Drokpa Journal

Dates Traveled: March 2000

From Antigua I caught the bus to Guatemala City and then across the border into El Salvador. Decided to stay initially in Santa Ana, as it sounded like a better place than San Salvador. Santa Ana seemed like another world from Guatemala…. dirtier, hotter, not really set up for visitors, with more people simply standing around doing nothing - the kind of nothing that, to a foreigner, makes one feel as if they’re being sized up for what they’re carrying in the way of valuables and money. Call it an uneasy peace of mind while I was in El Salvador - heightened by the fact that I saw very few other travelers. It was as if they all knew something I didn’t. Obviously that wasn’t true, but strange things run through your mind when you first hit the unfamiliarity of a new country. The central park area and requisite cathedral bordering the park were beautiful, but in sharp contrast to the rest of Santa Ana, which was dominated by tin-roofed ’shops’ seemingly along every road. Best thing I did during my short stay in El Salvador was to catch a bus out to a park known as Cerro Verde, which is an inactive volcano. At the base of the volcano is Lago de Coatepeque, which is a lake within the crater of a different volcano. There are a few other volcanoes in the area, one of which - Izalco, I was interested in climbing. I was told it was unsafe to do on my own as there had been some robberies. Looked as if I was going to have to chance it since it was mid-week and there was nobody else around, when one of the park security officers said he’d go with me, so I had a little 3 hour hike to the top and back with my own personal, armed, man in uniform. It was a nice hike, and there was steam and heat from several vents on top.

From Santa Ana I was planning on spending a few days in San Salvador, but decided there really wasn’t anything there to hold my interest. Many of the Central American capitals are like capitals all over the world - chaotic, noisy, dirty, and more hassle than they’re worth at times. Therefore I simply changed buses in San Salvador and headed east to the small town of La Palma, near the Honduran border. Being the only gringo in a small town guarantees one to be the object of a lot of curiosity, and this was no exception. There is a ‘famous’ type of art that is done in La Palma. Hard to explain, but basically vivid colors used to depict very basic items - fruits, houses, people, etc. This art covers everything from plaques, to napkin holders, etc., and was overwhelming throughout La Palma……and now you know.

I didn’t find much of interest in El Salvador, so I decided to keep moving, and headed into Honduras.

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