During our whirlwind road trip around El Salvador in March, we saw lots of cool things. Things like volcanoes, Mayan ruins…and fresh pupusas like these, made with your choice of either corn or rice flour (my advice: try both). The best deal we found for pupusas was at one roadside stand we stopped at for breakfast. We got coffee for the 4 of us (steamed milk on the side, which seems to be the classy Salvadoran way of serving milk with coffee) and a total of 5 pupusas split among three of us, for which we paid all of $3.35. Having a fresh, filling breakfast for about a buck per person is reason alone to visit.
I noticed that with but one exception, everywhere we went we saw livestock in the fields or being moved along the roadsides, but not being used to pull or carry loads. People carried loads – women on their heads, usually; and men on their backs or strapped to bicycles. I suppose your average Salvadoran horse or burro has lots of other work to do besides schlepping cargo.
In terms of public transportation, we saw that the preferred method for short trips was to stand up in the bed of a specially-outfitted pickup truck ("camioneta"), as shown in the pic on the right. Certain towns featured the ever-popular-with-me miniature Moto-Taxis, as seen on the left.
However, the camionetas and the Moto-Taxis are but drab alternatives to the coolest ride that El Salvador has to offer: their fleet of the most awesomely tricked-out buses ever. The average Salvadoran bus is brightly painted, with lots of fancy chrome, multi-colored reflectors of all shapes and sizes, and lots of custom detailing. Some buses even sport shark fins along the roof. They aren't the yellow Blue-Bird buses that took your sorry self to school back in the day.
Speaking of tricked-out vehicles, here's a couple of views of a hearse I happened across in a Salvadoran highland town. It looks like everything funereal can be unbolted and removed, in the event more earthly cargo needs transporting from Point A to Point B.
El Salvador has a lot of jungle in it, so let's look at some of the flora and fauna. Below, you see a pensive spider monkey, a portrait of a lizard I haven't yet identified; and flowers that may be types of morning-glory and pitcher plants.
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