Sunday, February 8, 2026
I wanted to say something nice (or at least, neutral) about El Salvador, so I looked up its nickname and found out it is called Land of Volcanoes. That works. You can see several volcanoes from the port.
We are in the port of Acajutla. It is El Salvador’s main port. We can see about a dozen large tankers and bulk carriers anchored offshore. There wasn’t a lot of activity, though. The ships did not seem to be docking or loading or unloading.When we docked, we found ourselves parked next to a “floating bomb.” This kind of ship (LNG carrier) will likely be coming to Anchorage soon when we run out of natural gas. That is expected to happen as soon as 2028.
The port here is very industrial, and we were not permitted to walk through the port to get to the town of Acajutla. I think there was a shuttle to the port gate, or maybe to the central part of Acajutla. There was also a shuttle to Sonsonate.
When I was back at home planning this trip, I was not aware that Acajutla was more of a gateway to Sonsonate than a tourist destination in its own right. A port talk a few days ago clarified this. We were told:
- Don’t go to Acajutla, and don’t try to walk there.
- Go to Sonsonate.
- Sonsonate is hoping to become a tourist destination. They really want tourists to visit.
- Free shuttle buses will be provided to Sonsonate (by the local government, we think). It is a 25-minute drive. Don’t try to walk there.
If I had known this when we were still at home, I might have just opted for a tour arranged through the ship, though some of those tours were lengthy and had a lot of bus time. But even after hearing this, I thought we could see Sonsonate on our own, especially with a free ride there on the shuttle bus.
My AI itinerary was actually based on visiting Sonsonate rather than Acajutla, though it was a little vague, so I felt comfortable going to Sonsonate, a place I had never heard of until it popped up on my Copilot itinerary. Copilot described Sonsonate as “one of the region’s most historic towns and a hub of local culture.” Sounds good, right?
So let’s get started. The first thing to know is that El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America and the most densely populated (pop. 6,000,000). The second thing to know is that El Salvador has been controlled by a series of kleptocrats and dictators since 1931. Third, the country has one of the highest crime rates in the world.
We were able to get tickets for the 10:00 bus to Sonsonate by using our Navigator app (Holland America’s app). We got off the ship a bit early, but the bus was there and it all seemed very organized, so we boarded the bus. After a few minutes someone came on the bus and said there was another bus farther down the dock that would be leaving sooner, and we could take that bus. We walked over to it, and climbed aboard. About a dozen from the first bus came over right behind us. Nobody counted them as they left the original bus and walked over to the alternative bus. There were only about 6 seats left on the alternate bus, but the extra people seemed ok with standing in the aisle.Then someone came along and said standing was not permitted and they would have to get off. Then there was a big kerfuffle about where to send the standees. During this time I noticed our original bus driving by and leaving. Eventually a decision was made and the standees were taken to another bus. At no point was anyone asked to show their bus tickets. After further discussions and some false starts, our bus finally left the pier. It seemed very disorganized.
There is a highway that runs straight from the port to Sonsonate. No turns needed. As soon as we left the gated entrance to the port, we passed what looked like a large prison. I looked it up later. This was not the notorious CECOT prison that has been in the news lately. It was not any prison. It was a complex of warehouses and offices. They just have to put a lot of concertina wire and security around everything here.
Soon we started to pass small ramshackle houses and businesses located in what might have been the highway right-of-way. Who knows if the highways here have rights-of-way? There were a lot of places that might have been junkyards.
Many of the houses and businesses were protected by razor wire and/or locked gates, even though they looked just as poverty-stricken as the other houses. About 20% of the sad-looking houses had satellite dishes.
There was a lot of trash along the side of the road, including near the houses and businesses. Some of it had been there a long time. There were a lot of junk cars and trucks. There were often piles of tires by the side of the road.
The “businesses” seemed to be mainly tiny bodegas or markets, tiny restaurants, auto repair garages, and junk stores. Most of the time there were no sidewalks.
I wondered if the buildings right up next to the road were legal, and whether they had water or sewer service.
We arrived in Sonsonate after about 20 minutes. It was a small city, population around 72,000. There was more traffic here, and it was more densely built up, but the poverty still predominated. Nothing was new, very little was well maintained. Yet, Sonsonate is considered the second most important city in western El Salvador.
The bus stopped in front of a dilapidated park and we all got off. Everyone seemed sort of shell-shocked and just stood there by the door of the bus (blocking the exit, of course) trying to figure out which way to go. There was nothing there, just a bit of sidewalk to stand on. About a third of the folks on the bus decided not to get off. They just wanted to ride back to the ship when the bus made its next run.
There was no one at the drop-off point to greet us or answer questions or pass out maps. There were no signs pointing the way to places. This was going to be 100% DIY. We only knew that there would be a bus returning to the ship every hour on the half hour. Thank goodness for that information. I don’t think the non-English-speaking bus driver could have told us when or where to get a return bus.
I knew that there was a railroad museum at the place where we were dropped off because I had been looking at Sonsonate on Google maps. We wandered into the park to see it. First we passed a group of high school students. Some students belonged to a band. A group of girls with batons belonged to some kind of marching squad. I wouldn’t call them batons twirlers. They were more like cheerleaders doing routines while holding batons. I noticed that the high school kids looked different than most of the locals we saw there. The baton girls were fairly tall and light-skinned. They had long, sleek hair. They looked like they came from middle class families. The band was a little more mixed, but they also seemed to come from a more affluent background. Most of the other people we saw were short, brown-skinned and dressed in more traditional clothing. I wondered if these kids went to a private school. I wondered if they were there to practice or if they had come tothe park to perform for the tourists (us). They didn’t really look at us or face us. After about five minutes they finished and began to leave, so that told me they were not here for the tourists.
We continued on to a building that looked like an old car barn for the railroad. It turned out to be the museum. It was such a sad museum. It wasn’t really a railroad museum. It seemed to be more about the history of Sonsonate in the early 20th century. There were a series of easels holding posters, which were mostly text, mounted on cardboard or foam core. Everything was in Spanish. There were a few photos and a small number of artifacts such as clocks and an old typewriter. None of the artifacts were labeled. The lighting inside the museum was poor. The only thing we could really figure out was a series of pictures of young women who seemed to be “queens” of an annual festival of some kind, or a parade, in the early 20th century. There were no doors on the museum, and it was free to go in and look around, but very few people went in.
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| Inside the railroad museum |
After the museum, we considered going to see a cathedral which was about 4 or 5 blocks away. We decided not to because it was Sunday and we didn’t want to intrude on people who were attending mass. Furthermore, it would have been difficult to walk there. It was hard to cross the streets and the sidewalks were quite cluttered with vendors. I also felt a little uncomfortable at the prospect of going too far away from the other passengers.
There was a big market across from the park. It looked dark and crowded. The idea of eating there was unappealing. Nothing looked particularly clean. The items for sale seemed to be things local people would want for their households, not crafts or souvenirs. We decided to jump back onto our bus. It was still there and we didn’t want to risk having to wait an hour for the next one.
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| One of the local shops |
I felt a little guilty leaving after such a short time. I really wanted to get a better sense of El Salvador, and maybe see some crafts made by the Pipil, the indigenous group who have inhabited this area for a thousand years. I had hoped to try some of the local food somewhere. But the reality didn’t mesh with my expectations.
There was nothing here for a visitor. Just a Sunday morning in a busy, crowded city. Was I acting entitled, I wondered, by being unwilling to stay a little longer, dive a little deeper into the local culture? At least we got off the bus and looked around for a bit. At least we got off the ship. At least we tried to learn something about this region and its people.
And I feel that I did learn something about Salvadoran society. When a kleptocracy is running the country, the resources are funneled to the few in power and there is not much left for the general population or the public good. You don’t get to have new buildings, or museums, or decent parks with flowers and public art and playgrounds. You don’t get to preserve much of your own history. The police aren’t going to keep you safe, so you need barbed wire and locked gates. You may not even get to have clean water and sewer systems, and garbage trucks. On some level I already knew all of this, but it really sinks in when you go there and you have to figure out how to navigate it - if you can navigate it.
I think the HAL “travel guide” who gave a port talk about Acajutla did a poor job of preparing us for this visit. She definitely oversold Sonsonate. Some of this is on HAL, but much of this is on the locals/the port/the city/whoever. It doesn’t have to be like this, as we will soon see. (I have seen poor indigenous people in the Amazon, who live far off the grid and have less than the Salvadorans, do a fantastic job of engaging with tourists and showing us their way of life.)
I wonder if the next “volcano” here will be the population. The country is nominally a democracy, but it is more accurately an illiberal democracy, it seems to me. It is so corrupt that it is hard to see how it is sustainable.
Don’t take my musings too seriously. I have only spent a few hours here and I have only seen a tiny bit of the country. I have not spoken to anyone who lives here other than the bus driver who does not speak English. I am simply trying to put what I have seen together in a way that makes sense.
Meanwhile, back at the ship, a military band played on the pier and a rather small “big letters” sign was available for photos.
Today’s fabric is Volcano, by sheenarae for Spoonflower.
