Day 3: Santa Semana en Sonsonate

Know how I knew this morning was going to be a Good Friday? Because I woke up and my knee wasn’t incapacitated as I had suspected it might be. Plus, Brian had drank a full on glass of WATER at the restaurant last night, and I had a drink with ice. Neither of us were clutching our guts and declaring the bathroom a toxic dump site. Woo-hoo! I had been very worried about that…. Those things, and it was literally Good Friday. In Latin America, it’s called Semana Santa (Saint’s Week), and it is a BIG DEAL. Like THE high holiday. I knew from being in Colombia that there were all kinds of processions and things, and really wanted to experience that! Searched the internet high and low for information and really couldn’t figure out where or when anything was. The waiter at the restaurant the night before said there are these things called alfombras (carpets) that are made in the streets for the processions to walk over, and that they are very popular. We ate some boiled eggs and headed out on foot, with plans to just walk the 3 miles to the main cathedral in town: La Catedral Metropolitana del Divino Salvador del Mundo. We figured there HAD to be something going on there. First stop, a little farmacia that was open near the house. We walked in and kind of wandered around looking for sunscreen. Lo and behold, and man walks up to us out of the blue and introduces himself in perfect English, asking what we needed. He was just a customer there, named Charlie, and he worked in a call center so he knew English. He asked the lady at the counter if there was any sunscreen. No. 🙁 He then asked us what our plans were. We told him, and he said San Salvador is dead (no pun intended, Jesus) because everyone leaves the city to go to the smaller towns or the beach. We asked him for suggestions, and he wasn’t really sure, so the guy calls his brother to ask!! Seriously, the people here are SO friendly and SO lovely!! Nicest I’ve encountered anywhere, really. The brother says Sonsonate is where it’s happening. That advice, coupled with the fact that my knee was already complaining slightly and we hadn’t even walked 2 blocks, made us decide to go back, get the car, and head to Sonsonate! We joked that some people can turn on a dime. We turn on the head of a pin. 🙂

There’s a thing about El Salvador. Every place is 1 hour and 21 minutes away, no matter where you’re going! Small country… We drove along the roads, which I must say that by Central American standards are quite good. Not a ton of pot holes, hardly any topas (speed bumps), and well marked. Along the way we saw very typical El Salvadorean things. People JAM PACKED into trucks, vans, buses, whatever. John Fredy (our driver in Medellin), had a joke with Allison. He could get a vehicle to give her and her friends a tour that would fit 8 Americans or 15 Colombians. Here, that joke would be revised to “or 23 El Salvordoreans”. Another thing we see a lot are sticks. Sticks piled into trucks. People gathering sticks. People carrying sticks. Sticks piled in yards. We’re pretty sure they’re for firewood (for cooking, not heat!). And babies. Babies doing all kinds of things babies in the US are definitely not allowed to do. Babies standing in buckets of water. Babies riding on a motorcycle down the highway with no protection, just kinda stuffed in between mom and dad. Babies crawling from the shoulder out on to the highway (no lie!!) from a roadside vendor. Naked babies just hanging out on the hood of a car. The only plastic they don’t have here is bubble wrap for babies. It’s natural selection at its finest! And speaking of plastic, I hate to say it, but damn this country is a mess. There is trash EVERYWHERE. We have seen so many people just throw stuff out of their car windows. It’s a damn shame. 🙁

As we drove, we could see the volcanoes in the distance. It’s the tail end of dry season here, so everything is brown.

We arrived at Sonsonate. And had NO CLUE where to go (running theme). The gps had taken us to some neighborhood with some dirt roads. We knew that wasn’t right. I zoomed in on the map, saw a green square, and knew that where there is a park, there is a church! We headed for it and there it was! The place was packed, but we parked within a block of it because even though there were hundreds of people, only a few cars were needed to get them here! 🙂 Purple was the colore de la dia!! There were lots of people dressed in purple robe type things- children, men, women. I’m guessing it signifies the royal color purple- the color of kings- for Jesus. The fountains even had purple water. One had red, I assume to symbolize the blood of Jesus.

Oh, speaking of bloodshed, I had read on a blog about Sonsonate that it was one of the most dangerous areas of El Salvador. They specifically mentioned to cover up any tattoos to avoid attracting the attention of gang members. That meant that I made Brian basically dress in a burka for the day…the 95 degree day. Let me quell any fears- Sonsonate, at least during Semana Santa is completely safe. I can not tell you how many times I said “These people are just so WONDERFUL” after every encounter. I’m used to people I’m paying to be nice to me. These people are just geniunely nice because they are. So helpful, so friendly, so accommodating. Anyway, I digress to say this. Brian could have worn shorts and a shorter sleeve shirt. 🙂

A lot of people were lining up in front of a big decorated building. When in El Salvador….so we lined up too. We were kind of an anomaly. And by that, I mean the ONLY white people. Kids especially would look at us so curiously! Some followed us around! We stood there waiting for we had no idea what to happen. We could hear drums in the distance, and soon, we saw the procession arriving! Jesus arrived from one side of the plaza, two women figures and an angel from the other side. In the middle was a stage and they were very loudly acting out the trial of Jesus.

The trial of Jesus was dragging on about as long as OJ’s trial, so I was ready to cut out. I wanted to find those alfombras! The people running the bathroom service (which for a crowd this large was very nice!) directed us in Spanish to where they were. We headed that way. As we walked along the streets, there were women selling all kinds of fruits and vegetables. In this area, the women all had these beautiful aprons on. I stopped on one side of the road and heard a mass of giggling behind me. There was a woman in a bright pink shirt laughing about me taking those women’s picture, and calling to them across the street basically saying “Ha, ha, you got your picture taken!”. I smiled at her and kept walking. The guy at a cart about 20 feet away told me in Spanish, with a mischeivous gleam in his eye, to go back and take her picture. I started walking back, she saw me, and started laughing her head off. I gave her puppy dog eyes, put my hands together in a pleading way and playfully said “Una fotographia, por favor…por favor???” She giggled and ran. It was on! I chased after her! Brian said I looked like the papparazzi! I knew it was all just a fun game and I wasn’t offending her or anything. She was laughing so hard, I was trying to snap a picture. I finally got one and walked over to show her. She about died laughing!!! It was SO MUCH FUN! I’m telling you (again) these people are WONDEFUL!!!

We turned a block and saw a bunch of alfombras that had already been walked over by the previous processions of the day. I think there was one early in the morning, and then that noon one that we had seen. But I knew the main one was this afternoon at 4 (the bathroom guy told me).

Around another corner, we saw them! Well, the beginnings of them. Salt was being spread out into some big wooden frames. It looked like they had a lot of work ahead of them! We continued walking and saw people preparing these huge stencils of palm trees, I assumed to put into the salted frames. They were no where near ready (it was about 12:30), so we decided to go back to the square and explore the church.

We wandered around the very crowded church for a bit, then decided to get some food. Every restaurant was closed, so we found a street vendor that advertised a chicken lunch with a coke for $2.50. Now HERE were some decent prices finally!! Brian got the chicken with rice, avocado, and tortillas (we are NOT fans of the tortillas in El Salvador- they’re too thick and don’t have much flavor). The chicken and rice were FANTASTIC!! I got bean and cheese pupusas which were really good as well. We also ordered some deep fried yucca things that had kind of a sweet sauce with them- almost dessert like- that were really good. The people at the food stand were bending over backwards for us. Got us seated at a table under their canopy. Made sure we had everything we wanted. Cleaned up the mega mess Brian made with the sauce all over the nice table cloth (I can’t take him anywhere!). And when I asked for a knife to cut the chicken with, they didn’t have one and apologized. Like 30 seconds later, a woman appeared with a knife. Again, SUCH LOVELY PEOPLE!!!

During all of this, the mega loud Jesus trial was still going on. We’re two hours in at this point. Soon, we heard the band playing, so we wandered over to the street and the procession was heading our way. Let me tell you about that Jesus thing they were carrying. There were 4 rows of about 8-10 men struggling to keep it held up! Ahead of Jesus were the guys waving the incense burners. Behind all of that was a large band. Behind that, the women and angel figures, all carried by women (much smaller to carry). I was pretty much right in the middle of the street snapping pics of it all!

After the procession passed, we headed back to the street with the alfombras to see what progress had been made. Those palm stencils were to paint on the street! There were guys who were basically mopping in between the lines with oil. Then a team would lay down a palm tree stencil and shake colored sand all over it. There were several teams working on this all the way up the street. And progress was being made on the alfombras! We oooed and ahhhed over them. I asked one guy what time would they be finished. 4pm. Holy crap. I was not going to just sit here for another 2 hours. Time to find a new adventure!

I hit up google maps and found some kind of ecopark thing in the area that was about 20 minutes away. We decided to go check it out. On the way back, we passed by my friend pink shirt again! I shouted “Hola!!” a few times across the street, but she didn’t look up. A guy next to me said something and she looked over and DIED laughing again! I snapped a quick pic and went to show her, then Brian said we should all take a picture together. They agreed. Now THESE are ladies I’d like to hang out with!!

Brian was all worried about giving up our sweet parking space. I told him it was FINE. We headed off to the town of Caluco. Down pavement which gave way to dirt roads. And I never felt safer. The eco park ended up being a bunch of really dirty looking pools that were PACKED with people. The water running through them was river water. We basically hit a dead end and turned around. Found a church and stopped to see if there was any interesting Semana Santa stuff going on. Not much.

Back down the road to head to Sonsonate again. We saw a kid on the side of the road with crabs on a string. I told Brian to turn around!! We pulled up alongside of him and I said I didn’t want crabs, but how about a picture. He agreed, and I snapped this shot. I handed him a dollar for his trouble. 🙂

Brian was completely wrong about parking. We parked practically on top of the alfombras this time! Of course, I heckled him half to death about that. “Oh gee, I’m not sure we can handle walking a whole 30 feet….” He loves me. 🙂 We checked on the progress of the alfombras. It was a little after 3pm and the thing was starting in less than an hour! Progress had been made, but still not quite finished!!

We walked around the streets. Me with my massive “Hello, I’m a tourist with money to burn on a fancy camera” camera swinging from my neck. Never felt safer. A lady asked if I would take a picture of her and her children. Damn thing came out blurry!! I was so pissed. But here they are. The ladies carrying things on their heads were so interesting.

The best thing to kill time anywhere is to go get ICE CREAM! Which we did. And in that shop was the only whitish looking person we had seen all day (way to ruin it, white lady!). After ice cream, it was about 3:40. I wasn’t interested in seeing another procession, because it takes forever and I wanted to be back before dark. We decided to just accept whatever was finished of the alfombras, and then head out. And here is what we found…

Ummm hmmmm….now what does a unicorn, a werewoman, a fairy, and Jesus all have in common?? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. This area has a strong Mayan presence (which was shown on the alfombra with the parrots and MAYAN TEMPLE). I was so damn proud and pleased with these people! Well played…well played, indeed. Hilarious!!! High five, Sonsonate, for making this day so “magical”!! Love your town, love your people, love your culture!!