San Salvador for those After a New Experience

Once arriving in San Salvador by bus from Guatemala, the coach will park under an impressive statue with a mosaic background and fountain. Just a few paces downhill from this stop you will find the Hotel Presidente, and also a couple of decent tourist agencies. Both agencies are friendly and courteous and offer a range of tours--ecology, marine, shopping, volcanoes etc. I used the agency farthest down the block--UTravel--to reserve a night on the coast. You may or may not need to speak Spanish depending on the staff present.

San Salvador has a wonderful Central Shopping area at Metrocentro Norte 4a estapa No.24 where I picked up some Postcards. Expect to pay fifty cents or more (four or more Salvadoran Colones)per card. There is a post office in this mall area (a second floor office just outside of the central square). Buy your stamps and mail postcards early in the day as Latin post offices often close after two p.m. A good place and time to buy fabric is at Almacenes Siman around Mother's Day. The exchange rate for US dollars is about 8 Colones per dollar.

Quick Tips:

If you choose to go down to the coast from San Salvador, the taxi ride down (two hours) is rather expensive (). Plan to visit on a weekday in off-peak May. I stayed on a Pacific Coast resort with several hundred rooms on a Wednesday night and only five other guests were there in the entire retreat. The cost of the hotel room was a night PER PERSON. All food and soft drinks were included in the package, but it is advisable to clarify that before you purchase the package.

Once at your resort, you may want to collect sea shells. The sand dollars are beautiful and one can often find them washing up in the middle of the day. They are very brittle so store them carefully! Otherwise, the best time to go out to look for shells is at first crack of light. The locals are patrolling the beaches as early as three or four in the morning. Getting up at 5:00 a.m. is prudent if you are a serious shell collector. The shells you will find washed far up the beach--SO DON'T GO NEAR THE WAVES.

Best Way To Get Around:

From Guatemala City, a bus ride to El Salvador is a piece of cake, and fairly inexpensive. First stop is the Holiday Inn in Guatemala City (1 Calle 12-46 Zona 10) and the Office of the Pullmantur Company located on the first floor to the left as you walk in.

Roundtrip tickets are about and the Visa another . Pullmantur buses leave the front of the hotel Monday thru Saturday at 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Return trips are same hours leaving San Salvador for Guatemala. Check the latest Pullmantur schedule for other times. The San Salvadoran office for Pullmantur is Final Av. Revolucion, Col. San Benito. Their e-mail address is pullmantur@salnet.net. Telephone in Guatemala: 332-9785 or 367-4746 (Fax 243-1299). Telephone in San Salvador: 243-1300 or 243-2405 (Fax 243-1299). Pullmantur buses can also get you to Montelimar, Nicaragua; various places in Guatemala (including Tikal); or Tapachula and Huatulco in Mexico. Check schedules. Remember, when traveling in the third world, anything can happen. The day after I left San Salvador for my return to Guatemala City, there was an explosion in an underground military warehouse. 1000 handgrenades rained down on surrounding suburbs.

I stayed at Tesoro Beach on El Salvador's famous Coastal Del Sol. Mid-week, early part of May--the place was deserted. One hundred and twenty rooms were available, and only five other people were staying there besides my room's reservation. The room rate was $51 per person, but it included all sodas and all meals. When negotiating for a room, be sure that your room includes meals. If purchased outside of your room package, the hotel's restaurant menu offers meals in the $7 to $10 range.

The beach was empty and clean. Beautiful. El Salvador is experiencing a mini-plague of jelly-type fish washing ashore and there were a few of those, as well as sand dollars and other shells coming in with the waves. There are swimming pools and many secluded places to sit on comfortable chairs under the shade of palm trees.

The staff are very polite and helpful. One or two may know a little English, but one should know enough Spanish to ask the usual questions about lodging and dining. E-mail Tesoro Beach Hotel at: reservacionestesorobeach@cyt.net

The weather on the Pacific coast of both El Salvador and Guatemala in May is often warm but not hot, as the moisture in the air is building up for the rainy season which is getting ready to push inland. If you want your taxi driver to take you to see a volcano, remember to enunciate VOLCANO and not VOLCANA as I did. A 'volcana' is the mouth of a river. If something like that does happen to you though, have a sense of humor. The volcana was scenic too by the way.

Be sure to take time to tour the countryside once in El Salvador. Pigs and goats flavor the roadsides with provincial color. Brahma cattle can be seen in towns, on the roads, and even near your hotel. This breed of cattle was imported from India and is prized in El Salvador for its stamina in enduring the tropical heat. If you hit the beach away from your hotel, local merchants may offer you fish, crabs, or other types of seafood--sometimes still live. The watermelons sold along roadsides on the coast are huge and tasty. Try one!

I wasn't on the early afternoon sand of Tesoro Beach more than 15 minutes when I came across a sanddollar, about the size of a cookie--covers the palm. There is a legend about the sanddollar--that the four holes on the corners represent the nail holes of the crucifixion, with the center hole for the spear wound. A little searching and I had a second sanddollar in hand.

The next morning I returned to the beach at 5:00. There were already several shell collectors in operation. Despite the competition from the locals, an accompanying friend found a respectable conch shell. We walked the beach almost two miles when a sharp growl caught our attention--a pack of wild dogs was facing us down. Not wanting to provide these ill-disposed beasts gringo steaks for breakfast, we retreated back to the beachside restaurant for morning tortillas and frijoles. As I left my table place later, a raven perched on my plate to pilfer scraps. El Salvador was a hungry country.