Starting a New Year in El Salvador

After resisting for as long as possible, I suppose it's time for me to begin pulling my weight in this whole Wandering Wisconsinite endeavor. Since giving Jenna the title for the blog and providing the quote that adorns the top of the page I have been resting on my laurels for a couple of months but it will be more fun if I contribute as well.

A few months back we had planned to take a 3 day weekend and drive to El Salvador with our friends Alex and Caitlin as it was one of 2 Central American countries we had not visited yet. One slippery Guatemalan road, one large truck, and a "pay by the hour motel" later that trip was canceled, so we had to find another time to make it to El Salvador (for those of you who don't habla espanol, El Salvador is Spanish for... The Salvador). So we planned to dig out from under all that snow in Wisconsin a bit early and spend New Year's Eve on a black sand beach by the Pacific instead.

It was a worthwhile and fun trip and Jenna has already posted a few of the pics from the art museum in her last entry here so I won't bore you with details about that. However, I would like to make a few observations about the country from our breif visit there. As we have found in all of the other countries we traveled to in Central America, the roads were better than they are here in Honduras. No surprise there, but what was pleasantly surprising was how nice the city of San Salvador was in general. We were able to walk around at night, there were parks, people used the parks, and the sides of the road were not covered in trash. There was also a lot more "culture" there in the form of museums and such. Just though I'd pass that along to dispell the rumors that seem to be all over the place about how terrible El Salvador is and to encourage you to visit because we really enjoyed it.

I think I've rambled on long enough for my first ever blog post so I'll wrap up by giving you a link to my facebook album of pics from the trip so you can check it out/get jealous of us for being somewhere warm while most of you are freezing (literally from the weather reports I've seen) up in the Midwest.
Click Here for the El Salvador Photo Album

El Salvadoran Art

Jesse and I went to an art museum while we were in El Salvador for New Years. We were really happy and excited that there were museums there to get a little bit better insight into the culture of the region. Honduras doesn't really have anything to compare with it. As we walked towards the MARTE complex (Museum of Art), we saw this huge monument that was the Memorial of the Revolution. The MARTE complex looked like a building that one could find in Chicago or Milwaukee. The museum only showcased artwork that was either created in El Salvador, or was created by an El Salvadoran abroad. Needless to say, we were very excited to enter.

Inside the museum, the exhibit was divided into four different sections. Two sections were on El Salvadoran identity and history, and the other two were focused on fantasy and dreams- more modern in origin. Many paintings depicted traditional scenes like the one below.

This sculpture welcomed us as we entered. This was part of the fantasy or more modern art section.


The next two paintings were both painted during the Civil War in the 80's and early 90's. There were many paintings and sculptures created during that time. Most of the artwork openly displayed the feeling of pain and suffering that existed in the country at that time.


Overall, we really enjoyed our time spent at the art museum. We learned a lot about the country and as we were walking through, we really wished that more Central American countries had the infrastructure to have these types of complexes celebrating their heritage.