Globe Corner Blogs

I recently returned from a trip where I drove through Mexico and all of Central America (sans Belize): Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, back through Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and finally Panama. Browsing through the Central America section of the store, I came across Joan Didion’s Salvador. As always, Didion captured her subject through her lens of unsettling physical disconnection. Given the country’s violent, bloody, and war-torn history, this lens was a perfect fit.

In planning our El Salvadorian itinerary, we found the Pacific coast to be a much more pleasant option than the north, where the main attraction, according to both the Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet guide, was the Genocide Museum. We opted instead for two days on the beach. And they were very pleasant.

Despite the bad rap El Salvador gets, or maybe because of it, we were able to find not just beach front, but “beach on” accommodations for the night. The highway simply ended at the water and opened up to a series of colonial homes converted into restaurants and sleeping accommodations. Families frolicked in the water, while street vendors shooed the stray dogs hoping to catch a bite of their french fries. At high tide, the veranda-style restaurant where we ate was surrounded by the ocean. One had only to walk down three steps to be in the water. We shut the joint down with drinks and fresh seafood only to find that the entire beach front area was closed by 7:30 pm.

The woman whom I had spoken to about sleeping in hammocks on the beach that night was gone. The beach, once full of tourists and establishment owners, was now deserted. We had almost resigned ourselves to spending another night in the car when we were swarmed by a horde of fifteen or twenty children, none older than twelve. The Lost Boys! We thought. They began doing tricks for us – cartwheels, wrestling – when you don’t speak the language of a country, kids are so cool to hang out with because they know how to communicate without words.

We managed to get across that we need a place to stay, and that we wanted hammocks on the beach. They ran us up and down the beach, from one house to another, when finally, one of them – who we’ll call Peter Pan – slipped in between the bars of a gate and emerged five minutes later with four hammocks. Rewarded with skittles and gum, the lost boys promptly ran down the beach hooting and howling. We slept pleasantly, despite mosquitoes and a minor case of food poisoning acquired by cousin Sam, who had asked for ice in his drink earlier in the evening.

When we woke the next morning to a beautiful sunrise on a vast and empty beach, we were offered showers and breakfast. Sadly, we had to decline owing to the long drive ahead of us, including two border crossings. As we drove onward, we experienced a kind of hypnagogia, wondering if last night had been a dream or not. As the reality of the night before, we could only shake our heads in wonder – who knew that El Salvador could actually be Never Never Land!

Read more: Beach Travel, Central America, El Salvador, Travel


Sarah M. is a writer and artist whose training in yoga and reiki inform her creative process. With a background in anthropology, existentialism, and the esoteric she seeks to understand the meaning of how humans connect (or disconnect) in the present moment. When she’s not seeking adventure abroad, she works with artists to help fulfill their vision - fundraising, overseeing production of public art works, and organizing concerts and festivals.

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