Revolution Museum and Guerrilla Camp Worth the Visit

Steady rain all yesterday kept me away from the village for much of the day, but by this morning it had stopped and left behind a thick foggy mist covering the surrounding mountains.

I caught a ride in the back of a pickup--the village is a steep quarter mile trudge up the hill from Perkin Lenca--and arrived at the Salvadoran Revolution Museum early. 

Inside are photos, posters, news clippings and many artifacts from the rebels' side of the brutal conflict that ravaged the nation from the late 1970s until the early 1990s.  A highlight for me was the various maps of the conflict including one that showed the extent of FMLN territorial control.  Other maps included hand drawn ones of combat operations planned against government forces.

Artifacts include weapons, communications equipment, medical supplies, diaries and personal effects of fighters and their leaders.  Though most of the accompanying explanatory texts are in Spanish, the visitor gets a good overall picture of the history of the war from about 1975 until a U.N. brokered peace was established in 1992.

Outside the museum are remnants of American made aircraft which crashed in the area or were shot down.  Perquin was the center of a very large area of the department of Morazan which was under rebel control for much of the conflict, so it was also a major target for government air raids and bombings.

The guerrilla camp features much evidence of those raids including shrapnel stuck deep in trees, unexploded (deactivated) ordnance, and bomb craters.  Like the Viet Cong before them, the FMLN fighters built tunnels to shelter them from those raids.

The rebel camp also had a display of the party's clandestine radio station Radio Venceremos and a photo of the captured vice minister of defense being interviewed by rebel journalists.

After a day or two up here the visitor gets a good sense of how and why the rebels were able to control this area for so long.  This is high, remote, heavily forested country, and though the main road is now paved, everything off the main road is dirt (or mud, as it is now).  Is it any wonder that a weak central government, unable to outright defeat the rebels, sought material assistance in the form of aircraft and airborne bombs from the Reagan administration?

Although there wasn't truly an FMLN "revolution" in El Salvador in the strictest sense, I think it's pretty amazing what did, in fact, take place.  The FMLN and ARENA--the main government party--eventually came to an accomodation with each other, and since 1992 the FMLN has been an active participant in the political process here.  To me that seems a fair outcome after a war which obviously couldn't be won by either side--even with American assistance for one of the parties.

Day 35 in Perquin: Cool Remote Place Charms The Soul

Perquin strikes one immediately as very quiet (there's hardly any traffic noise apart from the bi-hourly bus); very beautiful! (we are high in the mountains here, and even as it threatens to rain, the calm, cool forest green surrounding the area is pleasing to the soul); and very remote (the 40 mile bus trip from San Miguel takes more than two and a half hours).

Here we are in FNLN country:  communists!  Perquin was their HQ during the civil war, and the rebel guerrillas controlled considerable ground in this region, with many sympathizers living in the area.  As we drive up we see evidence of this on the walls of people's houses and businesses:  the red of the FNLN serves as a backdrop to iconic portraits of Che Guevara and other leftist heroes.

I'm staying at Perkin Lenca, a fine hotel/restaurant built and owned by American aid worker Ronald Brenneman who made his name in the 1980s building housing for refugees made homeless by the conflict.  I was skeptical when I heard that this place has hot water, but I can confirm it is true:   today I had my first truly hot shower since I left the States. . .

Perquin village at first glance is extremely charming.  In a sense, this is the most remote area I've visited on this trip--maybe the most remote place I've visited since I was in northern Laos in the 1990s.

By remote I mean it takes some time and effort to get here.  We are in a mountainous border region of El Salvador which supposedly doesn't even have an immigration checkpoint with Honduras, just a few miles up the road.

By remote I also mean there are no chain supermarkets, fast food joints, or even banks here ( I visited the ATM in San Miguel today to make sure I'd have enough cash for the next few days).  Yet there are a couple cyber shops, a handful of cellphone shops, and a couple dozen restaurants.

There is the usual church, albeit a very small one, and the parque central/municipal square.  There also is the Museo de la Revolucion Salvadoreña.

But mostly there is a lot of peace and quiet along this so-called Ruta de Paz which runs from here to the Honduran border.  Perhaps this route is a testament to the possibility of reconciliation between once deadly enemies who--even today--collaborate hopefully in government for the good of all Salvadoreans.

The Savior Saint is a Gritty Capital City

I've been to a few traffic-choked, chaotic and suffocatingly hot, polluted big cities in my time (Bangkok immediately comes to mind), but San Salvador comes close to taking the cake for its ability to exhaust the visitor after only an hour or so out & about the grimy central district. Like Mexico City the altitude here is already high while the city itself is surrounded by higher mountains. This tends to keep stagnant the noxious smoke & fumes from hundreds of belching buses that ply these city streets on a constant basis.

If the pollution wasn't so bad, the heat & humidity would knock anyone out by itself, but taken all together it makes for a health hazardous triple whammy. Every time I make an errand run I catch myself heading back to my aircon cool, cozy room after 60-90 minutes tops. But I've seen the usual sights: the one or two big cathedrals, the plazas, the parks, the markets, and the big colonial government buildings. This city makes you feel that if you've seen one Central American capital then you've seen them all.

So it's onward and outward again tomorrow, probably to the eastern El Salvador hub of San Miguel where I can catch a Tica bus to Managua. I went looking for the Tica terminal today but lost hope & gave up after an hour. I know I was close and maybe getting closer, but the locals I asked for directions from kept sending me in circles!

What more can I write about El Salvador and its capital? This country is the smallest in Central America--about the size of Massachusetts--and it has one of the smallest populations at around 7 million. It's the only country in the world named after Jesus Christ (The Savior), with its capital also named for "Saint" Savior. Salvadoreans suffered a brutal civil war in the 1980s, but now the country has been more or less at peace, at least politically, for almost two decades. Despite the fact that El Salvador has a somewhat dodgy reputation for crime & violence, I've noticed that the friendly people really seem to work hard to counteract that, welcoming the foreign visitor with goodwill & helpful advice.

It's definitely it a bit off the tourist's beaten path. You don't see very many Westerners here, American or European. But I feel it's worth a visit (it's my second in two years) to see how a remarkably tough, resiliant, vibrant people can climb their way back from such past horror & adversity--and with a generally cheerful & optimistic outlook for the future.