Let me tell you about a very interesting conversation with a stranger…
Where to begin?
As I’ve said before, I hate traveling, but I love going places. For this reason, I tend to spend a bit of time wherever I go, make friends, get to know the place, the local cuisine and music, the cool local spots that your average tourist wouldn’t know… and so on.
For this reason, I’ve made a bit of a home here in El Salvador in a wonderful place run by an amazing dueña , have met all kinds of interesting, beautiful people who have also found their way here. We’re all here for the sunshine, the waves, the tranquilidad, the privacy and security and the sense of being a witness to history.
I’ve made a couple of good friends and a few pleasant connections. The sense of gratitude is palpable; I thank God with every sunrise and every sunset, every time I drift off to sleep listening to the waves, even every time I log in for work.
That meanders from the point of this post though. El Salvador is an interesting place to be at this juncture in history. It is probably the most optimistic country in the world, the only place where life is better today than it was ten years ago, where people believe the future will be even better.
Most of us from privileged countries take everyday life for granted. One Salvadoran told me how they used to see mutilated bodies on their way to school. Another gushed about how she and her friend were on their way home at 9 pm — and they never would have dared to be out at that time not so long ago — when the car broke down. A terrifying, dangerous situation just a few years ago becomes a happy, “I just called my husband and he came and picked us up!”
You don’t realize how bad things were and how just being able to live a free life without worry of being murdered, organ harvested, raped every time you exit the gate of your humble home… you just can’t appreciate how BIG that is.
Bukele has been criticized for a tactically brilliant operation that resulted in 80,000 bad guys getting what they deserve: prison. It perplexes me as to why anyone would regard this with anything but respect. Given the “Spy vs Spy” nature of cartels and governments here in Latin America — both sides have moles and rats — it’s amazing that they planned, trained, and executed in a way that hit the bad guys totally unaware. Military and law enforcement strategists will study what was done here for decades, maybe centuries.
The end result is that life is better for everyone. 80,000 criminals were incarcerated, but 4 million people were freed.
But the poor are still poor…
Today I met the first Salvadoran I’ve ever met who had anything bad to say about Bukele. I don’t want to dox the guy, but he’s a media personality, and I’ve seen his show.
His main point was that the poor are still poor.
“Lo mismo en todo el mundo, amigo,” I said, playing devil’s advocate, “Así es.”
He played devil’s advocate to my devil’s advocate and showed me that he is my brother in soul.
“No soy un fanático de nadie o nada.”
This was after a rant about how sick he was of everyone fawning over their president. The poor are still poor. Yeah, the rich are richer, but the poor are still poor. This guy isn’t a god. Let’s get real here. He’s just an idol, and I don’t idolize anyone.
This little rant got the noggin’ joggin’, and I realized that I’m exactly the same. “Celebrities” and sports stars and business tycoons and all the people we’re supposed to revere as gods have always made me want to pick up my guitar, crank it up to 11 and play a punk rock song that I’m writing as I play it.
Those people get up, have breakfast and take a shit like the rest of us.
Revere the unsung stars, ignore the manufactured “stars”
Some years ago, one of my proudest moments happened after a few rounds when I told a famous movie star that he was just an actor who sucked the right dick. “I know a thousand actors, dude. You want to impress me? Go undercover as a mole in a criminal organization where you die if you break character.”
The guy looked like I had just kicked him directly in the nuts, which I suppose I had in a way.
Side note: Bukele must have had a few unsung actors/moles when he managed to round up 80,000 brutal killers, not that I idolize him; I’m more impressed with the unsung ninja actors that made it possible.
Anyway, I’m really glad that I chose El Salvador and will probably come back next year if only for the sunshine and waves.
Pretty intense jump from chilly mountains to warm beach…
This is half-baked, but it’s fresh. Something compels me to get this down before it fades into memory.
Perú is a fantastic place, and I intend to return there as a dedicated tourist. My current situation is hybrid; I have a day job which I take seriously, but this job allows me a certain amount of bandwidth to explore the world (and escape miserable NYC winters) so I might as well take advantage of it.
Perú, a country bigger than Alaska and California combined and even more geologically diverse, impressed me and challenged me. I only saw a tiny little bit of it, just a few days in Lima and a couple weeks in Cuzco. Either place deserves a full-spectrum experience. Cuzco (aka “Cusco”), was especially other-worldly, though Lima was a highly enticing tease since it’s such a massive city with so much happening. The little bit I tasted, I liked a lot. Felt like a place worth spending a year or more. Lima felt comfortable, like a place where I could easily make friends and music.
Cuzco was a totally different story. Like most places in the world that survive on tourism, a cold distance, a cultural void spanning galaxies , made me feel welcome-not-welcome. Oddly, I did connect with a few locals and even met a friend who makes me want to go back. But I could never live there; too damn cold, too far away from “home,” wherever that is.
Even with a constant sense of not belonging, lingering discomfort from the altitude and cold, I developed a deep respect for the culture and power of the place. The “fashion scene” absolutely blew me away. Baby alpaca wool is the finest fabric in the world, and the clothing produced from it is exquisite. By accident, I ended up learning something about how they produce it. A quechua woman demonstrated with her own hands how they color it with natural plants that grow, impossibly, at 3000+ meters above sea level. Those colors are sublime and unique and muyhermoso.
The experience of “seeing how it’s done” drove home what I was talking about in the very first post of this version of this blog: No Logo. Quality speaks for itself. The beautiful clothing of Cuzco, with its unique, inimitable style, locally designed and sourced, locally produced, locally sold (at premium prices), is as fine as any apparel in the world. As a matter of fact, I would say that Cuzco is a fashion capital as much as Paris, New York, or Milan… more so, in fact.
It’s better when you can touch and try on.Not so colorful, but these earth tones would be high style in the autumn in NYCThe “Sydney Sweeny Has Good Genes” thing has not missed Cuzco
A Gucci label doesn’t say “quality” to me; it says “Insecure sucker who will overpay for mediocrity.” What says “quality” to me is something else. Is it beautiful? Is it natural? Does it serve its purpose (making the wearer both lovely and warm)? Is it unique? Does the soul of its creator live on through the work?
Cuzco was full of that, and I haven’t even gotten started on the ruins and other-worldly sense of civilization. In fact, I’m only going to touch on that; you can visibly see civilization being built on top of civilization for millennia in that place, in real time, in real life. The Inca told the Spanish (and this is documented) that they had built on top of an older, more advanced civilization, just as the Spanish eventually did to the Inca. To this day, nobody knows how the original stone work was done, upon which the cathedrals and elegant, non-corporate-chain hotels (and even the less classy corporate ones, the JW Marriott and whatever) were built. You can still see that stone work right in the center of town. You don’t even need to follow the tourist hordes to Machu Picchu.
See how the stones on top are not as big or perfect as the ones on bottom? See how there’s no cement? Top stones are Inca. Bottom, pre-Inca. Not shown — shitty Spanish masonry on top. Civilizations are built on top of civilizations, and for the past 3000 years or so, devolution has been the trend.
If you want to ride a horse or hike a bit, you can even see what Machu Picchu looked like before it was excavated. It’s mind-blowing. One gets the sense that once upon a time, a much bigger city existed there in the uninhabited heights.
Even with this sense of wonder, every second I spent in Cuzco, I felt a bit out of place, a bit uncomfortable, except in bed where I slept wonderfully in the cool of night, soothed by the warm embrace of heavy natural bedding.
Let’s skip to the chase, returning to El Salvador…
It was a stressful journey. I won’t bore you with the details. I traveled off the beaten path a bit, making a direct beeline from the mountainous chill and light air to the hottest place I’ve ever been, right at sea level: El Salvador.
As I write this, I’m about 10 feet above the crashing waves, in a bungalow on a cliff rooted in the beach, a cliff that will eventually succumb to the waves and become beach. It’s warm. It was hot this afternoon.
And, goddamn, it feels good!
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that my travel in Perú — wonderful and worthwhile as it was — was fraught with stress and peril. El Salvador is a totally different experience. They don’t fingerprint me on my way in (and OUT ?!?) of the country. My accommodations were graciously prepared (and I haven’t even paid for them yet, though I will, of course). The locals are warm and welcoming. I don’t have to put on shoes and socks, let alone a coat and hat.
It feels so good to be barefoot again, roasting in the sun, calmed by the rolling waves. I feel so clean, having spent some time frolicking in the salty sea. My neighbors are friendly. Oh, and I can breathe. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve already lost weight; exercise at 3100m above sea level is… burdensome.
Yeah, I’m more of a beach bum than a mountain boy, for sure. Just 24 hours ago I was gasping for breath, chasing down my ride to the airport. Now I’m chillin’ like Bob Dylan, enjoying the mating calls of geckos as a percussive enhancement to the infinite melody of waves, warm and happy as a clam. Another day, another timeline jump…
It’s not just the warmth and thick, oxygenated air that I like about El Salvador; it’s the sense of participating in history.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned that one of the more uncomfortable moments in Perú was having a cajero gobble up — for no apparent reason — my suitably funded Fidelity debit card. By the way, if you’re traveling internationally, I recommend getting that card as it waives all ATM fees and foreign transaction charges. Of course I had a backup debit card from my shitty (hint) bank. The magnetic strip on that old card had given out. It worked as tap-to-pay but wouldn’t give me cash. That kind of sucked, not having access to cash.
Since I’ll be here for the next several weeks, I thought, “Well, I’ll have Fidelity send me a replacement card.”
Then I went to the supermarket, and the moment of epiphany hit. A big, modern supermarket had a sign on the checkout line, “Aquí puede pargar con Bitcoin.”
As it turns out, I have a bit of Bitcoin dust in a wallet on my phone. I put a couple hundred bucks worth there a few years ago as an emergency measure. Turns out, it’s… uh… more than a couple hundred bucks now. I thought, “What the heck, let’s see how this works.”
It was so easy. It was so quick. It didn’t involve any bank or intermediary, just me paying the store directly, as if with cash.
Fix the money, fix the world. Yup.
At some point I realized that they have Bitcoin ATMs here. I can just get some cash with my phone, directly, without need for a bank. Suffice to say, I will wait until I return to ‘Mairka to get a replacement for the inexplicably devoured Fidelity debit card. Bitcoin works here, and I have a bit, as it turns out.
That got me thinking about Bukele and El Salvador (“The Savior”). It wouldn’t surprise me if El Salvador ended up being the Singapore of the Americas. It’s a very similar situation.
If you look at Singapore today, you would never believe that just 75 years ago it was a poor, crime-ridden backwater. Now it is a clean, modern, multi-cultural powerhouse, a great innovator in finance, a beacon of prosperity.
Why? Lee Kwon Yoo. He cleaned up the crime, made bold moves in terms of commercial/financial innovation, and turned Singapore into what it is today. He was called a despot and a dictator by The New York Slimes and all the usual suspects, but the proof’s in the puddin’, darlin’. Results speak for themselves, not unlike quality.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about cosmetics, here. I hope that El Salvador doesn’t go so far as making chewing gum illegal.
There is a lot of hope here, and if Bukele plays his cards right, El Salvador could become a small-but-mighty beacon of prosperity in the Americas, as is Singapore to our eastern counterparts.
I know that el Presidente has more important things to do than read this blog, but if I were to advise Bukele, I would say the key is in education and continued innovation. Of course the bankers will apply pressure to kill Bitcoin and other substantial financial evolution. Play their game a little bit but not too much. Most importantly, invest in education. A small country’s greatest resource is its people.
There are plenty of folks like me who share a vision of peace and prosperity, a lot more of us than there are of “them,” the criminal parasites who once had their boots on the neck of the little nation in which I currently find myself.
OK. That’s enough. I’m tired of staring at this screen. Time to watch the full moon rise and enjoy the splendor of nature.
I really love El Salvador and wish the greatest success upon her and the world, and I hope to return to Perú one day as a full-time tourist.
Peace, Chuck
I’ll take this bungalow over just about any mansion in the US
As I woke up this morning, happy to have a day off, I found myself horrified by a since-deleted post I wrote while drunk and frustrated about Twitter/Musk. I have always liked Twitter and feel that it has gone downhill since they removed the character limit. The thing I liked about old Twitter is that it was very organic and one did not need to waste a lot of time finding one’s interests or expressing one’s thoughts.
It’s frustrating that I see Musk’s latest tweet at the top of my feed every time I log in (which is rarely lately). It’s frustrating that I barely see the people I follow; maybe they’re shadow banned like me. It’s frustrating to not see my own tweets in the hashtag lists in which I put them. Most of all, it’s frustrating that I cannot tweet at all most of the time.
Musk has ruined Twitter. He’s treated like some kind of demigod because he received untold billions of dollars to fund an overrated golf cart company. Teslas are horrible cars in my opinion. They could have been cool if they had been made to run on hydrogen fuel cells which require no batteries. Honda makes a hydrogen fuel car, but it’s fairly useless without infrastructure to support it. It’s interesting that Honda also led the way with EVs with the Insight which failed for the same reason — lack of infrastructure.
It’s a pity.
But today is Martin Luther King Day, and it has me thinking about that great man, a true leader who changed the world in a good way by leading African-Americans to their God-given civil rights. He paid with his own life for this. That is integrity. That is courage. That is true leadership.
Where are such men and women today? Protests all seem contrived, and they are for the most part by various well funded interest groups. I can’t even remember the last charismatic leader who led an organic movement.
I wish I could lead a movement where people started their own websites instead of using social media platforms owned by billionaire oligarchs, but I’m shadow banned on those platforms and dislike them anyway — it would be pretty hypocritical of me to use them to promote my movement.
I wish I could start a hydrogen car company and build out the infrastructure for that superior technology, but Wall Street isn’t going to throw tens of billions of dollars at me to do that. There’s no money in hydrogen, but there is in cobalt and lithium and toxic EV batteries in general.
I wish someone would start an “Earth First” movement that aims to make things better on this planet before selling pipe dreams about going to Mars. Humans are never going to Mars, at least not in the way Musk envisions.
I really hope my boss didn’t see the drunken, angry post I made last night, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who did. It was not a good post considering the peaceful spirit of the person we celebrate today.
Joins pantheon that includes Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, et al
Let’s just get the side note out of the way right up front: I’m writing this from Colombia, one of several countries that have already absorbed a large number of Venezuelan “illegal immigrants,” currently bracing for more. The USA is not the only country in the world facing the issue of poor and dispossessed people pouring over its borders.
Venezuela’s oil wealth obviously has nothing to do with kidnapping its leader and indicting him in a kangaroo court on bogus charges
Unless you live under a rock, you know that Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro has been “arrested” by US Special Forces. The US Department of Justice indictment charges Maduro with “narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy and weapons charges.”
Uhhh… what? “weapons charges?” He is a head of state and commander in chief. He commands an army, navy, and air force. How is he in violation of US weapons laws?
As far as “narco-terrorism conspiracy” goes, what does that even mean? Again, as a head of state, all kinds of scenarios would be war gamed. Notice the word “conspiracy.” Why not just call it “narco-terrorism?” Couldn’t it be considered terrorism to invade another country and capture its leader when that country has not done anything to you? Could it not be considered terrorism to randomly bomb boats and seize oil tankers?
Seriously ask yourself, “Who is in violation of international laws and norms here? Who is the terrorist?” How can you charge another government with “conspiracy” when every government on the planet plans nefarious clandestine activities against other governments?
The truth is, Maduro has already been found guilty of ruling a country sitting on a LOT of oil and not being willing to give it away in exchange for dollars that the US government prints to infinity (to the detriment of all people who work for that currency, I might add, in the form of inflation), just like Saddam Hussein, Mohamar Khadafi, and Bashar al-Assad — and that’s just recent history.
As an American citizen, I would like to believe the usual propaganda that our noble armed forces are liberating the Venezuelan people from an evil dictator, but I’m way too old and jaded to buy that. Venezuela is already a mess and will become more of a mess. They sold us that line of goods with Libya 14 years ago, and Libya is a lawless hellscape to this very day. Venezuela is likely to break into civil war in addition to the problems they already have with crime and poverty. That’s just how it is.
Proud to be an American? I wish. I’m embarrassed to be an American at this moment, and being in the country next door to Venezuela, even uncomfortable with my citizenship.
