The Travelling Teacher: El Salvador - You said how many plates?

October 21

Hello everyone!

This blog is not an advert for the positives of beer. However, it did lead to this…

Museum of 1000 Plates and More

Some very different plates!

Allow me to explain. A regular social event for some of us is to meet at a nearby watering hole after school on Fridays. Part debrief on the week, part get-it-out-of-your-system, part…well, pretty much anything else goes, really. It is a fun and valued part of my social life in El Salvador.

For historical reasons, we call it Gauchos

Any excuse...

The particular Friday in question was the final one before a two-week holiday. Discussion about holidays led me to expand on my trip with Hannah and her parents, taking in Montecristo and Suchitoto.

This is a previous photo, but may reflect my reaction
upon hearing there is a museum dedicated to plates

This was a lovely viewpoint between Metapan and Suchitoto

I’ve been to Suchitoto a couple of times. It’s nice enough, though I do think it is too popular for what it is: the old capital that has cobbled streets and a manmade lake. We were going for one night, mainly for Hannah’s mum to get a coffee. A very good coffee, admittedly, yet not one that would inspire a blog.

Abuelas: home of good coffee and a massive tree

Suchitoto's cobbled streets, often populated by Qute cars

This is the point at which a friend in the pub told me about a museum. I’d not been to - or heard of - this museum before. He sold it as something…unique. The Museum of 1000 Plates…and More.

The man has been collecting them for over 40 years

He has visited 22 countries, with others being donated to the museum

Before heading east to Suchitoto, there were a couple of other places I wanted to visit in the Metapán area. There was arguably even less information about these two spots than there was for Parque el Limo: Lake Güija and San Diego Forest.

The lake has an area of 45 square kilometres

The lake and forest are part of the San Diego
and San Felipe Las Barras National Park

In the utopian plan, we would have found an easy access point on this lake, entered it with our kayak and paddleboard, and cruised around the Salvadorean side (the lake is shared with Guatemala). Even before arriving, that wasn’t going to happen; there wasn’t enough space in the car for the water toys. But finding an easy entrance to the water wasn’t particularly….easy.

Like many here, the lake was formed by a volcanic eruption

This is the 'clean beach for tourists'

Away from the boat-laden entrance, the lake did look lovely and incredibly peaceful. That probably connects to the fact that not many people visit. A shame, and a lake I’d be tempted to return to in the future.

There apparently are Mayan rock carvings in the area

There are also many dogs - this one looks
identical to Hannah's family's dog

The forest was also a bit of a bust. Again with no information - the only reason I knew about it was because it had been mentioned in a talk received by my class in school a few days before - we tried two ‘entrances’. The first was likely the real entrance, a ramshackle wooden hut before a bumpy and increasingly muddy path. For fear of getting trapped, we didn’t venture too far into the thick vegetation.

We didn't find this sign. Looks like a more legit entrance...

I stopped exploring at this point

So on to Suchitoto, once the capital of the area and a place seemingly lost in time. Well, until the reverberations of drills filled the air of the main square. Modern renovations to keep it looking old.

The main square is under reconstruction

Suchitoto's imposing Santa Lucia church

Walking alongside the church, away from the square, is a small sign inviting you into a museum. After learning that it would be open until 6pm, I excused myself from dog duty and headed in to find…plates. So. Many. Plates.

Entrance is $2 for locals and $3 for foreigners

The 'main room' of the museum, with
separate sections back and to the right

Also a short, smiley man called José Ramos. Desperate to show off his collection, and with slightly more English capability than I have for Spanish, he took me and Hannah’s mum under his wing for a whistle-stop tour of almost every plate. Mainly by loudly and rapidly announcing where it was from.

Native American plates, many donated

A Pre-Hispanic plate

A mixture of 'sports' and clowns...

A vast and varied collection of plates is interesting in its own right; however, it is José’s enthusiasm that brings the museum to life. A collector of plates ‘and more’ for over 40 years, he seems the type of person whose charisma can fill a room. Almost as much as the bell and gong he randomly clanged in the middle of talking, causing me to jump out of my skin.

"These are from Africa." I didn't interrupt the monologue by
asking which of the 50+ African nations they came from...

The gong makes quite a noise!

Since 2012, Suchitoto has thus hosted one of the stranger museums in the country. José believes he actually has closer to 1500 plates, but that many of them are in storage and haven’t been organised yet. Whether they add to sections such as the UK Royal Family, American singers or depictions of ancient Greeks, is another question.