El Salvador weather has slowly become warmer since mid-February, though not by much. It’s warmed up by about 5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit on an average day and seems to stay warm longer in the afternoon than it did before, but the mornings and evenings are still cool. The rains have gradually started to return as well. When we first arrived in August, it rained heavily every night. Then, beginning in November, the rains mostly stopped.
Now it is Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is a big deal in El Salvador. It’s really the time between Palm Sunday and Easter Monday and the days between Maundy Thursday (the Thursday prior to Easter Sunday) and Easter Monday are a national holiday. One tradition in El Salvador is the alfombras (or carpets), which are religious art made out of sawdust directly on the street.
There are also religious processions. In one that takes places after dark on the evening of Good Friday, there is an interesting and artistic event where a statute of Jesus is carried through the streets and then statues of several key religious figures (like Mary, mother of Jesus, or Saint John) are run toward the statue of Jesus in the street. It’s beautiful and fascinating.
A foreign (such as US) drivers license is only valid here for the first 90 days someone is in El Salvador, after that you are required to obtain a Salvadoran license (Licencia de Conducir) to continue driving. There are two options for getting a Salvadoran drivers license if you have one from the US: you can start from scratch and follow the full process or you can get an apostille from the issuer of the foreign license.
An apostille is a government certification that a document issued by that government is valid in other countries. I previously needed one for a couple other documents issued in the US in order to obtain my residency card (Residencia Temporal), but also could have obtained one for my drivers license. Having an apostille for your drivers license can save you some of the steps for obtaining a Salvadoran license and would have been easy to do if I flew back to the US, but I chose the full process.
I’m looking forward to driving again, if for no other reason than my wife is tired of being the chauffeur! If you are moving to El Salvador, I recommend getting started on this process as soon as you have a residency card.