Intro: Among El Salvador’s delightful features:
The bottles of pop are two point five liters.
And the restaurants all have the same game plan:
To attract kids with a huge indoor playland.
The back bus window decals are cryptic
Enough to confound the savviest art critic.
And the graveyards have more colors and hues
Than our fireworks displays and parades do.

1. In spite of the Department of State’s advice
I went ahead and visited El Salvador twice.
Want the travelogue version or the true report?
We spent a lot of time at the mall food court…
Where I proved that I still remember enough Spanish
To order myself French fries and a sandwich.
But at a little corner shop, the fact is,
We ordered two Cokes and got two books of matches.
The line between in and outside’s often blurry.
It’s better for your sanity if you’re not in a hurry.
They all laugh in the face of what we call an emergency,
And I’ll bet you didn’t know they use American currency.
The one Salvadorian I didn’t like was a boy
Throwing a public fit over a Happy Meal toy.
Everybody else was either just fine or great.
Never judge a country by its violent crime rate.

Chorus: Era un chele cuca macarrón
Que no aguantaba ni un trompon.
Verguiado es rapear, poner comida en estantes.
“El Pulgarcito” le cayó bien (¡no manches!)
Mi primo, él no era desmarado.
El Salvador le trajo un fan y no es paja.
A éste maje gringo le gustó
y éste chele casi guanaco salió.

2. And usually the beach doesn’t do much for me,
But in El Salvador it’s a different story.
No fighting for parking, no trouble with crowds.
Just a few mangy dogs and a couple of cows.
Water warm as a bath, skies clear, sand black.
A drowsy guard with a gun strapped to his back.
If you’re going to that beach, yeah, count me in.
Just make sure the fish market’s downwind.
I tried to write “Spooky Gulch” from a hammock by the ocean,
But I was too relaxed to keep the pen in motion.
I tried surfing thinking it’d be fun learn.
It wasn’t, but somehow I never got sunburned.
As we played in the waves and the salty spray,
My favorite pearl-snap shirt got swept away,
And my grandmother blames herself, but I believe
It was the worthiest death that shirt could achieve.

Chorus: Era un chele cuca macarrón
Que no aguantaba ni un trompon.
Verguiado es rapear, poner comida en estantes.
“El Pulgarcito” le cayó bien (¡no manches!)
Mi primo, él no era desmarado.
El Salvador le trajo un fan y no es paja.
A éste maje gringo le gustó
y éste chele casi guanaco salió.

3. Apparently turistas are rarely seen
Out walking in the streets of San Martin.
Either we were too adventurous or naïve,
’Cause a cop with a machine gun told us to leave.
On a hot afternoon, the town of Paisnal
Was still sleeping off the previous night’s Carnival.
And our hosts served us fruit juice and schooled us
On the fine art of making homemade pupusas.
The road to La Montañona was too rough.
Halfway up the hatchback had had enough.
But we tried not to let the setback deter us,
So we climbed something else and took a look at Honduras.
And at Los Planes, we were awed by the sight
Of San Salvador from the mountain’s height:
Sprawling through the valleys, thousands of lights.
Then we bought a bootleg movie and called it a night.

Chorus: Era un chele cuca macarrón
Que no aguantaba ni un trompon
Verguiado es rapear, poner comida en estantes.
“El Pulgarcito” le cayó bien (¡no manches!)
Mi primo, él no era desmarado.
El Salvador le trajo un fan y no es paja.
A éste maje gringo le gustó
y éste chele casi guanaco salió.