“You already know who lives there?” Charlie, the person driving our boat, asks me as I soar into the deep blue water of Lake Coatepeque in northwestern El Salvador. He factors to a minimalist-style villa on the freshly-mowed slopes of an island on the heart of the lake. “That’s President Bukele’s. Ocho million dollares!”
In some other Latin American nation, individuals would discuss their chief’s personal wealth with scorn. However Charlie’s tone is one in all reward, pleasure, even delight. It’s a sentiment I encountered many times whereas touring by means of El Salvador, and for a superb motive. Till just lately, the nation was identified and feared because the “homicide capital” of planet Earth, with 1 in each 10,000 residents falling sufferer to murder. Right this moment, 4 years after Nayib Bukele assumed workplace, the variety of annual killings has dropped from 5,000 to simply 495: a statistic that has earned him the lifelong gratitude of his constituents. “I can lastly go outdoors with out worrying,” a pupil from Universidad Don Bosco in Soyapango, beforehand probably the most harmful suburb within the capital metropolis of San Salvador, instructed me. “It nonetheless doesn’t really feel actual.”
Born to a Muslim household that emigrated from Palestine, Bukele served because the mayor of San Salvador earlier than setting his eyes on the presidency. A darkish horse candidate, his anti-establishment, anti-corruption agenda allowed him to attain a shock victory in opposition to El Salvador’s entrenched elite. Many presidential candidates in Latin America promise to “drain the swamp” and put an finish to the corruption that retains their international locations impoverished and oppressed, solely to change into part of the institution they vowed to tear down. Bukele is the uncommon instance of a politician that not simply saved his phrase, however managed to carry onto energy whereas doing so.
Considered one of Bukele’s high priorities was to search out El Salvador’s largest gangs, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and 18th Avenue, which earn cash by means of prostitution, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and transporting aliens throughout the U.S.-Mexican border. The federal government’s pursuit of the gangs resembles much less of a crackdown than it does an all-out conflict. To this present day, tens of 1000’s of heavily-armed troopers are often mobilized to besiege and infiltrate felony strongholds.
Drastic issues require drastic measures, and Bukele’s was to arrest and imprison anyone who had even the slightest affiliation with the felony underworld. As of 2023, greater than 72,000 Salvadorians have been taken off the streets and stuffed into the nation’s already overcrowded prisons.
Bukele’s insurance policies on crime, whereas efficient, come at a price. Whereas the state has managed to spherical up many harmful offenders, it additionally detained a major variety of people who – after shut examination – turned out to be utterly harmless. Gabriela, a lifelong resident of San Salvador and tech entrepreneur I met at a Miami-esque seaside occasion within the surfer city of El Tunco, instructed me how, at some point, her personal driver stopped answering his cellphone. After contacting his sister, she discovered he had been taken by the police whereas standing on the road ingesting Pilsner – El Salvador’s nationwide beer – with former gang members.
Accusing Bukele of human rights abuse, journalists and activists argue mass imprisonment gained’t clear up El Salvador’s issues however solely make them worse. His proponents beg to vary: by cleansing up the streets, the president is ready to develop public works that may enhance the nation’s financial system and infrastructure. Whereas highways and libraries can’t justify the injustice suffered by Gabriela’s driver, touring by means of this new and improved, and above all, safer, model of El Salvador is making me type of agree with the typical citizen that these are, to an extent, mandatory sacrifices. “I don’t agree with every little thing Bukele does,” was the usual response I saved listening to from individuals, “however we’re doing higher than we had been prior to now – and that makes me really feel hopeful about tomorrow.”
The place so many corruption-stricken Latin American international locations stay in an inescapable current, El Salvador is ready to look in the direction of the longer term. Along with his conflict on crime, Bukele is finest identified for his embracement of cryptocurrency. Shortly after organising store in San Salvador’s casa blanca, the 42-year-old chief shocked the world by investing a sizeable portion of presidency funding in Bitcoin. In hindsight, the choice wasn’t all that shocking. The crypto craze was at an all-time excessive again then, and with Bitcoin’s worth on the rise, Bukele noticed a possibility and should have thought he was about to triple the nation’s coffers, even quadruple the amount of cash he’d put in. Sadly, his announcement got here moments earlier than the crash of FTX and the federal investigation of its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried: occasions that set the crypto world on a downward spiral it has but to flee from. Whereas precise numbers are onerous to return by, El Salvador is rumored to have misplaced upwards of $70 million.
You’d suppose such a blunder would harm the nation’s financial system, to not point out Bukele’s credibility, however that doesn’t appear to be the case. In distinction to neighboring Guatemala, the place a despotic Legal professional Basic is presently trying to undo the ascension of a democratically elected, left-leaning president with an agenda not in contrast to that of his Salvadorian counterpart, El Salvador stays steady, peaceable, even affluent. One of many largest advantages of Bukele’s conflict on crime is that the ensuing security opened the nation as much as an business that had hitherto been all however non-existent there: tourism. At Coatepeque, development staff are constructing a litany of inns, hostels, and golf equipment to accommodate rising numbers of vacationers. Nonetheless extra tasks are within the works at Lake Llopango, situated outdoors San Salvador.
“This place was once extraordinarily harmful,” Gabriela instructed me as we walked as much as a panoramic mirador, or viewpoint, trying over a thick and seemingly infinite cover. “It’s the place all of the gangs from Soyapango went to cover.”
Extra confused than involved, I look over at two troopers standing guard, their fingers on the triggers of their loaded shotguns. Laughing, Gabriela informs me that their presence is only ceremonial: Bukele, needing to take care of the standing military he’s amassed for his conflict, sends troops throughout the nation to behave as glorified bodyguards. To not shield guests from kidnappers – these odds, she says, are low – however in order that they have one thing to do till they’re known as to put siege to the subsequent felony hideout.
Although not as massive as Guatemala and Honduras to the north, or as environmentally numerous as Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the south, El Salvador has a lot to supply the curious traveler. There’s Santa Ana, a colonial metropolis close to the Guatemalan border from the place you’ll be able to go to Coatepeque and climb the Santa Ana volcano, crammed not with lava however with swimming pools of boiling water. There’s El Tunco, the aforementioned surf city the place you’ll be able to take a look at your abilities on among the largest, longest, roughest waves you’ve ever seen – or watch others do it from the seaside.
Other than the grueling visitors, San Salvador is a surprisingly organized capital the place neon-lit hipster cafes share parking areas with hole-in-the-wall pupuserias – barebone cafeterias serving El Salvador’s signature dish: thick tortillas constructed from corn or rice, full of cheese, pumpkin, spinach, or chicharron, to call solely a handful of elements.
Whereas exploring El Salvador is now not life-threatening, it’s nonetheless very adventurous. If you wish to get from one place to a different, you normally can not e-book a non-public shuttle. As an alternative, you’ll have to hop on a public “rooster” bus, retired American faculty buses the U.S. authorities deemed too previous and damaged to move kids, however got a second life in Central America. In lots of cities, you even have the chance to lease bikes. When you’ve got by no means ridden one earlier than, don’t fear – they neither require a license nor expertise, and the roads of El Salvador are so chaotic that you simply’ll change into a professional by the point you make it to your vacation spot. That’s, as long as you weren’t despatched flying by some knee-deep pothole or camouflaged velocity bump.
The largest adrenaline rush (or panic assault) I had in El Salvador was a gaggle tour of the Siete Cascadas or Seven Waterfalls close to the city of Juayua, a 1 hour motorcycle trip south of Santa Ana, the place what I had anticipated to be a relaxed and peaceable stroll rapidly changed into one thing out of the survival novel Robinson Crusoe. Strolling barefoot by means of a jungle infested with spiders, snakes, and crabs – sure, crabs – I used to be so greatly surprised by the absurdity of my predicament that I didn’t even suppose to object when my tour information (a 9-year-old, crab-catching boy known as Cristian) instructed us to climb up the waterfalls somewhat than go round them. “I don’t suppose this tour was authorized by the Salvadorian Well being and Security Division,” I half-joked, latching on to the slippery, moss-covered rocks and praying I might stay one other day.
As a lot as I ended up having fun with my keep, I initially didn’t plan on visiting El Salvador. Though I had heard of what Bukele was doing, I nonetheless pictured the nation because it was prior to now, the best way it regarded after I noticed it on the information, or in an episode of World’s Hardest Prisons. As an alternative, I believed that I might spend extra time in what the media portrayed as its safer, friendlier neighbor: Guatemala. Mockingly, it was Guatemala that proved to be extra unpredictable as, mere days after I entered El Salvador, rightfully-outraged Guatemalans clashed with legislation enforcement and barricaded the borders. Weeks later, they nonetheless haven’t managed to cease the previous authorities from persecuting their president-elect. However that’s a special story.