You're going to El Salvador. People ask why. You tell them about the surfing, the hiking, and the museums, and they've already stopped listening. You mention being interested in the civil war and they turn around and ask you: 'Isn't it dangerous there?'
You remind them the war has been over since 1992, for more than a decade. Over longer than the war in Guatemala, in fact, and didn't your sister just spend two weeks learning Spanish in Antigua?
'But what about gangs?'
You point out that it's not as if gang members hang out on every street corner. That more tourists get robbed in Mexico or Costa Rica than they do in El Salvador. They shake their head. No, there was an article in Newsweek. They're not convinced.
And they may never be. You'll return with photos of cloud forests in Parque Nacional Montecristo-El Trifinio or the moonscape on top of Volcán San Miguel. You learned to surf on the best waves in Central America. You caught a funk band at a boho bar in San Salvador. You went hiking in Perquín with a guerrilla-turned-tour guide, who told you about the war as it was: terrifying, thrilling, boring, inspiring, confusing, sad. You ate pupusas in a city park, watching little boys chase pigeons.
It's hard to understand a place like El Salvador before you go. All you see are the shifting grounds: the gangs, the long war, the refugees. You don't see the broad valleys, the sudden volcanoes, the black-sand beaches, the stories told with a laugh, the people who tell them. Like a colonial church, bright blue, battered by earthquakes, El Salvador is still standing.
Last updated: Oct 1, 2008
