On the Road with Fast Eddie

An American Living Abroad Late in 1999 Fast Eddie wasn't so fast. In fact he was stuck! So he sold EVERYTHING he owned, and decided it was time to explore the world... live life on his terms! With his backpack and passport he left, as Thoreau says, "to suck the marrow out of life!" He is not sure where he is going, but we are invited to tag along. We'll be somewhat behind him, following the trail of breadcrumbs he leaves so we don't lose the way...

El Salvador May 24, 2005 T he last country on my winter break holiday was El Salvador, a destination in Central America very few people go to. And in addition to being infrequently visited, hardly anyone really knows much of anything about it. Many individuals are aware that a civil war raged there during the 1980s, one of several regional blood baths. Perhaps some of you've heard about how four nuns were raped and murdered in 1980 and Archbishop Oscar Romero, a popular, charismatic figure, was assassinated by the military while conducting mass - all in response to their efforts to do relief work and encourage reform. Perhaps you've seen Oliver Stone's movie "Salvador" starring James Wood, a first-rate historical rendering. There's a lengthy circuit of sorts that most travelers follow through Central America, the northern-most point being Mexico City and the southern spot usually being Costa Rica or sometimes as far south as Panama City. As people move from Guatemala to Nicaragua (or vice versa) El Salvador is usually bypassed in favor of Honduras, but since I was doing a full loop I could check out both and I would surely be glad for that. When considering my options within El Salvador I'd thought about centrally located Suchitoto, site of the country's premier cultural festival, but that would happen in February, a month too late for me. In the northeastern section is El Mozote where The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) launched its armed struggle against government forces in 1981. They quickly conquered this territory, heavy fighting took place and the US trained Atlacatl Battalion exterminated over 900 men, women and children in this village. There's an important museum there, but I'd already been exposed to enough sobering reminders of military-caused atrocities in Central America. Once again, the US government had supported a brutal dictatorial regime with the Reagan administration pumping into the country a staggering total of 6 billion dollars of "aid". The twelve-year civil war claimed the lives of 75,000 people and over 300,000 people fled the country! Regarding other travel possibilities, surfing is popular at La Libertad and Costa del Bálsamo, but guess who doesn't surf, plus the beaches are described in the Lonely Planet guide as, "rocky, covered with large boulders, and the riptide, along with sewage, makes the water uninviting." No thanks. Farther east along the coast is Isla Montecristo, a largely undeveloped area with pristine beaches and ample wildlife, but as you might expect, it takes significant time and effort to get there… more than I had at my disposal. Having done some prior research, I knew I wanted to get to the western section where there were reported to be some lovely mountains and quaint towns. I was keen on spending the last part of my nearly six weeks of journeying in a quiet, beautiful setting. Altogether on this trip, to get to Panama and back from Xela in western Guatemala, I would utilize a grand total of 63 buses, 13 taxis and 6 boats!!! The accumulated effect of all that was a burning desire to find somewhere calm and nurturing to rest my travel-weary ass. But first I had to get there. Coming back north on my way home I left Nicaragua and after quickly crossing western Honduras I entered El Salvador (at no cost) at El Amatillo and eventually arrived in San Miguel, a uniquely unappealing city that's the second largest in the country. It was so drab and lacking in amenities I actually ate dinner there at a Pizza Hut! And when I walked out at about 7:30 pm the sidewalks had been pulled in and it had the spooky ambiance of an old ghost town, though with dangerous overtones. As I strolled home along lonely dark streets my money and passport were stuffed into my shoes and my whole system of awareness was on high alert! From San Miguel it was easy and cheap ($4 for "autobus clase primera") to zoom across the smallest country in Central America (about the size of Massachusetts), quickly passing through San Salvador while changing buses. Once again a taxi across town was required to get from one terminal to another. The capital held no appeal for me at all, as was true in the capitals of the other countries I'd been in on this trip - all of them big, polluted and potentially risky cesspools with little to offer me. Ok, that's harsh I know, but that's how I felt about them. From San Salvador it was a quick and cheap ($1) ride to Sonsonate where I then caught another bus north to Juayua for merely $.45. As was true in Panama, US dollars are used as official currency in this country. In the Western part are three of the country's four national parks. One of them is Parque Nacional Cerro Verde in the Sierra Apaneca Itamatepec, a spectacular area chocked full of volcanoes and dotted with cool mountain villages. It's near here that I stumbled upon Juayua, a jewel of a place if there ever was one! Once I stepped off the bus I immediately sensed that it would become someplace special for me. I ended up spending five nights there and out of that time period emerged a remarkable experience that I ended up writing a story about for a community newspaper here in Xela called EntreMundos (Between Worlds). I'm ending this "On the Road" with that story, but before I do I'll share some other aspects of my time in Juayua that are not covered in the article. Once I arrived, I asked a local woman about some accommodation listed in my less than trusty guidebook. She scratched her head with uncertainty, but soon I was surrounded by several helpful Salvadorans willing to lend me a hand finding a suitable place to stay. It's not like there're hotels surrounding the central square, as is true in most other cities in other countries. Finally a well-dressed man asserted himself and offered me very specific directions to a pensión on the edge of town. Once I got there and looked around I was totally blown away. I quickly paid $10 for one of the best rooms I've ever gotten for any price, with an amazing view that I'll describe later. But the owners were the best part: Charlie and Beto Bayo, two brothers who ensured that my stay would be an unforgettable event! I immediately felt at home in this tranquil town of about 35,000. My many walks and considerable time spent in local restaurants were extremely enjoyable, full of stimulating conversations with inhabitants who appreciated their simple life and always made me feel welcome, as if I were an intrinsic part of the local scene. One day, along with a young Belgian couple who were also staying there, Beto took us on an easy hike to Los Chorros de Calera, a series of waterfalls where we swam and then climbed under the cold plummeting water for a powerful massage. As I mention later in the article, I also accompanied them to their small finca (plantation) and to the local coffee mill. If you go to Juayua, check out Laura's Comida la Vista where I gobbled up several cheap but tasty breakfasts and lunches. I had excellent chicken mole at The Taqueria. The Pasteleria y Cafeteria Festival has a terrific selection of breads and pastries. The weekend I was in Juayua there was a huge festival that reportedly brought in 10,000 outsiders and so the square was buzzing with activity: food stalls, live music and craft booths. Among the vendors were some Maya who'd come all the way from the Central Highlands of Guatemala to sell their unique clothing and they sure were surprised when I strolled up and introduced myself as being from Xela. One night a salsa band named La Raza pumped out pulsating Latin music that we danced to with reckless abandonment in the street. It was great fun! In many ways El Salvador was quite similar to the other Central American countries I'd been to: culturally, economically, geographically, the food and climate - they were comparable to what was I used to. The indigenous population is less than 1% and virtually invisible - generally the case everywhere except Guatemala. It's fact that the country is burdened with the most rigid class structure and worst income inequality in all of Latin America and over 200,000 peasants are landless - out of a population of about 6.2 million. However, heart-breaking poverty was and still is evident to me throughout this entire region. The noticeable difference for me in El Salvador was the almost complete lack of visitors. There is little tourism infrastructure within El Salvador, which in my opinion, is to its benefit. When you arrive in a city or town there're no touts around aggressively hawking their hotels and the bottom-feeding element of a society that preys on foreign travelers is virtually absent. I was a bit of a curiosity to locals who were largely unaccustomed to spotting a tall backpacking gringo wandering around, riding their buses, and sharing their local eateries. I liked the country a lot! Sure, it's just another poor post-colonial nation struggling to rebuild and redefine itself after a harsh civil war, but I found the people of El Salvador to be exceptionally genuine and affable and my time there was absolutely delightful. Let's get to the story that closes out my trip… and thanks for tagging along with me! Adios, eduardo rápido The Ballad of the Bayo Family I magine meeting a family that included not only somebody who was kidnapped during a civil war, but also the person who literally "wrote the book on" training guerrillas? How about a family including an individual whose godfather is Fidel Castro, plus someone else who married an El Salvadoran president? Or a family whose aristocratic ancestors were hunted by peasant revolutionaries in the 1930s, but which also has a woman who regularly visited Che Guevara when he was in jail in the 1950s? While recently in El Salvador I had the rare opportunity of meeting such a remarkable family - one whose past is virtually a prism through which one can view many sides and aspects of Central America's turbulent and fascinating past. There's a historical dichotomy in this lineage that defies both logic and probability. It is the Bayo family. On my way back to Xela during six weeks of traveling through several Central American countries, I stopped in the small city of Juayua in mountainous western El Salvador. I'd heard it was a lovely area and it certainly is all of that. Arriving by bus, I came across a rather pretentious sounding pensión named El Parador de los Nobles that I opted to stay at. Little did I know whom I was about to meet, nor the captivating story I was about to hear. 1. In order for a guerrilla to succeed, exactly what preconditions should exist? To be right in your struggle against the injustices which a people suffer, whether from foreign invasion, the imposition of a dictatorship, the existence of a government which is an enemy to the people, an oligarchic regime, etc. If these conditions do not exist, the guerrilla war will always be defeated. Whoever revolts unrighteously reaps nothing but a crushing defeat. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY QUESTIONS TO A GUERRILLA By Alberto Bayo Giroud The centerpiece of our tale is a certain General Alberto Bayo, someone I doubt you've ever heard of, but who nevertheless had a major impact on the history and politics of this hemisphere. For example, it's highly unlikely that without having met Bayo a band of guerrillas under the direction of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara would have ever succeeded in the Cuban revolution of 1959. It's also very unlikely that without knowing Bayo that Che would've ever become the worldwide legendary figure he was and still is today. My narrators were Beto (short for Alberto) and Charlie Bayo - two grandsons of the General. It all started when Cuban born Bayo, a pilot and officer in the Spanish Foreign Legion in the early 1930s, was involved in a colonial campaign in Morocco against local forces led by Abd-El-Krim. As Beto told me, what appeared to be a vastly inferior enemy - smaller and more poorly equipped - was continually defeating the Spaniards. Captain Bayo was determined to find out how this was happening, so he did what he could to secretly observe the Moroccans in action. On one occasion he spotted movement by a handful of them in a remote part of the desert. The men were repeatedly walking back and forth on a trail between some hills, seemingly for no reason. Then they separated and dug holes in the top of a few hills and hid themselves… waiting. Their grandfather had explained how he then understood the rebel's plan - to make it appear as though a large force of soldiers had passed through that area and to lie hidden in ambush for an unsuspecting enemy. A large contingent of Spanish fighters could be virtually annihilated in this manner. Brilliant! It was then that Bayo decided to become an expert on these tactics and, according to my sources, actually coined the phrase, "guerrilla warfare". He later wrote the first text specifically dedicated to this topic: "150 Questions to a Guerrilla", which has since been translated into English and is now available at www.Amazon.com. Bayo later returned to Spain and once the Spanish Civil War began in 1936 he found himself opposing fascist General Francisco Franco, who would eventually emerge victoriously and dictatorially rule Spain for decades. Since he was on the losing side he fled to France where he was imprisoned for some time before eventually fleeing to politically friendly Mexico. While there, Bayo advised and trained revolutionary fighters in many conflicts throughout Central America and the Caribbean, making a name for himself as the pre-eminent expert on guerrilla warfare. He subsequently wrote another book entitled, "Storms in the Caribbean". Meanwhile Fidel and Raúl Castro and about thirty fellow insurgents had also found themselves in Mexico. After failing to overthrow Batista's autocratic regime with a disastrous 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba and being jailed for two years as a result, they'd been exiled and decided they needed Bayo's expertise for their future plans. It was at this time that Dr. Ernesto Guevara was in Mexico as well, transformed through his travels northward from his native Argentina into a committed fighter against the "evils of imperialism". (He'd been in Guatemala in 1954 when President Arbenz had been forced out of office by a CIA led "liberation army".) He'd met Fidel and had quickly decided to join forces with him. In 1955, Fidel made arrangements with "the Master", as Che later referred to Bayo, to train his collection of rag tag soldiers. My hosts Beto and Charlie were then ages 6 and 5 and living with their parents and grandfather in Mexico City, though born in El Salvador. As their training began the group of guerrillas were split up among three houses, some of them staying at the General's home. Despite their youth at the time they vividly recall Che and Fidel, as no doubt these peculiar foreigners made quite an impression on the young lads. Beto commented, "I remember grandpa playing chess with Che and Fidel and he said that Che was the better of the two. Neither had beards then as they grew them later when they were in the mountains of Cuba." In May 1956, Bayo made arrangements for weapons and the use of a sizable farm in Chalco, about 50 km east of Mexico City where training could be expanded and intensified. The General named Che "chief of personnel" and later described him as "the best guerrilla of them all." Charlie claimed the family had photos of them sitting with Che and Fidel, guns in their laps. "I was kind of a favorite of my grandfather and he'd sometimes take me along to the farm." I should mention that I've verified most of what I was told by the Bayo brothers, either through internet research on General Bayo, or while reading Jon Lee Anderson's excellent biography of Guevara entitled simply "Che". I've found no contradictions. Beto and Charlie retold stories from their grandfather about the rigorous training. Apparently the General, who was then in his mid 60s, led them on long grueling marches for days on end without eating. "If I can do this at my age, you should be able to do it for twice this long!" he reportedly told the young trainees. "And if you wish to survive and succeed, you'll need to do just that!" General Bayo had known the worst of times in battle. They told me that once a bomb exploded near their grandfather and the pressure from impact literally blew his eyes out of his head. He pushed them back in himself, but permanently lost his sight in one eye. In late June, Mexican police agents got wind of what was going on at the farm, arrested the whole lot of them (aside from Bayo and Raúl) and threw them in jail - accused of plotting the assassination of Batista in collusion with Mexican communists. Havana unsuccessfully demanded their extradition. Fidel later stated that the most dedicated and supportive visitor to him and his men while they were imprisoned had been the daughter-in-law of General Bayo, Charlie and Beto's mother. Eventually the only charge against them was violation of immigration laws and by August, Fidel, Che and all their cohorts had been released. They immediately returned to their preparations for a marine "invasion" of Cuba to initiate a guerrilla war and topple the Batista regime. Finally on December 2, 1956 they landed the Granma, a battered thirty-eight-foot yacht, on the Cuban coast at Las Coloradas. The men were instantly attacked. By the time they'd reached the high hills and safety of the Sierra Maestra, only 12 of the 82 men who'd come ashore had not been killed or captured, but that included the core of Fidel and Raúl Castro, plus Che. They had merely seven weapons amongall of them. But in January 1959 after a prolonged and bloody effort and amid euphoric popular demonstrations, Castro and his 'barbudos' (bearded ones) swept heroically into Havana. A new era in Latin American history had begun and Che later said it never could have happened without Bayo's tutelage! "We have the General to thank!" After Batista's ouster and the onset of control by Castro's forces, General Bayo moved to Havana and brought along his son's family. Charlie and Beto went to military school and hung out and played with Fidel's son. They were constantly surrounded by bodyguards and enjoyed sneaking out at night, just as most young kids are keen on defying authority. When a baby sister named Lupe (short for Lupita) came along, Fidel himself became the godfather and claimed he did it to honor the family. Although the Cuban armed forces were put under Raúl's control, the topped ranked officer was General Bayo with a rank even surpassing Fidel's, who was a Brigadier Colonel. He engendered that much respect. When Bayo eventually died in 1967 (ironically the same year Che was killed in Bolivia), a mausoleum was constructed in his honor, adorned by a letter previously written by Che honoring the General's immense contributions. There's also a boulevard named after Bayo in the capital. So… what we have here is a family firmly steeped in revolutionary history, right? A family with roots deeply entrenched in the subversive and anti-establishment path, correct? Not entirely! What makes the story even more intriguing is the "other side" of this remarkable family. During the late 60s, the mother of Charlie, Beto and Lupe decided she no longer cared for either her husband or Fidel's continually more autocratic politics and moved her children to El Salvador, where she was originally from. In fact, her ancestors were one of "The 14 Families" of European descent that'd controlled most of the land in El Salvador and basically enslaved the indigenous people for centuries. Over time their massive landholdings developed into immense coffee plantations that extended throughout the region I was in. The pensión I was in overlooked what, at one time, had mostly been the family's. In front of me was a spectacular sweeping valley, dotted with nine (!) volcanoes, including Volcán de Santa Ana (2365m) and the still smoking Volcán Izalco (1910m). This is prime growing country and the coffee that comes out of these mountains is among the world's finest. In 1932 Augustín Farabundo Martí led an uprising of peasants and indigenous people against the feudal style landowners and their ancestors narrowly escaped capture and death. Someone tipped them off and they hid until the military responded with La Matanza (The Massacre), killing about 30,000 locals. Martí was captured and executed, forever becoming a hero of the people. Lupe (Fidel's god-daughter) eventually married a man named Johnny and I met both of them (as well as their six-year-old daughter Natalie) when they came up to Juayua from San Salvador during the weekend I was there. Everyone crashed here and there inside the house, which is apparently of joint ownership. I discovered while talking with them that guerrillas had kidnapped Johnny's father in the 1980s during the civil war that waged at that time. He was held underground for over six months before a ransom of over $1,000,000 was paid for his release. Unfortunately his health was so poor that he died soon thereafter. Beto told me that his aunt (mother's sister) had once been married to José Napolean Duarte, who was elected president of El Salvador in 1984. "When I got married, President Duarte came to my wedding and offered his presidential palace for our honeymoon." This was not said in bragging, just as fact. Over time the family has lost much of its land and now has but a fraction of its previous holdings, so it's a modest business - one that merely supplements the income of each family. Charlie, Beto, Lupe and two other brothers now share what'd been their mother's and I went out to see part of it. In addition to coffee, they also grow oranges, limes and macadamia nuts. At the finca I helped Charlie and Beto load heavy bags of freshly picked coffee beans on to their beat up old pickup truck so that we could then deliver them to the nearby mill for processing. Their primary customer is Starbucks. It's now a far cry from the old days, but there're no complaints. As Charlie and I walked past his coffee plants (he has about 25 hectares) he pointed at the view, "Isn't it beautiful?" Smiling, he patted his chest and added, "Here is where I'm now rich!" I found the family to be extremely warm and down-to-earth and I got the impression that the approximately thirty employees they had at their plantation were well treated. "I'm teaching the kids English," Charlie claimed and later proved when I went with him. They were extraordinarily kind and gracious to me and when I left I was given robust hugs and a promise of enduring friendship. When I spoke to the Bayo family about history, politics and life in Central America I felt as though they were well qualified to comment. More than most people they fully understand that politics is never black and white, but has many shades of truth. When I put questions to them regarding various issues and events about the past and present I got carefully thought out answers. More than anything, they're realists. "Batista was a son-of-a-bitch!" commented Beto. He then shrugged his shoulders and added, "But now Fidel is a son-of-a-bitch! Yet the Cuban people have had something special there, so who is right and who is wrong?"

Abrazos y besos, -------------Eddie/Eduardo ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~  HOME || TOP To read Fast Eddie's adventures from the beginning, go here ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ARCHIVE || CURRENT STORY || HOME ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CURRENT NEWS: ALL HEADLINES Timeshare || Travel/Leisure NEWS ARCHIVES || EMAIL || SEARCH || HOME To report broken links or other problems with this site please contact: webmaster@thetimesharebeat.com © The Timeshare Beat all rights reserved