| Apr 18, 2006 - San Salvador
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 | | show all 6 | | Outside of Iglesia El Rosario | | The surprising colors inside Iglesia El Rosario | | The surprising colors inside Iglesia El Rosario | | |
| San Salvador is a city of bunkers. Everywhere you go, you see 10 foot high walls topped with razor wire. Life in this city seems to happen primarily behind the large iron gates through which one enters most of the buildings. The city has been through a number of disasters in this century, including several earthquakes and a few bomb attacks during the civil war. Rebuilding has happened slowly, if at all. The damage is most visible in the old city center. Public parks are surrounded by old colonial buildings in various states of repair and disrepair. Even though crime has reportedly dropped significantly in the past few years, security forces are extremely visible everywhere around town. In each park downtown, we saw ten police officers carrying automatic weapons - two on every corner and two in the middle. We have grown accustomed to seeing heavily armed guards at places like banks and telephone offices, but in San Salvador we also saw armed guards at many restaurants and ordinary businesses.
Life in the suburbs is a bit different. Travellers are strongly advised to stay in the western suburbs, so we didn't argue. Our hotel was a five minute walk from MetroCentro, a huge new mall that may equal Minneapolis' Mall of America in size. We ate breakfast at one of the three 'Mister Donut' restaurants at the mall. Mister Donut had a decent breakfast buffet but, oddly, no donuts. |
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