El Salvador wasn’t our first international travel, but something changed for us there. We had been to Paris, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Maui, Tokyo, Osaka and Mexico City before visiting my mother-in-laws home country. My husband had been to El Salvador several times over his life, but he never identified with the country as the homeland of his ancestry. He and his mother called Osaka home since they had lived there in his father’s family home until she left with my husband and his siblings when my husband was thirteen.

We stayed briefly in the capital city of San Salvador visiting my husband’s family. They welcomed me and my then 12 year old son with genuine warmth and kindness. The family urged us not to travel via local bus to Libertad to visit my husband’s childhood friend near Libertad, but my husband had traveled throughout Southeast Asia a few years prior and loved the experience. Riding a “chicken bus” was a first for my son and I and we loved it. We enjoyed the sites along the way as well as the opportunities to interact with the locals along the 3 hour bus ride. The children stared and smiled shyly when we met their eyes, locals entered the bus to sell food and drinks along the way and live chickens riding alongside us provided plenty of new experiences for each of the senses.

Our destination, El Zonte, was a simple yet beautiful little compound of cinderblock huts along a black sand and stone beach surrounded by a tall barb wired wall. We stayed in their biggest room which was 1 flight up a circular staircase with glass louvered windows, glass sliding glass doors and thatched roof affording us an unobstructed view of the ocean and the surfers who flocked to its world class waves. The room had 6 single institutional type beds with mismatched sheets and pillows and its own army of ants that invariably found their way into our food if left unattended. There was nothing like taking an ambient temperature shower in our alfresco shower closet on the landing outside our room after the long bus ride while listening to the children and people a few yards away on the beach below. For a country side that was notoriously unsafe, there were no locks on the doors and no way to secure our belongings and yet I felt completely at ease while I was showering and vulnerable in a completely unfamiliar place.

Our days were simple, we woke to watch the surfers during morning coffee, followed by a walk on the beach. The black sand was soft and inviting once we crossed a shallow river that the families used to wash their clothes. Swimming was much easier on this side of the beach where the water was shallow and calm. Some days we observed the crabs, fish and birds, others we talked to the locals who were fishing or collecting oysters off the shore. Sometimes we would spend the afternoon juicing oranges and limes by hand to have fresh margaritas and juice. Meals were often the local catch of the day or some locally baked or grown food. The evenings were magical because from the hammocks outside our room we could see the stars and moon lighting up the sky and reflecting on the waves. But it is the unique sound of the ocean at El Zonte that continues to haunt us years later. Like a symphony the waves crescendo as they crash onto the rocks on the beach followed by the gentle music of the rocks as they tumbled back into the ocean following the undertow. In the silence of the night, the ocean which seemed so loud would always guide us to the most peaceful sleep like a lullaby.

In El Salvador we discovered what is important to us and learned how to appreciate slow travel. Happiness is not measured by the size of your bank account or house, the status your job affords you, the grades you get in school, the number of friends that you have, or the number of places that you have visited, but by the quality of time that you spend with those you love (including yourself). the personal growth that you achieve by stepping outside of your comfort zone and the contributions that you make to this world. I am thankful to El Salvador for teaching us this valuable lesson and changing the way we travel. Our travel the past few years have certainly been more mindful of these realizations and will continue to evolve as we do.