Last week I went to El Salvador for three days. I had already been to El Salvador in the past, but only to the Comalapa International Airport for stopovers. Once I even had to stay there for four hours, but I saw nothing of the country so I don't know if that counts. But now I have been there, I am only short of Nicaragua now to visit all of Central America, actually I am also short of Panama, but Panama is an add on, initially there were only five Central American countries and I have been in four of them. Belize is now included in Central America also, but I have been there, don't know it but been there. See I was born in Belize and lived the first six months of my life there.
Anyway my trip to El Salvador started in San Pedro Sula, it was by bus, a first class bus by the way. On the Honduras side it was a magnificent road, especially when we got to the highway called the canal seco a four lane, first rate highway. The first part was also a very good highway, only it is mostly in the mountains. Then we got held up for nearly two hours at the border for paperwork, same thing coming back. Once in El Salvador the quality of the road was not as good and also they have an 80 KPH speed limit.
The first thing that struck me is that in Honduras I don't believe you can get more than ten kilometres from a mountain range, not so in El Salvador. They do have mountains but a lot of them are just stand alone ones, no ranges. Of course they do have volcanos, I saw three just in the part of the country we travelled through.
I just stayed in the capital, which by the way is a very nice city. Hot during the day but gets quite cool in the morning. We stayed at a relatively centrically located hotel so going to the historic center was a short walk. The place is very interesting, a lot of 19th century and early 20th century buildings.
This is a statue of Francisco Morazan, a Honduran who tried to unite the Central American provinces into one nation but obviously failed. He was president of Honduras and El Salvador and is buried there.
I found this church amazing but never got a good picture of it.
This is the Cathedral.
National Library
This must be the North Pole as it is Santa's house, but it was kind of hot for the pole.
This is the National Palace, I believe the most imposing building of all.
And finally this is a view of the city, taken from the seventh floor of the national library. I don't like heights so I took the picture a fair distance from the end of the building. Yes, with a better camera I could have shown you much better images.
As for my experience there, it was great. The money that circulates is the US Dollar. Quarters are called coras, and a lot of things cost one cora. Like the urban bus, the newspaper etc. Actually I found a lot of things cheaper than in Honduras. There is a lot of commerce on the street and it is an incessant noise of people hawking their wares. I think just the capital is very interesting and outside of it they have a lot of nice places too, but you need way more than three days to visit all. By the way, it really is very safe there. Only thing I saw was a drunk who was left without shoes, but nobody told him to flop out on a sidewalk.
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I had forgotten about this, the cookie factory and you can see Bitcoin and Tether signs on it. There will be a big Bitcoin meeting or symposium or something in San Salvador in January I believe.