El Salvador Delegation 2025: Day 1

June 17, 2025

My alarm went off, as scheduled, at 2:40am. My ride arrived about 3:00 and we met up with the other delegation members at the airport. Our group is Flossie (18 and just graduated high school), Mary (early 20s) and Natalie, LuAnn, and me (all "mature"). The other 2 members of our group will meet us at the airport, as they arrived a few days ago.

The trip was uneventful. Smooth flights with a 3-hour layover in Dallas TX got us to San Salvador around 1:00pm. El Salvador is in the Central time zone, the same as Iowa and Texas, but doesn't do daylight saving time so it was 2:00pm Iowa-time. 

I started Bossypants, by Tina Fey on the first flight and finished it before we arrived in San Salvador. Given how sleep-deprived I was, it was just the thing...interesting, a little funny, and light.

When we arrived at the airport, Kathy and Mike met us just outside. We took the traditional photo in front of a sculpture with our bags and then loaded up in the van when Alfredo pulled up to the curb.

We drove to Olocuilta for a pupusa lunch, although by then it was 2pm. 

Pupusas are made from a rice or corn flour masa (dough) that can be stuffed with any number of things...beans, cheese, shredded pork, loroco (a flower), spinach, etc. They are traditionally served with salsa and curtido (a slightly pickled mix of shredded cabbage and carrots).

Olocuilta's claim to fame is they hold the Guinness World Record for largest pupusa ever made. We took photo with the comal (flat surface traditionally used to cook on...it can be pottery or metal) and fire ring used to make it.

Sue, Natalie, Flossie, Mary, and LuAnn in front of the comal used to make the world's largest pupusa. The comal sits on top of the metal pan in front of us and the fire is built inside the brick wall underneath.

 

Then we made a quick stop at Parque Cuscatlán. It was raining a little so we didn't stay long while Kathy gave a quick tour of Salvadoran history as represented by the mural wall, memorial, and art works there. We always start with the mural that depicts the country's history from the original indigenous peoples, the Spanish colonization, and the civil war that ended in 1992.

LuAnn, Mary, Kathy, Flossie, and Natalie at the Salvadoran history mural wall in Parque Cuscatlán

The rest of that wall is a monument wall listing the known names of all the civilians killed or disappeared during the civil war. The names are categorized by year, whether they are known dead or were disappeared, and grouped by adult or child. At the end of the wall is a list of massacre sites and how many people were slaughtered there. El Mazote, which the group will visit in a couple days, and a couple sites in/around Berlin are listed, among many others. 

The Monument to Memory and Truth lists the names of the dead or disappeared civilians of the Salvadoran Civil war, starting in 1980 and ending with the peace accords in 1992

 

It was El Salvador's Fathers Day the day we arrived. There were many flowers on and around the memorial wall to commemorate fallen fathers.

Along the back wall of the park are a number of art works by Salvadoran artists and pedestals containing sculptures. It has a jogging/walking trail and exercise station, many flowers and trees, and an elevated path above the park. It's a very beautiful park with some very grim reminders.

 

Artwork mounted at the other end of the wall from the mural and memorial

I loved the image of this hummingbird, framed by the stone wall it's mounted on

We left the park and went to Casa Antigua, our guest house for the night. We were given keys to our rooms...the 2 young ladies in 1 room, the 3 older ladies in another, and Mike/Kathy in a third. After settling in, we all convened on the back patio for Kathy to fill in more of the history that we didn't get into at the park because of the rain.

The back patio at Casa Antigua is everyone's favorite place to hang out. The garden space beside the patio is especially lovely with its profusion of flowers and greenery.

 

A while later, we walked a few blocks to El Sopón Típico for supper. It hadn't been that long since lunch so I wasn't super hungry so I had a bowl of chicken and vegetables soup. Yum!

 After supper we walked across the street to Boston Ice Cream. It's hand-packed ice cream but they shape it into a tall, thin peak on the cone. It's kind of a mesmerizing process to watch. I wouldn't have believed they could do that with an ordinary ice cream scoop.

Mary, Flossie, and Natalie with their after-dinner dessert. The mango ice cream was very popular in our group

We walked back to the guest house. I took a shower and was in bed by 8:45. It had been a looooooong day.