Landing in El Salvador and first contact.

The 5th August I flew to El Salvador via Miami.

As soon as I got in the huge brand new Barajas Airport in Madrid [Just then I realized where the European funds went to, 'Mr Asnar'!], while I was queuing to check in my luggage, a guy from American Airlines offered me $900 if I would delay my journey for the next day with the same flight schedules, that was guaranteed.

Fuck! That meant to fly almost for free!, and only 1 day delay.

After thinking about it for about 2 minutes, I told the guy I didn’t accept it. I wanted to go see my friend and i wanted to go now!. One day is worth much more than that to me. The guy smiled and he confirmed me I was all right to fly as planned, so he left to ask someone elses on the queue.

He told me they had an overbooking problem and they were doing the offer to everyone booked on the flight. I saw some people accepting it later on.

Utila Honduras Bay Islands

The journey was fast, or that’s what it seemed, maybe because I took a book to read with me, 'Life, Death and Legend' -The Life of Jim Morrison, of Stephen Perkins which I did not like it much to be honest.

I ve read about 7 or 8 biographies about the good 'ol Jimbo, I thought that one was just a pastiche from the others, a kind of 'cut&paste' going sometimes into too much detail with things hard to believe. For someone who hasn’t been there at the time, makes you wonder if the facts are actually true or not. We always thought there was some sort of connection in between Jim, Tony [Antonio Blanco Rodriguez] and me.

I found it pretty curious and a strong coincidence the fact I was reading the chapter of the Miami incident and also flying to the same city which changed in a very radical way the destiny of one of the most relevant bands in RnR story, The Doors.

Young Jim circa 1964-65

Going back to the trip, [although there will be another curious 'Morrison' moment in the very next days], I got in Miami about 8 hours later and took my other flight to San Salvador [Comalapa Int. Airport] with TACA [ A pretty good company by the way, a very reliable airline and the most modern one in Central-South America apparently.].

Two hours later I was in San Salvador. The view from the airplane was stunning, you could see lots of mountains, islands and volcanoes.
At the customs check point, you can find some traffic lights in every queue line, you push the button, if you get green colour you go through, if you get red then custom officers check your bags. After 5 people in front of me who got green, it was my turn, I pushed and got green too.

Great.

Once in the street I started looking for my buddy. Some guys offered me taxi and hotel. I wasnt interested, I was looking for Tony [Antonio Blanco Rodriguez ]b ut there were too many people there.

I was quite surprised by 3 things as soon as I got on the street:
The extremly green vegetation, people jumping on the pick ups like mad and some sort of butterflies were flying around us which were huge!

And finally about 10 minutes later, there was Tony! He looked great, and obviously very suntanned. Bit older, sure, no one looks the same 20 years after, but not too bad for someone who is near his 40s.

He told me he came the day before to the airport, by mistake, to pick me up, and he was upset because I was not there. Good I didn’t delay my trip!

A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself. Jim M.

The Doors are now open

It was about 7 pm local time so ......what two friends do when they meet for first time after a long time?

Go for a beer. Oh Yeah!

It was great, after the second beer to find out that nothing has changed after all this time.

Everything remained the same and thats what happens with real friends, isn’t it?

Time flies, but things are still the same.

It looked like I was going to be a pretty exciting holidays.

End of Part 1