It has been already four days since I am in this tiny and pretty country called El Salvador. So far it is the country of colorful mural paintings where even the post lamps and the bins are artistically painted. The bright colors somehow show the optimism and not losing the faith of the people after the harsh and cruel 12 year old civil war which ended in 1992. Despite all the loss and grief the people are genuine, friendly and happy looking. As in every Central American country the garbage is an issue. People are throwing things from the bus, on the street. A very interesting thing that I have only seen here is that men pee on the street everywhere they feel like. Also they do not know the notion of queuing maybe they should learn their lesson from the Communist Cubans :).
My first stop on D135 was in the north-western village of Perquin
on the Ruta Paz (Peace Route). This part of the country is one of the most
effected by the civil war. No wonder that all the sites are dedicated to the
revolution. In the Museum of Revolution I was walked around by Jose an ex
guerrilla fighter who told me that he started fighting when he was 17 years old
and learned to read and write in the guerrilla camps. This museum displays some
guns used by the guerrillas, posters from different guerrilla supporting countries
around the world, profiles of few influential figures who either were murdered
or disappeared during the 12 year civil war and the radio used by the
guerrillas to keep the nation informed. Further up the road in rich in
vegetation area they have a reconstruction of a guerrilla camp. This was very interestingly
done. It had two dodgy bridges which by the time I crossed both I was sweated.
After this I hiked up to 1,321m to the view point of Perquin. On the way up
there were some tranches, bomb holes from the war and an amazing view of
Perquin and its surroundings. Getting down to the village there was nothing
else to see or do so I decided to move on to my next destination.
After seven hours hopping on and off the chicken buses I got
to Alegria. This is a gem of a little town on the top of a hill from where you
can see a huge, beautiful green valley with a lake. It was a bit difficult to
find a place to sleep but eventually ended up in a dorm room with 3 beds and a
bathroom. The garden of the house was full of amazing plants, a statue of St.
Mary and a lot of small items like mortars, old phones etc. It was similar t O’Connors
Pub in Salthill, Galway.
It took seven hours and five transfers to get to this place. As I arrived here late afternoon early evening there were only few food stalls that served food. But I managed to find a few. One thing I am sure about that I am passionate about good food. In normal circumstances I am quite shy to approach people but yesterday I stopped anyone who was eating something unusual and asked them what it is what they are eating. The main ingredients of the meals are maize, yucca and a lot of meat. I had tried some fried maize and yucca croquettes with some sweet sauce. My favourite was “crazy corn”, a corn on the cob on a stick with mustard, ketchup, brown sauce sprinkled with a lot of parmesan cheese. Yummy!! They had on offer hot pineapple juice with some cloves (atol de pina) served in a coconut shell; yucca dish with pieces of meat served in yucca leaves. The amount of grilled meat I had seen was just incredible. Some of the exotic meats were frog legs and snake, I had not tried either of them :)
For a couple of hours I went to visit Ataco, a neighboring village on the
Flower Route. As it was Sunday the whole villages was in the central park eating,
sampling the amazing local coffee and had a mariachi band singing. It was
amazing to see the liveliness of the people around here. So at the end it was
worth to do the 3 days of chicken bus marathon.
