El Salvadoran Wedding Registry

The Man. The Legend. Evan Mario Luthye.

I met Evan while attending Cornell College. We both played football. We both pledged to the same fraternity. We both liked cheese. It was a good friendship from the start. Since then, Evan has been a fantastic friend, way better than I could ever hope to be, so I felt compelled to make an effort to get him and his beautiful bride-to-be, Becca, a thoughtful gift for their wedding. Evan's father's family is from La Libertad in El Salvador, so I traveled to the small Central American village to find a gift there...

...well, full disclosure, I was already in the area and figured I'd stop by.

I departed Nicaragua aboard a shuttle that cost approximately $40. It left early in the morning so we could cross two international borders and arrive in the small town of El Tunco before the day was over. Although I am comfortable taking the cheaper local buses while traveling within one country, I had heard enough border crossing horror stories from other travelers to encourage me to take a more accredited shuttle company.

When I arrived in El Tunco, I procured a shared room at a hostel just around the corner from the main road. The Tunco Lodge is located across the alley from the Rio El Tunco, a small murky stream that slowly flows from the surrounding mountains into the Pacific Ocean. Although I only paid for a shared room, the owner mistakenly grabbed the key to a private room. By the time he discovered his error he didn't want to retrieve the correct key, so he gave me the private room instead (for the same price). I was happy to accept the upgrade.

After exploring the beach-side restaurants and walkways, I ordered four pupusas from a small roadside stand. A thick tortilla shell with a cheesy savory filling, the pupusa is the official dish of El Salvador. After lunch I returned to the hostel pool where I conversed with fellow travelers. The majority of individuals who visit this town have one intention, to ride the epic waves pounding this part of the Central American Coastline. So surfing was usually the topic of most of my conversations, however, I'll gladly listen to someone else tell me something about which they are passionate (even though I have never surfed a day in my life).

The next day I paid twenty-five american cents to board a local bus and travel the short distance south to Puerto de La Libertad, the home of Manolo Flamenco, father to Antonio Flamenco, and grandfather to Evan Mario Luthye. As soon as I got off the bus in La Libertad, however, it was clear this "small village" was really more of a city and thus any hopes of running into someone who may know the Flamenco family vanished. I made a few attempts at talking with shop owners as to whether they knew the family, but combined with my broken Spanish this request was not received all that well.

I spent the day at the fish market located on the long wooden pier jetting into the Pacific Ocean with wall to wall vendors. The most captivating fare was a bag of baby hammerheads one gentleman dumped directly onto the wooden planks of the pier. Before I could take a photo all the little sharks had been snapped up by local consumers. This market is probably not up to FDA standards, but fresh nonetheless.

In the end, I found some local vendors along the boardwalk from which to purchase my wedding gifts for Evan and Becca. The first, a small framed piece of art featuring a feather on which the artisan painted a few brightly colored Macaws. The second, two young girls who made jewelry for a local organization that supports young female entrepreneurs. I figured a necklace made of some local beads would be sufficient to fulfill Becca's hippie standards.

After a few more nights in El Tunco, complete with a few cafes (solo negro, por favor) in the mornings and more conversations with new friends, I hopped a shuttle with a few other travelers to traverse the final length of the small coastal country to its northern border, observing the remnants of past volcanic activity and a plethora of colorful flora, before entering Guatemala. About an hour later we crossed one more border taking us back into Honduras where my Central American adventure began almost three months prior.

This final border crossing allowed me to utilize the full extent of my knowledge of the Spanish language. We had just exited El Salvador, entered Guatemala, was exiting Guatemala and attempting to re-enter Honduras, all within a couple hours. It should have been a straight forward process, however, the gentleman at the Guatemala port of entry had post dated our visa stamps in our passports. Because of this oversight, the port of exit from Guatemala couldn't just give us an exit stamp with the correct date because, according to their system, none of us had technically entered the country yet. Although our driver quickly stepped in to help, I still had to explain my three months of travel itinerary to the immigration representative - all in Spanish. Although I'm sure I sounded like a toddler to her, I must have made a little sense because she ultimately stamped my passport with the correct date and I was allowed to leave the country.

Content with my recent accomplishment of troubleshooting an international immigration problem in another language, I settled into the rest of the trip as we made our way to the town of Copan Ruinas in Honduras. However, I still had one more adventure remaining before returning to the United States. Stay tuned for that in the next blog.

Thanks again for reading. I apologize for the longer interval between the last post. I'm moving around bit and will hopefully get back on a better routine soon. I'm settling down in Denver now and will continue writing from here. Talk with you soon!

Dustin

Probably what Evan looked like as a kid.