Central America
Carrying a heavy assortment of colorful accessories, bangles and keepsakes she crosses the time worn street. “Business is business!” rings the anthem from the tiny, animated street vendor. Even at 10 years old, her style is relentless. Her beautiful Indian features break into a smile as if by rote and her pitch continues: “Buy something, lady, take something home for your amiga! Two scarves, 180 quetzals, buy now, lady. Business is business!”
A Beginner's Guide
Imagine an idyllic coastline of tropical beaches and world-class surf breaks, backed by a gorgeous hinterland of smouldering volcanoes – and virtually no tourists. Throw in a handful of ravishing colonial Spanish towns and a dynamic capital and you’ve got El Salvador, one of the most enticing yet least visited nations in Central America. True: poverty and crime remain big problems here, but remember that the civil war ended way back in 1992. Tourists are rarely affected, and outside the capital your biggest worry will be sunburn. Driving around the country is easy and fast (it’s small enough to get anywhere in a couple of hours) and the official currency is US dollars. Salvadoreños are some of the friendliest people in Latin America and English is widely spoken – almost everyone you meet has a relation working in the US (or has been ‘up north’ themselves).
Seventy-five years ago, when Belize was still British Honduras, Aldous Huxley wrote about it. “If the world has any ends, British Honduras would certainly be one of them. It is not on the way from anywhere to anywhere else. It has no strategic value. It is all but uninhabited.”
