February 3, 2025

It’s another beautiful morning in El Salvador, the sun streaming in through the plentiful windows of my apartment. I allowed myself copious amounts of time to prepare and pack my things prior to leaving for Santa Ana, none of which will be too complicated, given that I have done this innumerable times before in the last few years. I feel like I rushed into this trip, without much time or sense to pay attention to cogent details of the experience – and yet it doesn’t escape me that the weather is unfailingly warm and sunny, very unlike the depressing winter I left behind.

One advantage of traveling in El Salvador is the excellent bus service – although the roads are overloaded with vehicular traffic, mostly private cars. The highway en route to the Terminal del Occidente in San Salvador is utterly congested, but what will transpire in much smaller Santa Ana later is far more challenging. Regular transports leave from the bus station for Santa Ana, both scheduled coach buses that stop only at major stops and continuously departing minibuses that stop upon request.

I had thought of visiting Parque Arqueológico San Andrés en route, but as the warden of Joya de Ceren pointed out yesterday, all cultural facilities are closed on Mondays. The trip to Santa Ana is innocuous enough, although north of the Sitio del Niño crossroads, the landscape becomes far hillier and greener, the paved highway weaving gently to follow the contours of the valleys that navigate around the low, round hilltops. We seem to be making appropriate progress, but closer to Santa Ana, traffic grinds to a virtual halt – and although the town is not that large, it seems to take an excruciating amount of time to reach the bus terminal in the northwestern corner of Santa Ana. Excruciating particularly since I drank a lot of coffee prior to departure – and the coach bus does not have a washroom!

The Airbnb I am to be housed in is a somewhat strange affair, situated in an enormous condominium complex that spans several city blocks, consisting of identically-shaped and -sized blocks, spaced at regular intervals, running along several roads, the entire affair gated. Each building is traversed by means of a central open staircase, each level containing two or more apartments, in total with an identical floor area. The resultant habitations could be attractive enough, but the dwelling I am to occupy is simply functional, equipped with the necessary, but with absolutely no aesthetic improvements.

The place includes a simple kitchen with a relatively new gas stove, sink area, fridge and battered wooden bar table and chairs, the miniscule adjoining “living” area with a somewhat characterless couch, and two bedrooms with basic mattresses. There is a small bathroom and balcony; the entire smallish and uninspiring place features numerous louvred windows, allowing not only plentiful natural light to enter – especially being on the top floor – but also a refreshing breeze.

The condos where my Airbnb is located are on the western fringe of the historic district of Santa Ana, and immediately upon leaving the expansive complex, I enter into another world, a somewhat undulating urban terrain of brightly-painted adobe houses with wrought iron grill windows and gently-sloped terracotta roofs, the image of a traditional Latin American colonial town, unfolding in its beauty and relatively pristine state as I amble in the direction of the cathedral far to the east. The low, somewhat arid foothills encircle us, the brown earth glimmering in the late afternoon sun; I imagine in earlier times, these hills would have been rich with greenery, but given the level of urbanization, not much would be apparent in terms of coherent forest.

No tourists are visible this far away from the cathedral; nothing but locals who typically smile and wave, many greeting me in English. Close by, the westernmost of the town’s renowned churches, the Parroquia Santa Lucía, with its modest, whitewashed facade and large, neighboring landscaped square where a handful of locals rest on benches and look at me inquisitively as I pass by.

The town is both somewhat run-down but also astonishingly atmospheric, such a discovery in a country that has long languished off the radar due to the civil war followed by decades of gang violence. The workmanship involved in the often modest houses stands out, such as the sculptural and bas relief work on decorative walls, delicate wrought iron grills covering windows, courtyards with fountains in more regal structures, the buildings complimented with copious amounts of flowering plants, such as the ubiquitous bougainvillea.

The social setting is utterly bucolic, with certainly no sense of danger, although I can’t resist pulling the leg of the young security guard armed with a cumbersome old rifle standing in front of a funeral home across from the Santa Lucia church, telling him it is so dangerous here that you even have to protect the dead. Random and ridiculous jokes are always welcome with El Salvadoreans – they are definitely jokesters.

The entire park that the Iglesia El Calvario faces has been converted to a market area – unlike other places I have traveled through, the availability of consumer goods and food products here is far from lacking, not that most of the humble people would have the means to buy much. From the little that I have observed, it would seem that not only are a lot of products made locally, but there may be a tariff-free regimen in place with other Central American countries. As of this square, the traffic also increases considerably, not that it represents a huge problem from a navigation perspective; taking good photos of the colourful character buildings, however, is a challenge, considering how narrow the streets are.

The ivory Renaissance-style facade of the cathedral shimmers in the distance, sedate clouds stacked in the pale blue sky above, the narrow alley leading to the church lined with single and two-level colonial-style buildings, homey, and yet with a certain degree of architectural integrity, what with the smooth adobe surfaces, wrought iron grills, flat roofs, and single-tone colour palettes. What becomes apparent upon approaching the cathedral is that the historic centre of Santa Ana is long and rectangular, like San Salvador, laid out in grid pattern, but unlike the larger city, the district has a far greater sense of coherence and aesthetic beauty.

A surprise awaits me at the Parque Libertad – Caucasians are visible around the square and cathedral, not just a few isolated individuals, but wherever I seem to look, I see westerners. Another thing worth noting is that among the busy crowds on the square I get no sense of incipient danger as you could easily experience in public spaces in other Latin American countries – the ambience is very down-to-earth, but respectful and safe. There are ambulatory vendors selling fruit, vegetables, tamales, bread, and so on, all in their designated positions, although a much greater concentration of street vendors is visible in the distance, presumably due to the presence of markets, where people would naturally congregate.

The interior of the church is a solemn affair, the humble locals, mostly elderly, spread through the pews, listening intently to the words of the priest at the altar. It seems that the hours of worship in El Salvador are continual, but perhaps that is also an appropriate reflection of the faith of the people.

I don’t understand why I am so incredibly exhausted. I may have been leaning too heavily on sweet foods, eating too much starch, and then it is on the hot side, but the extent of my exhaustion makes little sense. I wonder if the low quality mattresses I have been sleeping on are more of a hindrance than I had thought?

The owner of my current Airbnb highly recommended the Pupuseria Madrid as apparently having some of the best pupusas in town. I only need to maintain a westward trajectory from the Selectos supermarket, on what turns out to be a revealing promenade. Now that darkness has set in, the city is largely quiet, with few pedestrians on the sidewalks and cars on the roads. The linear grid of colonial-style houses is highly atmospheric in the quiet of the early evening and the pale light of the overhead lamps.

After walking some distance, it occurs to me that the town is far quieter than it should be – in fact, most of the houses I pass are not only silent but virtually none of the interiors are illuminated. There are a few scattered shops still open – and lit – but most of the town seems to have gone to sleep. Is there a power outage? Have locals gotten used to shutting their lives down completely after darkness sets in following decades of civil war and gang violence? The pupuseria near the condominiums I am staying in must be open, given how famous it apparently is – but no, it is also shuttered. On a Monday evening, to boot.