Paseo del Carmen and Evelyne's House of Shame

The Showbill

Discovered a new amazing nightspot in San Salvador. Having lived in Havana for more than a decade, I was spoiled with its amazing nightlife full of bars, cafes, restaurant lounges, live bands, jazz clubs, techno discos, ballet, flamenco and the list goes on and on.


San Salvador, on the other hand, has a nice bohemian club called La Ventana that you drive to, park very nearby and walk briskly to. Then you go back to car watching your surroundings and drive home. 


Or you go to the Zona Rosa where you kind of can walk from one place to another but the offerings aren't that great. El Rinconcito is full of bars and a karaoke and a disco but it is a bit dodgy. Other bars like 4 and the Red Lion are opened and then closed soon after due to declining crowds and some horrible service (I was once asked to pay a $10 clean-up charge when one of my guests was accused of throwing up in the washroom - and it wasn't even him but some underaged drinker that they illegally served). Republik is a poor facsimile of an Irish pub (no Guinness on tap, just the one national beer!?), Brasilea is okay if you have no other place to go to, and the fancy nightclub (Code?) was empty but the doorman told me that it was members only and I couldn't even look inside.


Then a group of nightclubs was opened in the nearby Mulitplaza Mall. With hundreds of parking spots and lots of security, it soon became popular and numerous bars and clubs were opened. Envy is the most exclusive and is a big, shiny Miami style nightclub.  I was denied entry for being a foreigner - the club caters to the children of the very wealthy who like to feel like the most important people in the club, something harder to do with foreigners dropping lots of money or having tall or blond people around. There are lots of other discos, some nice restaurant/lounges like Mai Thai, and lots of bars with music. But come on, it's a mall! You park, take the elevator or escalator up a few flights, then you walk around to see what the scene is surrounded by hundreds of kids.


And if you want to talk a safe walk around at night, you can go to the Gran Via mall that has a big courtyard promenade, somewhat reminiscent of the Gran Via in Madrid (minus the drug dealers and Cuban hookers) but you are in a mall again. Sure there is a nice fountain and some activities for the kids (mini golf, mini train, and the shortest zip line in the world) and sometimes some live music but you are still in a mall, walking from one retail area to another.

Early and quiet on Paseo del Carmen

So yesterday, when Fatima and her friend said that there was a French dance company doing a parade in Santa Tecla and that we could watch from a bar/restaurant, I jumped at the chance. We headed over around 6:30 pm which was the perfect time to hit heavy traffic and get stuck behind the many buses spewing so much smoke I had problems seeing the road. We finally pulled off the main street and we found a parking lot where a woman assured me that she would watch my car until midnight. So we walked a few blocks to the venue and I had my pocket knife ready in case someone tried to steal my man bag (which maybe stupidly contained my BB, an iPod, a camera and a tablet) and we came up to Paseo del Carmen. It was still very early in the evening but most of the street had been blocked off from traffic and tables and sofas and lounges had been put out onto the street by the numerous bars and restaurants that line this relatively small and quiet street. We walked along for 3 blocks and I was amazed at how many bars and cool restaurants there were. Also lots of cops and one very friendly one on a bicycle who gave us information and stopped traffic at one intersection for us to cross.


We wanted to see the parade so we ended up walking to the big cultural centre (Palacio tecleño?) and got a table at the nearby La Rioja bar for some wine and tapas. Eunice went to confirm that the parade would come by the bar and was told that the parade had been cancelled and the show would only occur inside the cultural centre. So we told the waiter sorry but to cancel our order and we would be back. 

Fatima enjoying the show

Then into the centre to see the show by the French company La Zouze and the Salvadoran National Dance Company and some invited guests. Wow, what a great performance art, cabaret, circus, interactive in-your-face, rock and roll extravaganza. I think the show was called the "Evelyne House of Shame" and was a mock bordello with everyone wearing trim and tight underwear, long stockings and heels (including the men and one guy who must have been 6' 10" with the heels). My favourite character sported a very tall Marie Antoinette wig and a mustache.

I think this French dude was the director of the company. I was tempted to punch him in the face because of the T-shirt ... and it was the kind of show where punching the director would have blended in quite well!

Nice venue with the interior space surrounded by columns and a great sound system with live heavy-duty guitar. They had a bar and cafe set up so we could drink wine and beer and people were smoking ciggies (civilized!). We were famished so ordered a delicious Mediterranean Panini sandwich and munched through the show.

Ooh look, the famous Patricia, one of El Salvador's finest Thespians.

Not sure if there was a plot but lots of random drama and groups running around and then the rock music started with the strobe lights. The crowd was very mixed but mostly artsy and bohemian. Saw lots of actors (including the famous Patricia) and of course, every dancer in the country. Also skater boyz, and funky girls - very reminiscent of the freakies of Havana.

Yes, it was surreal.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the parade had probably been cancelled because the night before, there was public nudity and masterbation on the streets and that probably freaked out the authorities. So instead, they had it inside and said you had to be 18 and over to get in although I must have seen about 30 kids in there so obviously that wasn't being enforced.

Beginning of the show with my favourite Marie Antoinette character.


We were really enjoying the show but after about 90 minutes, we were getting tired, thirsty and hungry and we knew that the show was going to degenerate (or elevate) to the point where lots of people would be taking off their clothes (including audience members) so we left early and went back to La Rioja. No smoking inside so we took a sidewalk table and ordered a very nice wine and lots of tapas. I lit up a big Hoyo de Monterey doble corona and took about 2 hours to smoke it. Hundreds of people along the street, families with strollers and kids with skateboards, lots of couples and young people. I have never seen this at night in San Salvador and it was fantastic. Paseo del Carmen was closed to traffic but full of pedestrians, some beautiful colonial houses, the Iglesia el Carmen, street vendors, nicely decorated bars and restaurants, and lots of live music. At our place, we had a kid with a walkman hooked up to a big powered speaker who played a decent saxophone - went from cheezy easy listening to quite decent lounge bossa nova.

So Fatima and Eunice were saying hi to the loads of people they knew walking by and eventually Mariemm (who had performed in the show) and Jesse came by and they joined us for more food and drink.

The girls had desert and I had a couple of espressos with a small Monte Cristo Especial and then we walked the length of the street to go back to our car. About 11:30 pm and almost every table and every lounge (there were sofas and some low tables and cushions set up in the middle of the street) was occupied. There is also another mini "plaza" where they often have live music.

Eunice and Fatima with their dessert at La Rioja

Cross the street at the end of the Paseo and back to our car - loads of people and traffic and some cafes on that street so still felt safe and back to the parking lot where the young woman was still there watching the cars! So I gave her another dollar for a tip.


I am so pleased to have found Paseo del Carmen - oh, should mention that it is in Santa Tecla. Take the Alameda Manuel Enrique Araujo (who was this guy and why is the street name so long?) road past the malls until it turns into the Carretera Panamericana past Bulevar Merliot, past that giant bike shop, past the big long bus platform, and turn right on 7 Avenida Sur. Two blocks down is 1Calle Oriente (or Paseo El Carmen or del Carmen) on the left and the parking is another block down on the right. You can park on the street as well to get closer but we didn't since it was still rush hour when we got there. Hmm, plus might be a good idea to have someone watching your car to avoid a break in or a pry off.


The place is open all week but the street is pedestrian only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and Eunice said that there is a food festival on the weekends as well.


So if you live in San Salvador, I highly recommend you go check out this scene. And if you come down to visit, make me take you there.

Driving down from Canada

Mark Chillin at Dan's beach house

I recently met someone over the internet who was visiting El Salvador and is from my old city of Toronto. Unlike the many hundreds of Canadians who come down by charter flights to stay at the Royal Decameron Salinitas Resort, Marco drove down!

Never thought I would see Ontario plates in El Salvador

Yes, in a finely tuned Nissan Xterra, Marco has made his way from Toronto to St. Louis then down into Mexico, all over and up to Merida, Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador. Even more amazingly, he plans to drive through the rest of Central America and into South America and down to Tierra del Fuego.

Lunch of sopa de patas and fresh lemonade for me and tamales y bebida ensalada for him

If I can, I am hoping to meet up with him in Santiago de Chile for the drive down to the point and then back up to Buenos Aires. Or maybe Santiago, through the Mendoza wine country, and across to BA which would be much slower. But Patagonia sounds nice as well as seeing penguinos.

Diego "El Muerto" taking a time out from chasing girls to have post surf beers with us

At El Tunco. Pretty good food and giant beers too!

Mark almost skipped El Salvador due to the bad reputation that it has. He ended up staying 60 days here! I showed him Tunco and we got a surf lesson from “El Muerto”, went to the Korean restaurant, had lunch in the market, had him over for dinner, and hung out at Dan’s club smoking cigars and drinking a lot of beer (and tequila for him). He crashed at our place off and on when our place emptied of family visiting from Canada. Spent many evenings watching House Hunters International on HGTV.

Indian food with Mariem and Jesse at our place

Marco said that a lot of people are doing this trip and there is a lot of info on the internet about practicalities and nice places to visit. Plus there are people hitchhiking their way down to South America! He mentioned that he drove someone in from Guatemala who only had a small backpack and no money and dropped him off at the junction of the Sonsonate highway and the coastal road. In the dark, at night.

Delicious Korean food at the Pabelion Coreano in Merliot

You can follow his blog at http://25kwithoutmonday.com/

Overate at the churrascaria Faisca do Brasil in the Hotel Intercontinental

I am quite pleased that he liked this country. Like my friend Michael from Antigua, he felt very comfortable very quickly here. The city is quite compact so it is easy to move around in the nice areas (San Benito, Escalon, Santa Tecla, and Antiguo Cuscutlan). And lots of café’s restaurants and bars. I should mention that he got into two scrapes with his truck. He had insurance and cattle guards on his truck which saved him from having to get body work done. One was a bus that cut in front of him and scraped his front in a roundabout ... probably from someone in right lane swerving three lanes to the left to make a turn.

He stayed at the Hostal Australia for $20 per night with parking, breakfast and internet included. The place is on 1ra Calle Poniente which is just beside Escalon and half a block below the roundabout at Beethovern.

I was sad to see him go but he finally moved on and has been to Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

One of the reasons he stayed 60 days in country. Drinking beers at the Rinconcito Karaoke at 3:00 am.

He has motivated me to do the San Salvador to Flores/Tikal to Tulum to Merida drive. That would be a great road trip.

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.