Jan. 22, 2003
Leon, Nicaragua
We left Xela, Guatemala, for El Salvador the middle of January, feeling like we had had enough city life for the time being. Xela is at about 6500 feet and we had made use of our cold weather clothing, which is taking up so much space in our packs.
But leaving Xela we quickly descended into the tropical environment of Guatemala´s coastal lowlands. Banana trees and coconut palms replaced the struggling pine forests of the highlands (decimated by villagers seeking firewood to cook their tortillas.) Further south the tropical vegetation gave way to dry hills and fields of cattle.
Compared to the highlands both the country side and the people of the lowland area seem uninteresting. In contrast to the Mayas of the highlands who wear colorful outfits unique to each village (the women at least) the lowlands are populated by ladinos, more hispanic than Maya, who wear mostly cheap westernized clothes, pure polyester.
We arrived at the Salvadoran border about nine hours after we left Xela, hot, sweaty and tired. Fortunately the border formalities went smoothly. We were the only ones going across. The usual gaggle of “helpers” who try to carry your luggage or point you to the right window were strangely absent.
Usually the first thing one does after getting across a border is change some money into the local currency. But we were informed by the money changers that they were no longer changing U.S. dollars into Salvadoran colones because El Salvador was all dollars now.
El Salvador adopted the U.S. dollar as its official currency in 2001. We were here just about the time that happened. Even then the ATM machines were spitting out U.S. $20 bills. One of the things the opponents of “dollarization” were afraid of was that prices would rise once the dollar became the standard. But as far as we can tell that is not yet the case. Two years ago one could technically use dollars for purchases, but colones were much more common. Now it is the opposite. But it seems that prices in dollars are simply what they were in colones, divided by the exchange rate, which was fixed at 8.75 to the dollar. So you get odd prices such as 12 cents for intra-urban bus fares, 37 cents for a soda, 46 cents for a couple of avocados.
Another more philosophical issue related to “dollarization” are the implications of a country giving up its own historical currency and adopting the currency of a foreign country. The currencies of Europe have largely been abandoned in favor of the Euro. But the Euro was newly coined and symbolic of the economic unification of Europe.
El Salvador is hardly unified with the U.S., but the economic reality here is that U.S. dollars have been flowing into the country for a long time, partly in U.S. aid but more importantly from Salvadorans living and working in the U.S. About 25% of Salvadoran citizens live outside the country, mostly in the U.S. and the money they send back is an important part of the Salvadoran economy. So it was probably easier to adopt the dollar than maintain a de-facto dual currency.
But money is more than just a means of exchange. A teacher in the U.S. can give quite a history lesson with just a dollar bill. A Salvadoran teacher could do the same with colones. But when Salvadoran colones have disappeared entirely, replaced by U.S. dollars, a link to Salvador´s history will have disappeared. How will Salvadoran teachers explain the images on U.S. dollars?
Back to the travelogue… El Salvador is about twice a long as it is wide (or vice versa) and lies pretty much east-west. It is bordered on the south by the Pacific Ocean and has some very nice beaches. We had thought about beach hopping our way down the coast. But we were eager to get to Nicaragua and decided to spend just a few days on a beach, then move on.
We returned to a little settlement we had visited two years ago. We had rented a second story room overlooking the ocean from a family, and hoped it would be available again. We got off the bus and walked a couple hundred hards down a dirt road to where the family lived. When we walked up they recognized us immediately and called us by name. (We wondered whether they had had any other guests since we left!) They apologized that a storm had blown off half the roof of our room, but thought that since it wasn´t the rainy season it wouldn´t matter. We agreed, and settled in for a few days of morning swims in the ocean (Faye just waded in the surf), lots of reading and lying around in the hammocks. At night the full moon shown through the missing half of our roof, and the tide roared up to within a few feet of us on the beach below.
It is difficult to leave a beach in this climate. Tempuratures that are bearable in the shade with a breeze blowing in off the ocean become nearly intolerable a hundred yards away from the ocean. Climbing on a bus is the last thing you want to do. With a stack of books and a hammock I could happily stay a month or more on a beach. But the essence of travel is not staying, but going.
So, after the weekend we boarded the first of half a dozen buses that would take us to a seedy border town on the eastern edge of El Salvador. It wasn´t our idea of a great destination, but we wanted to be certain we could get across the stretch of Honduras that separates Nicaragua and El Salvador without spending the night. As bad as the Salvadoran border town was, it reminded us of most of the towns in Honduras we have been to.
We found a sleezy hotel- the only kind there was- did a little grocery shopping, then locked ourselves in for the night. We took some comfort in the steel door and thick block walls which could stop bullets if need be. The fan in our room operated only at top speed and sounded like an airplane taking off. But at least it drowned out the noise outside our room. A thin mattress did little to soften the wood slats of the bed.
We took off early the next morning to begin our blitz across Honduras. We were fortunate to find a mini-bus on the Honduran side which took us directly to the Nicaraguan border on the opposite side of the country. Within three hours we had crossed two borders, both of them annoying. (Sometime I´ll write a few pages on border crossings in this part of the world.)
On the Nicaraguan side the roads were poorly maintained. The scenery improved as we passed volcanos and herds of grazing cows, but we weren´t going anywhere fast. As our bus bounced its way through potholes and dust settled on our sweaty bodies we began contemplating a trip to Italy.
We are looking forward to exploring Nicaragua. After a good night´s rest and our first full day here in Nicaragua we have already been favorably impressed.