El Salvador is a country not everybody has on their list to visit. A few months ago for me, it was kinda the same, I didn’t even know where to find this country on a world map.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”9px”][vc_column_text]But that changed instantly in December 2021. I was at a point in my life where I didn’t know what to do with it. I felt everything was working against me. I had a job that I hate, no friends, no girlfriend, and no hobby on which I could be creative or spend time. My whole mindset was full of negativity and I was sure that I don’t want to live until 60 if my life would be like that until death!
Somehow in December one day, I just found a little hope again and registered myself on a dating platform (with a lot of pressure from my sister). But this hope was destroyed instantly after getting not even 1 like. This felt bad and because I was already insecure and afraid it was even worse for me.
A few days later I had that one match with that adorable girl called Sofia (fictive Name). For a second I thought maybe it is not that worse, but soon I realized that she was around 9000km away from me. My first thought was that the profile is a scam as there are a lot of that profiles (I know that because a few years ago I was very desperate and tried almost every dating app).
But I gave Sofia still a chance, because what could go wrong.
So we chatted a little bit (in English, because she doesn’t speak german) until I got no reply anymore!
I was frustrated again and two weeks later I was sure that I’m gonna delete this app when I’m back home after work. But exactly on this day, Sofia replied.
Meanwhile, we were chatting via Whatsapp and we were in contact every day. Sofia told me that she was in Switzerland on vacation and that she is now back home in El Salvador, that’s why she showed up on my dating app. So I thought “Okay, maybe it is not a fake/scam account” but you never know”.
We talked about so many different topics and almost everything. It felt too good to be real.
Somehow a random girl from the internet was my last hope in life. Because everything else in my life still felt terrible. But this daily conversation with Sofia made me at least smile a couple of times every day (that was not usual at that time).Contrary to my expectation the conversation was still going on (I have to add here that I’m terrible at talking with people and dating as well). And even in a deeper way. We talked about life, our similarities, our families, our fears, and sexual topics as well.
I think we both found someone we could tell everything to because we knew that we will not gonna see each other.
Then on 6th February we even did a video call. I was super nervous and I’m pretty sure she was nervous as well. I had never done a video call with the phone before, so it was new to me and I had no idea how I should hold my phone for a good angle.
We talked for 2 hours straight about everything. Sofia spoke most of the time because I was nervous and didn’t know what to say at all and she talks a lot when she is nervous, that’s what she told me later on. So in the end it was a good combination. Everything was perfect, too perfect, somehow I thought it can’t be that smooth, there has to be something bad about it. But I didn’t find anything bad!
After our video call I hang up the phone and somehow I started smiling. I think I never felt that happy (I never had a healthy relationship so far or a connection to somehow, but whatever this was, it felt so so good).
At the end of February, I was in a really bad mood again and I thought that life cant be like that anymore. As a joke, I asked Sofia if I should visit her. Her answer was, that she has vacation in march and we could do something together. I was not expecting an answer like that, but somehow it caught me and I started looking for flights. For the next few days, I was trying to get a vacation at my job for the end of March.
I finally got my vacation from my company and I booked the flights.
Everyone around me was telling me, are you sure about this trip. They told me, you cant go, it is not safe, it could be anyone, she is trapping you for sure, you will get kidnapped.
And usually, I would have all these negative thoughts as well, but this time it doesn’t matter to me.
My life felt so bad, that I wouldn’t care if something happens to me.
I prepared everything for my trip and Sofia planned what we could do when I’m there. We still talked every day with each other.
We also did another video call, because we both felt like we want to see each other one more time, before meeting in real life. I think both of us still thought about getting scammed.
All the hope I lost over the last few years didn’t matter anymore. I just was happy at that moment and the fact that I tried to do something to change my life made me feel even better. And the conversation with Sofia gave me so much hope back.
What do you think happened on my 11-day trip to El Salvador? Read part 2 of my solo trip to El Salvador will coming soon…
all photos were taken with the Oneplus 9