take no offence, this is just my opinion and I think my friends know I feel this way already but this trip is continually backing and strengthening my opinion... I have nothing against religion and faith, its the highly strict pre written forceful ones that I don´t like!
This fire and brimstone religious zeal, its learned and habitual, embedded within the people like the need to breathe, their lives sewn with underlying guilt that feeds their strictly taught and enforced Christian habits. By Christian, I mean all the various flavours of believing in God and Jesus, including Catholicism. Remember Im not saying the people are fake - on the contrary I think they whole heartedly believe it all! However it makes me so mad and depressed to see the influence of Christianity here, removing much of their independence and original culture, removing their variety and traditions and more relevant beliefs to their lives with the same generic mindless shit I see spewed at home. Argh. Frustrating. How could a people so strong in nature, resilient
Prepping for Christmas
San Salvador kicking into full on Christmas mode! to incredible hardships, be so totally converted? Part of the problem has to do with poverty I think.. poverty needs hope, needs to feel empowered. The religion, and what the missionaries bring and act like, is an answer to that and a highly trained one at that. When you live in a tin shed with a dirt floor, a pretty concrete and plaster church seems pretty magnificent. Have you ever seen a preacher come over from an impoverished country in hand me down clothes, coming into a well setup healthy stable community, setting up a tin shed, inviting those around to come and listen to his or her words, successfully converting the masses? Even more so, could you see them being successful through force and handouts (which they don´t have access to remember as they're poorer than those they are preaching to) as missionaries of Christianity used? Nothing is impossible but it isn´t exactly likely. Yes, its apparently how christianity started, I´m aware of that irony here, but that takes you believing that that is truly how it started and not just a good catchy story. I´ve heard an argument before that education is an evil in itself because it
gives humanity an ego that doesn´t want to believe there is a power higher than them as that would render them much more powerless, but instead I believe those truly educated understand just how powerless they are (powerless isn´t the right word... I mean that they know they aren´t all powerful because of their knowledge) and how much they don´t know, giving them a real appreciation of life and the ability to choose. The ability to reason and question is both taught and I think it can be genetically and socially predispositioned, but over here in relation to religion it appears to he harshly quashed if it is against the church... heh it seems religion really pisses me off much more than I knew. Now I see how that guy easily preached for an hour!
*OK, its over, you can open your eyes now!*
San Salvador, I made it, and seeing it with my own eyes quashed all my fears! Its an awesome city, with good infrastructure, and has a healthy mix of modern rich and the more average to poor, with it all intermingling and losing none of that distinctly Central American flavour that I thought it might
Future workplace?
Loving this country, loving this city, and the IBM building right in the centre, in a nice building.. future workplace perhaps? lose. I crashed at a hostel called Ximenas in the Metro Centro area, near the MetroCentro mall (the largest mall in Central American apparently). I was getting dark so I left the random wandering for the next day. It was American election time anyway so I decided Id check that out as it plays a lot of influence over here. Lots of Peace Corps workers from the US were in to watch it, giving a funny vibe to the place that I hadn´t been around for a while! Peace Corps workers are a funny breed! A mixture of open and closed minded, some with a God complex while others have truly deep helpful hearts and truly want to help, its all represented. Some want resume points, others really just want to help, while others want to freeload on the US pay for it. The elections had a good side to me for peace and quite - if you wanted it, you just needed to walk away from TVs and you had complete peace!
I came here to replace my MP3 player so I hit up the big mall, and it was like shooting straight back into normal life! The
Pushing tourism!
El Salvador has an active and positive push for a healthy style of tourism and I love it. Visit this place, you won´t regret it! shops, the look of the people, and the prices, all the same as at home or the UK. It was kinda a cool break and I actually kinda loved it secretly, but don´t tell anyone... normally I hate malls. I despise iPods for their difficulty in getting songs on and off, but I couldn´t find better alternatives here (I need really good battery life) so I got me one, then left! It was wicked to see that the money, big American influence, and modernisation here hasn´t wiped out the Central American flavour of the place. Like the "big evil" shop in Nicaragua, I found a new appreciation for the ease and variety found in the mall and understand why they´re around so much more than I previously did...
Beach time next! I needs me some sun, sand, surf, and skin cancer =)
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