If we mark this day from one second after midnight, I got quite a bit accomplished, because that was when I did much of my writing, including this U.S. national team folo/look-ahead for the New York Times.

If we mark it from the point where my 90 minutes of “overnight sleep” ended with a wakeup call from the front desk at the Hilton Princess … my greatest accomplishment was getting out of bed and getting to the airport in plenty of time for my 9 a.m. flight back to Los Angeles.

It was a pretty intense 60 hours or so in El Salvador, and I’m glad I went.

The place was hopping on Friday, and all the way till the final whistle on Saturday night.

Had El Salvador held its 2-0 lead, I have no doubt the capital would have exploded in a spontaneous celebration that small, soccer-crazed countries feel is due them when they win an important home match. I have seen them before, though in bigger countries.

Mexico City still goes goofy when los tricolores defeat the hated Yanqis at Azteca. Though that is the closest thing to a sure bet in CONCACAF qualifying. Mexico still likes to gloat over the Yankees, perhaps because its victories are becoming fewer.

The all-time post-match explosion was in Paris, in 1998, when France defeated Brazil 3-0 to win the World Cup. The block-the-streets partying went on all night, and most of the next day, and into the day after, which was the official parade and celebration, as I recall. I still consider it fairly remarkable that I got back to my hotel, in Montparnasse, before dawn. The Metro having stopped running for the night and cabs being almost impossible to find and most roads from the Stade de France, in the northern suburb of St.-Denis, nearly impassible. A Canadian journalist, whose name I can never remember, though I know him on sight, somehow snagged a cab, saw me 100 yards away waving at any vehicle painted yellow, and had the cab stop and pick me up, an act of kindness I never will forget. (Maybe I ought to get his name, then?)

San Salvador would have been like that. A madhouse. And when the Salvadorans were up 2-0, I was thinking of how much time would be lost getting out of the stadium and going the few miles to the team hotel, even with a police escort. It might have taken an hour to go those five miles or so because when traffic already is at a standstill and people are running around with flags, in traffic, the policia transito running their sirens isn’t going to magically open a hole in the grid.

As it turns out, the tie was very tough on El Salvador, which now has two points from two home matches, or about three fewer than it should if it wants to make the World Cup. And that realization, coupled with blowing a two-goal advantage in the final 15 minutes, left  the locals suitably somber, so that the roads out of Estadio Cuscatlan were nearly cleared by the time the U.S. convoy sped out of the parking lot to only a fraction of the verbal abuse and obscene gestures it engendered on the way in.

The city seemed vaguely numb, as I gazed out of the mini-van window on the way to the airport. It was early, yes, but quite a few people were out, and they seemed to be going through the motions of activity.  The sort of distracted despair you expect in soccer countries when a big opportunity has been missed.

The plane back, the only one scheduled daily by American Airlines, was packed. As was the plane down; it must be a lucrative route for American, with all the Salvadorans who live in Los Angeles. The passengers on both flights were nearly all Salvadorans. On the way down, they carried consumer goods home to family and friends. On the way back, they were weighed down by homey parcels of food and drink.

U.S. soccer honchos Sunil Gulati and Dan Flynn were on my plane, on their way to the Womens’ Professional Soccer debut in Carson, between the Los Angeles Sol and Washington Freedom. Mostly, I faded in and out of a fitful sleep, occasionally looking out the window at the dry expanse of western and northern Mexico.

It was my, what, fifth or sixth? soccer road trip in this hemisphere. One to Trinidad, in 1989, the famous Shot Heard Round the World match; this one to El Salvador, one to Canada back in 1997 and the rest to  Azteca. All were memorable events, aside from the Canada match. (It was Vancouver, which may as well be part of Washington state.)

Canada aside, each road game was memorable because the locals were enthralled by the event, and it dominated conversation and local media. It creates a difficult atmosphere for the visiting Americans, obstacles both mental and physical, that we (as journalists) perhaps have not done justice in conveying to the American public.

Playing on the road in World Cup qualifying is not like the Dodgers going to San Francisco or Ohio State at Michigan in football or the Lakers playing in Boston.

This is far more intense. Far more exotic. Even staying in a four-star hotel, the players can’t escape the realization that they aren’t in Kansas anymore. The other nations in CONCACAF, aside from Canada, range from poor to destitute, and you see the barrios and favelas with their tin roofs and crumbling walls the moment you glance out the window of the team bus. There are the stares from the locals who rarely deal with Americans and, even less often, with American athletes. Do they hate us or do they hate us because we so rarely bother to think of them?

There is the stadium, which might be at 7,000 feet (Mexico) or hacked out of the steaming jungle (San Pedro de Sula, Honduras) and often has a subpar playing surface, rudimentary locker room facilities and a less-than-cordon sanitaire separation between fans and players.

And there are the fans, every single one of them shouting encouragement at the home team and wishing the worst for the Americans. Unlike the U.S., where every Latin team can be sure of a significant percentage of fans no matter where in the U.S. a match is played.

No, the fans don’t play. But you don’t have to be all New Age-y to wonder if all that negative energy turns into a mental weight of some heft wearing on the Yanqis’ souls.

From the perspective of Saturday’s game, this U.S. team did very well to rally for the tie. Put these two teams on a neutral field (which includes nearly anywhere in the States) and the Americans probably win 2-0 seven times out of 10. But to come from 2-0 down, when San Salvador barkeeps and cops were bracing for an all-night celebration … well, that shows some resolve. So it perhaps is a bit mean of us to wonder how and why they were down 2-0 in the first place. A point is a point is a point on the road in CONCACAF qualifying, and the Americans got one.

Those were the sorts of things I thought about on the five-hour trip back. (In the same time it takes to fly to New York, you can be in the Otherworld of El Salvador. Hmm.) It was a raw, emotion-packed weekend in an overlooked corner of the world, one I will not soon forget.