El Salvador - Walking with Saints

December 3

Hello everyone!

Arriving in El Salvador in August, I had a little, Western-based viewpoint of its history. This mainly revolved around violence, gangs and more violence. I wanted to get a different, more local perspective, which was offered by going on a walking tour of the historic centre of San Salvador. 

The National Palace

Walking through the Centro Historico

The walk itself started in Parque Cuscatlan, a large park to the west of what is seen as the capital’s historic centre. A more modern trend, and one seemingly reflected in Santa Tecla as well, is for oversized and garish Christmas decorations to be erected in public and private spaces.

The park is large and connected to a
children's museum called Tin Marin

A giant Christmas Haribo gummy bear?

The park’s name is an indicator of Salvadoran history. Parque Custcatlan is named after the area of land which covered the western half of modern El Salvador, and was home to a tribe known as the Pipils. Cuzcatlan means ‘Land of the Jewel’ in the Nauhatl tongue.

Pipils made up a large proportion of the land

Legends about jaguars from days gone by

This kingdom disappeared when the Spanish arrived on their Central American conquest in the 16th century. Brief skirmishes soon after led to Spain’s new regional capital being shifted a few kilometres to what is now downtown San Salvador. 

A step mural of a torogoz, the
national bird of El Salvador

The wall depicts pre-Columbian life
before progressing to more recent events

Spain ruled the roost here for the best part of 300 years, before independence from Spain was achieved in 1821. It was in an area now known as Parque Libertad, a few kilometres east of Parque Cuscatlan, that people started meeting to discuss independence ten years prior.

Independence from Spain in 1821 led to El Salvador
becoming part of the Federal Republic of Central America

Walking here took us around the
outskirts of one of the main markets

There are some charming colonial-era buildings dotted throughout the historic centre of San Salvador. One fun story is connected to the Rosales National Hospital. The Belgians helped with the construction of the building pictured below. Helped in some regards. They accidentally sent their materials to Salvador…Brazil. Even now, a lot of people add ‘Central America’ to post to avoid this issue.

The inauguration was in 1902

There aren’t a vast swathe of colonial buildings which have survived to the present day. This is less political and more geographical. Earthquakes have smashed history to smithereens on many occasions in San Salvador. More recent buildings have been adapted. The gothic-inspired Basilica Sagrado Corazon, for example, has a metal exterior for protection.

The last major eruption was in 1917

The church was built in 1901

Walking down the street from here will bring you to another square filled with pigeons and flanked by two important buildings. I’ll talk about one of these, the church, later. For now, I’ll focus on the statue in the middle. This depicts Captain General Gerrado Barrios. He was President of El Salvador from 1859 to 1863, and is seen as a key person in the development of coffee production and its industry in the country, by making it compulsory amongst many farmers.

The palace was stopped being used by the
government in 1974, and is now a museum 

Barrios was executed by Guatemalan forces in 1865

El Salvador has more modern history, of course. Its most notorious period, the Civil War of 1979-1992, is memorialised in Parque Cuscatlan. The wall of names stretches for 85 metres to reflect the names of the 75,000 confirmed deaths and 15,000 ‘disappearances’. Our guide suggested the actual death toll is probably a fair bit higher.

The Civil War was between the government and a
group of left-wing groups under the acronym FMLN

The war was ended with the signing
of peace accords in early 1992

The most famous martyr of all of these is Oscar Moreno. He was the archbishop of San Salvador when trouble transformed into outright violence. His decision to speak out against the violence in 1980 ultimately cost him his life. He was assassinated, in all likelihood by a group known as a ‘death squad’, whilst giving mass. There was then a massacre at his funeral, with an official death toll of 31. 

Romero had pleaded with US President Carter
to halt American support of the Salvadoran government

Murals inside the cathedral

Romero is a hero here. The airport and one of the main roads are named in honour of Monseñor Romero. He is also portrayed as a saint. The tour guide said that priests can become saints if they perform three miracles. He didn’t elaborate or offer examples. However, further research taught me that Romero was beatified in 2015 and canonised, thus becoming Latin America’s first saint, in 2018. What the guide did show us is Romero’s crypt, which is under the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador.

The third and most recent
construction was finished in 1999

President Obama visited the tomb in 2011

This walking tour gave me the beginnings of an insight into major events throughout the centuries in the land of Cuzcatlan. Much of it has featured turbulence, some of which has spilled over into extreme violence and slaughter. One can only hope that Romero’s preachings of peace are adhered to in the future, both by the people and the land upon which they live.

We enjoyed learning about our new city's history...
when not being accosted by pigeons...

In memoriam

Love you all,

Matt