There is a small town near the city of San Miguel, in the eastern part of my country, El Salvador. At the end of a long and dusty dirt road in the canton of Los Pilones, there was my grandmother's land.
A large terrain filled with much terrain diversity made it impossible to see where it ended. At the beginning of the land, she had built her house many years ago, leaving an extensive piece of land at the back, without construction or human intervention of any kind, creating a virtually virgin natural area.
You’d enter the property through a gate in the southeast corner. A downward-sloping driveway stretched for a few yards and then circled the garden facing the street in a U-shaped shape. In this garden, there were flowers, roses, and plants of many colors, which gave a joyful welcome to anyone who entered the house. In front of the garden, the house crossed the road, with a very long front corridor and wooden benches on which to sit and flower pots interspersed on each bench, which made it very peaceful to sit in the front corridor of the house and observe nature.
The house was very old, not only because of the design but also because of the materials with which it was built, it had large wooden rooms that supported the beams and a roof made of clay tiles that had taken on a black color over time. The walls were made of adobe and cane, although they had a plaster with some other material that made the finish look finer. It also had other recently built parts that did not match the original design. As in most houses built at that time, the bathrooms were outside just a few steps from the well. Where the road ended, the terrace began, with a slight drop towards the door on the right, which led to the west of the country. There was a small gazebo on the terrace next to the well. On it a large table, as a country house, the meals were accompanied by many people, there was never a time when you ate without a full table. On the columns of the gazebo hammocks, which worked perfectly for naps after eating. On the right side of the house is a space covered with gigantic sedimentary stones. No one really knows how they got there, and they certainly add contrast to the terrain, locals call these stones "peons" or "peas."
These were naturally placed in a certain way so that you could climb as if on a staircase until you reached the largest. Normally the fireworks were put there every Christmas. From that point on we can see the right side of the house and behind the stones there is a small lagoon with greenish color, bordered by the diverse vegetation that has naturally grown around its shore. Thanks to this natural fence, there was much life in this aquatic environment, full of fish, crabs, and even freshwater shrimp. Across this small body of water was a small forest of conacaste, quebracho, laurel, cedar, mahogany, and oak, endemic trees in the area. Next to this small forest, there was an esplanade that led to the back of the house, on which there was a small straw roof supported by thick oak planks. Under the wood-fired oven, one of these large ones is in the shape of a dome.
All of this diversity in small, intricate spaces creates a phenomenal environment; they allow you to change the landscape in a short time and give you a different feeling, it is like traveling to distant worlds without having to go very far from home.
