A Visit to the Divine, Followed by a Traditional Salvadorean Supper (Finally)

The Divine Savior of the World, the namesake both to this country and this city, can be found in a traffic circle
halfway between the Centro Historico and the upscale neighborhood in which I am staying.

Last day in El Salvador. Last day of the mini-vacation. First day of the vacation when I delayed the start of my daily tourism to do some work that was piling up.

And it was hot and muggy-humid by the time I started my tourism day. So I opted for a one-hour walk (two-hour round trip) to El Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo, the Monument to the Divine Savior of the World.

And here it is.

There was not much sightseeing to be done along the way. Here's the thing about San Salvador, at least this time of year. Mornings are very pleasant. Then, around noon, it gets horribly hot and humid with an intense sun. Then, around 3:00 p.m., it is typically time for the afternoon thunderstorms to roll in. Just like South Florida. Then, in the evening, the humidity is down, as are the temperatures, and the weather is absolutely beautiful. You might have more thunderstorms overnight, but who cares? I'm asleep by that time.

Here's the view with a row of fountains shooting up their water on the west side of the monument:

And here's a closer-up view of the monument. The country is named "The Savior," with the preceding article not optional. The city is named "Holy Savior." So, of course, in a visit to the City of the Holy Savior, in the Republic of the Savior, I had to visit the monument to the namesake of the city and country.

This is the view from the back:

And if you look really close, you will see this is the view from front:

And here is the view that the Divine Savior of the World has of the City of San Salvador from high atop the globe perched high atop his pedestal:

You can't really tell from the photo, but the Divine Savior has an excellent view of every American fast food known to man, all of which have a home in San Salvador (and usually at a bigger than any location of said fast food joints in the USA): McDonald's. Wendy's (lots and lots of Wendy's). Burger King. KFC (and the Central American answer to KFC: Pollo Campero). Panda Express. Every single one of the mediocre American pizza chains: Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John. They're all here. And they're all ultra-popular.

On the way back I ran into an old friend from my last two trips: Bernardo O'Higgins.

O'Higgins was the liberator of Chile and his bust can be found everywhere in Chile, the destination of my two vacations prior to this.

At this point, the heat and the sun and (most of all) the humidity were getting to me. So I rested. But after a refreshing rest, I went out to eat Salvadorean food.

I chose Relajo because (a) it was half a block from my hotel, and (b) it was highly recommended by yesterday's tour guide. Either one would have been reason enough, but both? No. Brainer.

Finally I was going to eat some Salvadorean cuisine.

On the last night of the last day. Hope I don't love it too much then!

The restaurant was right along Avenida Las Magnolias, which translates to: Magnolia Avenue. Hey, even with my pobre espanol, I can translate that one.

This is not a busy street after business hours are over, so it did not detract from the restaurant's atmosphere.

So what traditional Salvadorean food did I order at this Salvadorean restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador? A limonada.

It came with a gratis helping of fried plantain chips. The chips were topped with a vinegary slaw that may or may not have contained the theme food of this trip: picked red onions. The limonada was good, but it was not nearly as good as yesterday's restaurant by the lake. Why is that, you may ask? Tonight's limonada was a balance of sour and sweet. I much prefer yesterday's limonada which was totally unbalanced and slanted heavily toward an intense, lip-puckering sour. Still, if not for yesterday's beverage, I would have thought this limeade was excellent.

I ordered a pupusa because ... I am in frickin' El Salvador and if you don't eat at least one pupusa on a trip here THEY WILL NOT LET YOU LEAVE THE COUNTRY. It's the law. Not only that: It's divine law.

I had the camarones, which is shrimp. This pupusa was much more like a quesadilla (the kind we get in the United States which is the kind they serve in Mexico) than the quesadilla that was a rice cake that I had yesterday. Cheesy and shrimpy, referring to the flavor and not the size. The size most definitely was not "shrimpy."

The main course was a chile relleno.

Much to my surprise, it looked like ... a chile relleno. Only heat-free. Salvadorean food is not spicy-hot like Mexican food. It was good, but it got much better when I doused it with the local hot sauce. My chile relleno was stuffed with chicken. Chicken adds protein but it does not add flavor, and that's true the world over. So my chicken chile relleno tasted just like a chile relleno I could order at Tres Amigos or any of a dozen slightly-Americanized Mexican restaurants in Las Vegas.

But the best is yet to come.

Horchata! But real Salvadorean horchata. Horchata de morro. Served traditionally with a little bit of cinnamon on top. Mexican horchata is made with rice milk. Spanish horchata from Valencia (the birthplace of that delicious beverage) is made with almond milk. Real Salvadorean horchata is made with a local fruit, the morro. This should not be confused with the fruit "mora," which is the Spanish name for the best berry of them all: the blackberry. This is morro. The flavor tasted like a more intense version of the almond-based horchata, much stronger than Mexican rice milk horchata. 

So now that I've finally had a delicious meal of traditional Salvadorean food, it's time to head back home. Flight leaves early tomorrow. Buenas noches, El Salvador.

Three Pyramid Complexes, a Colonial Town, and Lunch by the Lake

And through the jungle mists, I spy the Great Lost Pyramid of Tazumal. Located in an outer suburb of San Salvador.

What's on today's agenda? Pyramids, pyramids, and pyramids. These are the pre-Mayan and Mayan-era pyramids in the environs of San Salvador. Admittedly, these pyramids are not as spectacular as Copan. These pyramids are smaller and have suffered greatly from earthquakes and volcanos. And that means that the archaeology is a lot more in the early stages and what can be seen is more re-creation than restoration.

First stop: Joya de Cerén.

More specifically: Parque Arqueológico Joya de Cerén. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which, when it comes to international tourism sites, does mean something,

Let's have a look-see.

This is called the "Pompeii of the Americas." And that's legitimate. It is a very well-preserved small Mayan village from the early classical period. Which got buried for several centuries under a huge amount of volcanic ash. This meant much of the village is well-preserved.

Below is the functional equivalent of City Hall.

The buildings do not have roofs because the roofs were made of thatch and (Thatch) + (Volcanic Explosion) = (No More Thatch), in simple mathematical terms.

Unlike Pompeii, there were no dead bodies. This is because, apparently, the residents of Joya de Cerén had the foresight to bug out at the signs of the volcanic activity. They were not taken by surprise like the villagers in ancient Pompeii.

They did not climb that ladder when they were getting the h*ll out of Dodge, or, in this case, Joya de Cerén. Two reasons. First of all, they didn't have metal ladders. This is from the archaeologist. But, more importantly, until their city was buried in a few dozen feet of volcanic ash, they would not have had to climb out of the hole to get away.

The roof over all this means that this is very much an active archaeological site.

There is a Mayan sauna in this picture. From the description, it seems less like a Finnish sauna than the sweat lodges used by the indigenous people of the Southwestern United States.

I guess I lied when I said I visited thee pyramid complexes. I guess this was all a pyramid scheme. Joya de Cerén was too small and too unimportant to have a pyramid. How small and unimportant? It was rules by a chamana -- a woman -- a woman shaman.

The green line above is the laser pointer being used by the guide to point out various things worth seeing.

This is a block of adobe from an adobe column because why not:

And this is a piece of pottery with a crab design:

Not a lot of crab iconography in Mayan culture. Lots of jaguars and serpents and caiman. But rather light on the crustaceans. I love crab. It's delicious. And the Mayans in this out of the way woman-ruled town we now call Joya de Cerén loved their crabs. Which they got from here:

The river that ran, and still runs, next to the village.

Finally, we end our visit to Joya de Cerén with this:

Again, that's an animal we don't usually see in Mayan iconography. It looks like a camelid. Maybe a llama. Or a guanaco. Apparently people in other Central American countries call Salvadoreans "Guanacos." It's what we would call a friendly insult. Equal parts each. Did those wise Mayans of yesteryear foresee a future when the inhabitants of this land would be called "guanacos"? The wonder of the ancient Maya.

Moving on to the next stop, which actually does feature real pyramids (which are largely still buried under the volcanic soil): Parque Arqueológico San Andrés.

It's very green. Below is a pyramid still completely underneath the green green grass of Parque Arqueológico San Andrés:

But some stone does come through the soil in places.

One sad reality of San Andrés is not just that the pyramids remain buried in soil, but much of what was found has been buried in concrete. The structures are so fragile that the archaeologists had a choice: seal it in cement or let it decay at a rapid rate.

The opening below on this ancient ruin was for the archaeologists, but it's not been sealed shut.

 

And here's an ancient ruin. Standing in front of an ancient ruin.

Damn. Who is the decrepit old guy who keeps jumping in front of me when someone is taking a picture of the young and handsome me? This ancient ruin is so girthy that you cannot even see me with him standing in front of me like that.

And here's a picture from high ground, viewing a pyramid emerging from the soil:

And this is an indigo plant:

The Mayans figured out how to extract indigo dye from this decidedly not-blue plant. It's a complicated three-stage process. Indigo was beloved by the Europeans soon after the Spanish made contact with the New World. And they hadn't even invented Levi's blue jeans yet. The indigenous Mayans worked in slave conditions to produce the huge amount of indigo Europe was demanding which, let's just say, was a whole lot more than the indigo needed to blue-up a small Mayan village. Eventually, African slaves were brought in to work in the indigo mills after the Spaniards -- pretty much literally -- worked the Maya to death in the indigo factories.

And speaking of local plants whose wealth was also not obvious and, yet, the Mayans figured out the complicated to extract something from this plant that became tremendously valuable after the Spanish contact with the New World:

Cacao. The cacao is right behind the indigo plant in the above picture.

Next stop: Tazumal.

Tazumal is located in an outer suburb of El Salvador. The other two sites are about an hour outside of San Salvador, but Tazumal is a loud and busy place.

This is not a historic site for quiet contemplation.

Even if you are sitting on your throne-stone.

And here's the star of the Tazumal show:

Let's climb to get a better look, shall we?

The view from on high:

And looking from a different angle: 

This is the ball court.

All Mayan villages of any import had ball courts. This one was in such a state of decay that it is not known how the ball game was played here. Was it knock it off a statue, like in Copan? Was is knock it through a tiny stone hoop, like in Mexico. Was it shoot through a metal hoop hung ten-feet high, with a net dangling underneath, like in the NBA? The answer is lost to time.

Some archaeology is happening here:

And this big stone is somewhat interesting. On one side, you have to look closely to see this because of the ravages of time -- something with which I am all too familiar -- eroded the man's face, but this is a Mayan ruler who had a mustache. Just like back in the disco era.  

Only it was ancient Mayan times, which went back even farther than the disco era.

And visible next to Tazumal was one of the more colorful cemeteries I have ever seen.

So much blue and turquoise and teal coloring, which are not generally considered funerary colors.

It was sealed off from Tazumal with barbed wire. Someone didn't want me crossing over.

And, just to be clear, by "crossing over" I meant traveling from Tazumal to the cemetery. Nothing more than that.

And that will conclude the pyramid portion of this five-day holiday vacation weekend. It's on to the beautiful colonial era town of Santa Ana.

We didn't stop long in Santa Ana. Just enough time on the way to lunch by the lake to snap a few pictures.

This is the Teatro de Santa Ana.

This is City Hall. This is the newest of the buildings around the main plaza. But, credit where credit is due, they made it in the same style as the older colonial architecture, blending in quite nicely.

This is the former casino, catty-corner from the main plaza. Yes, it's "catty-corner." It's not "kitty-corner" or some other such nonsense. Catty. Corner. Hyphenated.

This is the Cathedral of Santa Ana.

The interior is nice:

But the exterior is what makes this spectacular.

And here is a picture of me in front of the cathedral. The tour guide who snapped the picture thought the picture was ruined because several birds took off and flew in front of me when the picture was snapped.

I really don't like pictures of me much at all. But I think this particular picture is all kinds of awesome. You can tell I'm worried about whether Suzanne Pleshette is going to get all of her schoolchildren to safety before the birds attack. (Obscure Hitchcock reference. The best kind of Hitchcock reference.)

One last look at Santa Ana

Lunch time!

Looks like an ordinary restaurant, roof overhead but open-air sides. But check out the view:

The restaurant overlooks Lago de Coatepeque, a very large lake that is within a very large caldera of a local volcano. There is no known outlet for this lake. They do know that the water in the lake eventually reaches the ocean, but how it leaves the lake is a mystery. They do know it is deep. Very deep. How deep? Deeper than that.

I had a beef dish, with tortillas, carrots, a small bit of corn, avocado, chorizo and a mixture of rice and refried beans called "casamiento," which translates to "marriage," which is a typical Salvadorean style of serving rice and refrieds.

I ordered the beverage "limonada," which I thought was going to be lemonade. But this is Latin America, so it was something much better than lemonade. It was limeade. It's always lime and never lemon in Latin American cuisine. It was extremely tart. Extremely. Which, to my tongue, meant: Most Delicious Glass of Limeade Ever,

Dessert was coffee and a cake made from rice flour and cheese.

In El Salvador, this is called a "quesadilla." Seriously. Not even remotely like a quesadilla in Mexico, You think the food in Central America is the same as it is in Mexico? Order a quesadilla in El Salvador.

And that ends today's excursion. No supper blogging tonight because this was a late lunch and -- more importantly -- did you see how much food was on my lunch plate?