The Past Two Days

Fatigue and internet issues have kept me from posting these last couple of days, but I can now take advantage of an unintended ten-hour layover in Miami, and the superb facilities of the Centurion Lounge to remedy the wrong.

Our flight from San Salvador was scheduled to depart at 5 AM. We arrived at the airport at the God-awful hour of 3:30, only to be told of a 1 ½ hour delay, which meant that, when we reached Miami and went through all the immigration and customs procedures, we were too late to get the luggage onto the new plane. This always happens to us when connecting in Miami. Oh well, la-di-dah.

So, back to our last two days in El Salvador. Thursday was spent entirely at the Lagarza on idyllic Shalpa Beach. Truly a lovely place, run by a couple of young entrepreneurs and attended by a superb staff. Let’s just call it a lazy day at the beach; basically a private black-sand beach, sheltered by rocky formations on each side. I wish I was still there. So much for day 1.

Day 2 posed a problem, because I did not want to miss the quarterfinal Euro2020 game between Italy and Belgium at midday. We were told that it would be shown at a sports bar called “Strikers”, in San Salvador’s neighborhood of Zona Rosa, so, that’s where we went, had lunch, and watched the Azzurri defeat the Belgians and advance to the Semis. For our last night we had booked a lovely spot on the beach at a resort near the airport. It was going to be a hassle, because we could not drop off the car at 3:30 in the morning, so, beforehand, we had to return the rental at the airport.

Since we were in the capital city, we figured we should wait for the traffic to subside and decided to venture downtown to explore the area around the Plaza Central. There are a few highlights to see, especially the lovely Our Lady of the Rosary church, but if you ever come to El Salvador, stay away from the center of San Salvador. It is hectic, wild, somewhat intimidating, and not very pretty. There are other parts of the city (like the Zona Rosa), which are much more becoming.

Be that as it may, it was an experience. And not necessarily bad.

After a bit of a struggle trying to get Google maps to work, to guide us to the distant airport (42 kms), we did however succeed in returning the car and be dropped off at the hotel, and this morning at 3, our driver did show up as promised to get us back to the terminal. All’s well that ends well, but knowing the details of the flight, we would just as soon have stayed in bed a little longer. Until the next adventure my friends. And again, thanks for coming along.