The new year in El Salvador

This is almost like the blog that doesn’t exist! Anyways, back in sunny San Salvador after almost a month in Canada over the holidays. Ah, nothing beats a consumer society in the first world when you want to talk about Christmas holiday excess. Lots of parties, dinners out, great sushi (thanks Sushimoto for all the freebies and the birthday desert and present for my son Elliot).

Elliot and Diana enjoying the food and bev at Sushimoto

But this is a blog about  El Salvador! Well, the place is still here. The city is fine and pretty calm. The new Romero highway from Autopista Sur Bulevar de Proceres is fantastic. I jump on right past the Presidential Office and I can drive 80 mph on a brand new concrete highway all the way to Los Chorros highway which snakes down the hill towards Santa Ana and Sonsonate. Unfortunately, Los Chorros is under construction for a several more months and is down to one lane so the 15 minutes you save on Romero is easily eaten up. Going up the hill? Horrible as you can only drive as fast as the slowest car – usually a 30 year old pick up with a top up hill speed of 20 mph.

Golfers are buzzing about the Dye designed El Encanto golf club that may open up 6 holes for use in a few months. They have apparently sold 100 of the 600 lots with 50 going to golfers. They are still trying to get people to spend $25,000 to become equity members but no one thinks it is worth it. They have a presentation at Campestre to the richest golfers in the country and no one thought it would be worth more than $10,000 for a membership. Rather an interesting conundrum for them when there are only about 250 regular golfers spread out at three existing golf courses. They are going to have to cannibalize the other clubs to make any money to cover their expenses. A comparable golf course, designed by the Dye group, in Antigua Guatemala cost $80M to build and was getting only 10 rounds a day!

As a knowledgeable businessman friend of mine said, it is not easy making money in El Salvador.

At my course, I am paying $75 a month (when I am here) and has 9 holes in very good shape – except that 7 holes have OB making it very frustrating at times. I spoke to one of the manager who said that they would waive the initiation fee and charge $60 a month if your prepay 6 months. Can you imagine that? $60 for unlimited golf for one month.  The poor golfers down from Canada staying at the adjacent resort are paying $57 a round plus $20 for the cart. And unlike the other two clubs, caddies are not mandatory (although it is a nice policy to keep these caddies employed).

Awesome bar at the Bennigan's at the Torre Futuro. Best view of the city.

I have joined a group of old guys who get together twice a week for beers and cigars. One time is at the Torre Futuro site where that pathetically non-Irish American chain Bennigan’s grabbed a primo spot with an incredible view of the city. What kind of Irish pub doesn’t serve Guinness? But the food isn’t bad (actually, the tempura shrimp are pretty good) and it is cheap. Around the corner is the new Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. Haven’t had the chance to eat there (i.e. an expensable meal) but hope to soon. They stole the three great old waiters from Paradise where there has been a notable drop in quality. I spoke to an employee there and they said that they are doing 50 covers a day. Seems high but then again, that is a very low number for a place like that. Hope they have the deep pockets to gut out a year and I wouldn’t mind if they lowered their prices. You can get a plenty good steak at Pampa Argentinas or Hacienda Real for a lot less. Or go to the churrascaria at the Intercontinental for unlimited sushi, shrimps, seviche, carpacchio, and several kinds of grilled meat.

Working out at the Zone Fitness gym. Well located for me just down the road and the people are nice but they don’t have one cardio machine that isn’t broken or has a problem. Far contrast from the Y in Owen Sound where I was visiting and their new $40M complex with probably 50 brand new machines all working perfectly.

Back again writing after a few months. Updates, the Chorros highway was closed this past weekend to put the finishing touches and should be open next Sunday! Quite excited as I am getting really tired of driving around the back way of the volcano, or the twisting single lane of the coastal highway, or sitting in a huge slow chain of cars to get out to the golf course and a friend’s beach house.

Have also been to Ruth’s Chris and have a mixed impression. Turns out that the owner is also the owner of Paradise/Tony Roma’s and is part of the Pyramid Group that owns all the Pizza Huts, Wendy’s and KFC’s. I think he wanted to have a high-end place in his stable of restaurants so brought in the Ruth’s Chris franchise. Good thing he has deep pockets because it is going to be a challenge to make money there. The restaurant is beautiful and has several dining areas and must seat about 250 people. Furnishings and fixtures are all high end. Staff is great and they pulled the best waiters out of Paradise (which caused a terrible drop in the quality of service at that place). The only problem? There were only about 14 people eating in the restaurant during the dinner service!

The maitre’ d was our old favourite server and he made sure we got everything we needed. Our waiter seemed a bit inexperienced and had some problems getting the food and drinks served properly but he was trying. The food itself was pretty good but I was expecting something more. I ordered the biggest rib-eye on the menu and ... it was just okay. Mind you, I have never been a big fan of RC’s signature melted butter on the steak (I prefer the jus at Morton’s). But spending double of any other steak in the country, I expected something better. Also, Dan had the big filet and the lobster tails ... the latter were so tiny that each was consumed in two bites. What a waste of melted garlic butter! The manager came out and explained that they were having problems with their suppliers so that is why they put two on the plate. I have seen bigger shrimps in this country.

So all in all, the place is very lux but very overpriced for the market. Even the valet parking is ridiculous at $15 when the place gives you 3 hours of free parking and then charges $1 an hour. I should mention that the prices are the same as in North America or maybe even cheaper but when you have a dinner for over $100 for two people without wine, it seems excessive in a country where that will feed a family of four for two weeks.

I should really get to the subject of beer. I have been lamenting the lack of good draft beer in this country. Hanging out with the old retired guys here, I have learned the joy of drinking the local draft. When served very cold and cheap, Pilsener is a fine beer. My instructors have been a Brit who loves his bitter and a German from Munchen who, in his prime, could drink 10 large steins of beer. Now competing against  them are two micro-breweries.

Drunk guys at the beach! But they were very cool.

http://www.brewrevolution.com/

One is started by the San Francisco couple who opened up a small place in Tunco and serve 3 fine beers. Actually, they are excellent, tasty and creative ... but very expensive. They have three flavours and I tried each one a few times. 

New beer at Brasilea

At Brasilea, I think it is $5 a bottle which makes it the most expensive beer, more than any European import. I spoke with Andy the owner down in Tunco and he said that the taxes are huge and that is why he has to price it that way. He has a Belgian style wheat beer flavoured with maracuay (a local fruit) and pineapple. Very nice fruity flavour and a change from the orange flavour often found in wheat beers. He has an IPA with a local panela fruit and a very tasty black ale with coffee. They each have their own personality and I couldn’t say which I liked the most but probaby the black ale since darker beers are hard to get here. That reminds me that the giant Constancia brewery here used to brew Guinness as one of their three main beers! Some friends of mine went down to Tunco for the day and we had a great seafood lunch on the platform overlooking the beach. 

Lindsey and Egle showing off their giant seafood lunches at Tunco.

Then we went for a stroll to look at some of the boutique hotels and stopped by Brew Revolution for some beers. Met some funny guys from town along with their very inebriated cousin from Mexico. Had a long conversation with them capped by a salsa dancing exhibition by the Mexican cousin and my friend visiting from Toronto. All this fuelled by many beers and the hot sun.

Lindsey and her new friend showing off their salsa moves.

Competing against him is this Salvadoran guy who I met through his wife who runs the Expat Facebook group here. He is brewing two beers and has called it El Cadejo. Fatima said that was a great name for the beer and I Googled the name and found out that it is a regional legend about a large dog-like animal, a white one that protects travellers and a black one who tries to kill them. There is also a belief that the good Cadejo protects drunks! Naturally the beer comes in a light and a dark.

http://www.cervezacadejo.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=8

The pale beer is called WAPA which means Wheat American Pale Ale and seems to be a take off of “guapa” or cute in Spanish. Funny name since it doesn’t look or taste like an Ale but it is very tasty and has a nice hoppy finish. The darker is a red ale made from 4 German malts and 3 British and American hops which results in a very full and almost bitter beer. The Wapa seems more popular at bars but again, the price is a bit high. Republik has a pint for $4.00 and Bennigan’s for around $5.00. At the latter, you can get a 12 oz glass for $1.50. The last time I went to Paradise, they were offering two 20 oz mugs of Pilsener for $3.00.

I am not sure how successful these guys are going to be at this price point. Salvadorans love beer and love good beer but I am not sure if they are going to pay more 2 to 3 times the price of the local beers. It is quite sad as I know that the unit cost of materials for a pint of good beer is about 25 cents but this country has very high taxes and very high electricity costs so it is hard to produce cheaply.

Okay, going to post this before I get busy with something else.

Next blog posting will be about my trip to Bogota.

What's been going on

Me and the Brahva beer girl at the market

Wow, this is the first entry in about 5 months. I wonder if people are still reading this. I know that I get ticked when I am following a blogger who never blogs.

So I haven’t posted much on El Salvador ... because I have been mostly stuck in Toronto for that time period.

I was in San Salvador for a few weeks but am now in Toronto for a few more months.

We entered the dry season but we were still getting the occasional rain. No surprise since this has been a very, very wet rainy season.

It has been a bit of a crazy summer with the gangs escalating the bus ransom violence. That was in reaction to new legislation going after the gangs and it seems that they have backed down a bit. Mauricio Funes, once thought to be a communist stooge to his party and the scourge of good capitalists everywhere, has been doing a good job, especially considering the poor global economy. His popularity ratings are extremely high and everyone seems to like him, even grumpy Americans. It is actually quite amazing, really, that he has done such a good job considering he has little money to work with. How did he do that? Mammoth IMF loans? His party is stealing less than the last one which means more money for actual programs? Better management? Who knows but I am hoping for the latter two.

Other news? My buddy left his job as manager of Nvy (night club) so I guess I won’t be going there very much anymore. I was introduced to the new guy (who probably won’t remember me) and the doorman likes saying no to me (even though I have given him a bunch of good Cuban cigars). The Cuban restaurant Tumbao has closed and a new lounge/tapas bar called Likwid has opened at Multiplaza. As I am not young, beautiful or rich, I wasn’t invited to the opening so I cannot give you a report.

Dan set a nice table for Thanksgiving dinner

We went out to Playa Dorado to celebrate American Thanksgiving. This made it three turkeys for me this year. Went well except a had a gas oven minor explosion at home when I was toasting the croutons and another one at the beach house when the gas went out unexpectedly and then relit as I was checking on the baking stuff.

A beer canned toikey

We cooked a beer can turkey on the gas bbq, mushroom and sausage stuffing, beer and cheddar corn pie, candied carrots, roast brussels sprouts, and a lovely can of cranberry jelly.

We had 3 Salvadorans, 2 Cubans, 1 Canadian, and an American!

Waiting patiently for drinks at Remala.

My friend Minh moved his great Vietnamese/Thai restaurant from way above Escalon down to the Zona Rosa. He is just down from Alo Nuestro and Republic in a great new property. He is also across the street from Remala which is this great lounge housed in a gorgeous huge mansion on a large property. Hmmm, how the wealthy live behind big stone walls. Remala is owned by a French dude who inherited the property from his mere. Nice bar, great couches and some very groovy house/chill music (although better on the nights with a DJ). The cocktail list is pretty good and the drinks may actually taste good when the bartenders learn how to make all of them properly. I had a good apple martini and then a complete joke of a Manhattan (whiskey and vermouth poured over crushed ice in a martini glass) but they came back strong with the chocolate martin. A buddy asked for a Daiquiri and was expecting a lime based drink but they gave him a strawberry one as a surprise. We also went with our friend Claudia who was visiting town to check on her NGO http://www.treeswaterpeople.org/.

Beer and free (loud) accordian music

Took Claudia to my favourite lunch spot at the Mercado Merliot where we got trapped by a 5 piece band. I ordered the sopa de patas but Claudia is so gringa'ized that she couldn't stomach the thought of eating tripe.

The girls bumpin' at 4

The economy in general seems to be improving. Remittances are up from last year. The empty businesses in the Zona Rosa are starting to fill in. Mario's is back at the Code nightclub building - they specialize in 80's music and it is a lot of fun. The King Crab restaurant closed (who on earth thought they could serve small portions of freezer burned crab and charge $20 ... ate their once and that was enough) and they opened up a club (called "4") and a British Pub called the Red Lion.

Smoking a stogie at the Red Lion ... great music - Thompson Twins,

Culture Club, Human League, Simple Minds

The Pub ... is decorated nicely and I did have a bottle of Bass Ale but nothing on tap. They play only British music which is a nice change from frickin' reggaeton.

Frank with a bottle of the good stuff.

Frank the bartender is recently here from LA and speaks perfect English. Then we went next door to "4" which has the same owner. There was a private party downstairs so we went to the upstairs karaoke lounge. Pretty cool place, especially since no one was singing, with a nice decor and a drum set and guitars on the karaoke stage - I guess if you want to do more than sing. The V-Jay was taking requests and the girls got up to bump to Beyonce. I was smoking a big cigar which prompted the bartenders to turn on a giant fan built into the wall beside the bar ... I got the signal and left soon after. I think I saw them serve a beer to a kid who looked to be about 14.

Dan blasting out of the rough on the par 5 7th hole at the empty Veraneras course

The Veraneras golf course seemed to have survived the rainy season quite well. They added some drainage channels that helped with the heavy rains. One thing they don’t have is ... golfers! They seem to have reacted to this by raising their prices but I am doubtful that this strategy is going to work. On the helpful side, they have reduced the prices of their drinks and they let me suspend my membership while I was stuck in Canada. I was out golfing with my buddy Dan last Sunday and there were only two golfers in front of us and two behind us ... that is a total of 6 golfers for the entire day. The Canadian tourists coming down on Nolitours and staying at the Royal Decameron aren’t coming soon enough! We like having the course to our selves but don’t want the place going bankrupt.

I heard that a new new course is being built in the Libertad area by the guys who built the nice course in neighbouring Antigua, Guatemala (La Reunion Course?). They are going to charge $25,000 to join but that will be waived if you buy property in the club. I hear they are going after the wealthy Arab/Salvadoran market that is currently being shut out of the Campestre course (which is only 9 holes and costs $50,000 to join). This is a shock to me since there are already 4 courses in San Salvador and apparently only about 400 golfers. Plus another course or two are being planned. So either people really like owning golf courses (even if they are losing a ton of money) or they think they can grow the number of golfers (like has happened in North America) ... but good luck doing that since there are so few pros in the country and the courses don’t seem to like having middle class people showing up.

So far, I have a group of 9 coming down to visit me and a lot of people who came last year want to come again. I have been looking on the Internet for some rental properties and there are quite a few in the popular Costa del Sol area. They run from about $100 to $200 per night - the higher range includes places with 4-5 bedrooms, usually sleep over a dozen, a/c, a pool, and on the ocean.

Ooh, I can see the ocean from here

We did find one beautiful place out at Costa Azul (which is in the far west of the country, between Acajutla and Barra de Santiago, accessed along the coastal road that goes to the Guatemalan border). Very unique in that all the walls, floors, siding and terrace are all wood. The living room and dining room are completely open with just a big roof covering the whole area. It has been decorated very well by someone who had both taste and money (a happy convergence). All wood paneling and floors and a kick ass wooden deck. More than twice the price of anything else I have seen but may be worth it.

I think I am going to base my first beach house on this design. I want to have the property abutting the beach end of the property with a big deck and an infinity pool on the end. I think I’ll want to enclose the living area but maybe two garage doors (3 cars wide) can be put on the end so you can just open up the wall facing the ocean.

I have not had any luck finding a reliable contractor and I’ll think I’ll stop looking. I’ll hire an architect/engineer to do the plans, then my friend Dan (who has been a GC before) can do the construction planning, and I’ll get my brother-in-law (who is a civil engineer) to be the site manager. I’ve got the land picked out already ... just need to get some money!

The Emerald is ready for guests

A woman from Canada has just finished her property and is ready to rent it out. On Playa Dorado in front of a decent surf beach break, it has 5 bedrooms and the biggest pool I’ve seen on the coast.

Another interesting bit of law and order in San Salvador. The city centre (El Centro), where the National Theatre and some of the big cathedrals are located, has become more and more dangerous over the years. The streets have also become choked with sidewalk vendors who have built wooden kiosks on most of the major streets. They sell everything from fruits and vegetables to shoes and clothes to kitchen goods, cell phones, bootleg DVDs (including porn), and also drugs.

The nuisance is that you’ll have a three lane road that is effectively shrunk down to 1 ½ because of businesses on either side. This is despite the fact that there are numerous large (and often half vacant) purpose built indoor markets where people can set up their kiosks and be protected from the elements and be able to secure the goods overnight. Also, the street markets harbour a greater criminal element and contributes to a general lack of police supervision and control.

I have heard that the license fee on the street is about 50 cents a day while it is about $1.50 inside. So why don’t they all move into these nicer buildings? I have heard that there is more traffic outside so the vendors prefer to be there. I have also heard that the maras (gangs) control and extort from the people outside and have made sure that the vendors challenge the government when they talk about cleaning up the streets.

But the mayor of San Salvador, Quijano, decided to go in with a huge force of riot cops who started cleaning up the area street by street. They encountered some resistance in the form of rocks and fire barricades but they were able to reclaim the area. I just hope it lasts. I have been in the market a few times but generally with a Salvadoran friend. We park the car (in a very modern and guarded parking lot with a ticket machine and cashier), then walk very fast through the streets to one of the markets, we buy what we came for (usually polo shirts), and then walk out fast. No loitering, no eye contact, and nothing valuable on us. I have also been to the National Theatre to see Fatima dance but there was no security problem with that so it isn’t all bad. It will be nice to go there more often - I hear that there is a good market that sells artisanal souvenirs.

Okay, I am going to post this before I delay any longer. Cheers all.