That Guy

There are many wonderful examples in English of other languages contributing words that communicate something really pithy for which no English word exists.  For example, the German word Schadenfreude – such an excellent word, even if admitting to ever feeling it is probably not PC.  The Spanish have another excellent word, “Papagayo” which means a person who is the embodied amalgam of every awful, nasty person you have met over the course of life. 

In case you bought that, sometimes a lie in support of a good story is worth the cost of the lie. A papagayo is actually a parrot. Nicaraguan sailors use it as a nickname to describe the seasonal north-easterly winds that blow across the peninsula from the Caribbean Sea. If you sail in winter months from El Salvador to Costa Rica you will meet El Papagayo. He is dangerous and therefore you will treat him warily because he is someone who sometimes blows lightly, and other times blows with storm force; he is shifty, extremely unpredictable and is definitely not to be trusted. 

Hmm, writing those words a certain world leader comes to mind.  But returning to the story of our recent travel adventures, we left Bahia del Sol with 250 miles of sailing towards southern Nicaragua. Our fingers were crossed in the hope of skip jacking the Nicaraguan coast with El Papagayo sleeping and not paying attention to us. 

Because both of us have developed post-retirement soporific personalities, wherever possible we try to avoid the sleep deprivation that comes with night sailing.  If winds are from the shore and there is a beach, all that is required is to drive in to a safe anchoring depth, drop the hook and bunk down until morning.  The disadvantage is that such roadstead anchorages tend to be lumpy, bumpy and unpleasant - almost always making you wonder if you would have been better off staying out at sea.

With our eye on the weather forecast we made our first roadstead beach stop at San Sebastion and it turned out to be ok. The next night we spent in protected anchorage at Isla Meanguera.  We were greeted there by dos hermanos niños, who hand paddled to our boat in fishing net buckets boats using their flip flops.  We invited them aboard for soft-drinks, candies and found a spare bata-ball set we had on board to give them.  Afterwards one of the boys gave us a walking tour of the village.

The next morning we decided to head over to the Honduras island of Isla el Tigre.  Our day visit there required a stop at the port office for yet another set of immigration and exit zarpe papers.  Remarkably, the service was free.  The following morning, we left at 05:30 with a tailwind and started the leg to Puesta del Sol with 3 hours of 10 knot sailing and arrived 2 hrs ahead of plan.

Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua, is a lovely luxury resort incongruously set in a remote estuary. Built in 2002, political upheavals shortly thereafter caused a sharp decline in Nicaraguan tourism. The resort remains an excellent stop for cruisers and maintains a dignified air of elegance, despite being virtually empty. Its infinity pool would have been an early design original.  Unfortunately, due to our southward rush in hopes of beating a papagayo window, we couldn’t stay long.

The 120-mile leg that followed was where Señor Papagayo finally showed himself.  He made his introduction promptly upon our leaving the dock at 6 am.  If your life experience has never included pounding to weather in steep, lumpy, tide-driven seas on an empty stomach, good for you.  A cup of coffee did help to settle our guts, sort of. But not puking is only marginally better than puking, and the day had just started.  By noon we had 15-20 knots on the nose, gusting to 25 and an adverse tide. Tossing a coin for what to do at the end of our tiresome day, we headed for shore and dropped our hook at the beach under the lights of seaside resort buildings at Masachapa. The wind settled down a little at night, giving us false hopes for the following day. 

Awake at 6 am we headed out with optimism in our hearts and only 50 miles to go.  Thirty minutes later we went to a second reef in the main and realized that El Papagayo is a real ass-hole.  Up, down, 10 knots, 30+ knots, close-hauled, reaching, main out, main in, traveler up, traveler down, holy shit this guy is annoying. Anduril is a light-weight boat and the gin and tonic cruiser types down here consider her to be a bit too saucy for use as a cruising platform.  She can go fast but she can be a twitchy sort of dog and El Papagayo is one hell of a dog button pusher.

Food breaks proved difficult.  Bathroom breaks: it was easier to hold it. Salt spray: we so love you in our eyes and the crusty feeling you leave when the sun dries you on our skin .  We also love having you in our bunk cushions when the forehatch leaks.  Goddamn it, for the seventh time we need to furl the headsail and the jib sheets are once again tangled with the dinghy …

Eventually bad people take their leave, or you take theirs.  After 8 hours of constant tending to the great one's whims we reached San Juan del Sur.  At the entrance is a huge statue of Jesus high on the cliff above.  In our own way we gave our thanks to him on the hill, anchored, mixed stiff vodka tonics (gin is hard to find here) and promptly fell asleep.

Here we wait a while.  El Papagayo continues with his windy mischief and we are ignoring him for now. He has the potential for one last kick in our ass when we leave here in a few days.  But at least the punch will be on our ass and not on our nose.  

San Juan del Sur is mecca surferville and there are various tourist pleasures to be had here.  We will rent a car and go to Granada, which we hear is beautiful.

This cutie fisherman zoomed up to us and wanted to take cell phone photos of our velero.   He did a selfie with Anduril in the background.

Yeah!    Finally, a spanish mackerel!

Tonight's dinner.

We spent a day along the coastline of El Salvador with binocs in hand, looking out for these &*#@& flags. They marked the end of a long line fishing net. We'd spot them and then try to match them with the fishing panga holding the other end. Then skirt around.

Dos hermanos niños, who hand paddled to our boat in fishing net buckets boats using their flip flops as propellers.  They hopped aboard and we tried our best to have a conversation using Google Translator.

Our anchorage at Isla Meanguera.

School is out at Isla Meanguera.

Isla Meanguera.

This nasty frigate bird was pecking at our expensive wind instruments.

Complimentary welcome drinks at Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua.

Great pool at Puesta del Sol Marina.  I wish we could have stayed longer but the weather forecast was ominous.

Here we are with the beautiful surfer backpacker types at San Juan del Sur after defeating the dreaded Señor de Papagayo.

Greg & Alice

Up, Down, Eastward

Swinging on our anchor line we bounce on gentle waves at the tiny port town of Amapala, Honduras, on the volcanic island of El Tigre.  It is a beautiful evening.  A short distance away, the setting sun imparts glowing colours on the shore buildings.  We have sun downers in hand which are providing to our senses an additional artificial glow.

A peaceful quiet anchorage at Amapala, Isla El Tigre, Honduras.

What can we remember of the days in between our last writing?  Pictures are artificial little vignettes salvaged from life’s stream of memories, yet despite how many pictures we take there are never enough of them to remember all of the real experience.  Memories blur and special fragments are lost forever.  One of the tragedies of travels too speedy is there is so much blur.  Spending more time at a place provides a better sense of knowing it.  Yet the luxury of time is also its disproof: there is never really enough time spent in any place for the luxury to be more than an illusion. 

We were five weeks in El Salvador, a country that proved to be a lovely marvel of friendly welcoming people.  Despite the inevitable momentary instances of discomfort that result from travel to a developing country, we find ourselves new devotees – may El Salvador ever thrive and may we soon return.

Before leaving, the possibility of another road trip called.  We set out to visit the highest elevation in El Salvador and also the nearby mountain town of La Palma.  But first stop was at the Mayan ruins of Cihuatan, where we found ourselves the only visitors that day.  We walked the very large site unguided.  Helping us to understand the ruins were a few signs with English descriptions and a very good picture museum at the entrance.  The site was burned to the ground in A.D. 1200 from an unknown war of Mayan origin; the fleeing (or perhaps dead) inhabitants never returned.

I never thought that I would be hungry and desperate enough to breakfast at La Pollo Campero.

Cihuatan Maya Ruins all to ourselves.

A steep serpentine road brought us to the town of La Palma, which in the 1970’s came under the influence of the mural artist Fernando Llort.  By establishing a teaching co-op there, he bequeathed to the region’s artisans the means to earn pride of living by continuing in the example of his unique style.

A new sign for the door on our head.

The selection of booze was short but the bar girls were cute.

Street Candy at La Palma

Alice sampled the local street grog spiked with Flora de Cana (rum) and nutmeg

El Pital is the highest mountain, but it was our donkey that did most of the work climbing.  When the steep slope of the dirt track road exactly matched the maximum motive power of the Kia Soul’s engine, the donkey brayed and stubbornly refused to go further.  At this spot we parked the car and walked the rest of the way.  

It was foggy, cold and windy. Services near the summit to serve the tourists were plentiful but trail markings were missing and finding directions to the summit marker stone proved difficult.  Heading up a trail we were firmly told by a local to turn around.  Greg gave up.  This was a mistake.  Alice’s robust mountaineering spirit revealed itself in the form of annoyance with Greg.  A lesson by him was thus well learned: a mountaineer’s summit ambitions must never be thwarted!

The sort of summit

Summit view platform for cheaters

On our return trip we detoured to the interesting archaeological investigations at Joya de Ceren.  The site is much like those of Pompei, Italy, being suddenly buried in 595 AD under 10 meters of ash from the massive Laguna Caldero volcanic eruption.  The excavations provided many insights on Mayan life at that time and led UNESCO to declare it a world heritage archaeological site.  Such is without doubt a worthy designation, but seeing the crushed buildings we wondered if the inhabitants at the time gave much thought to the prestige this posthumous designation would confer…

Returning to the boat through San Salvador and a massive provisioning run, we stayed for the night in the suburb of Santa Tecla.

Finding the door to our hostel in Santa Tecla proved difficult.

The namesake church

Municipal hall

Seeing the potential of an unused teaching resource, a local non-profit has arranged for English lessons to be taught by nearby ex-pat residents.  Itinerant types such as ourselves are also encouraged to help, so we did.  Our efforts spanned five lessons and we contributed something towards an increase in the world compendium of knowledge.  If you happen to know of our previous offerings in the field of stellar cosmological big-bang small-particle dynamics you will also know that our El Salvadoran teaching contributions would properly be given by the equation C=1/∞.

When it is time to leave Bahia del Sol, it also the time for the bar crossing.  Out or in, bar crossings are usually interesting.  But the only way you get to enjoying sun downers at calm sunny anchorages elsewhere is to go do it, so you do.

Outgoing bar crossing

Back to boat routine - sun protection

Waiting for sunset

Greg & Alice

El Salvador on High

Circle trips are good trips; new adventures are always ahead and there need be no retracing of steps.  In El Salvador the big car brand seems to be KIA.  Our rental car proved to be a Kia Soul, an automobile with a motor not much more powerful than our boat bilge pump.  With the engine screaming like a race car we hit the road for an 8 day tour. 

As in Mexico, driving in El Salvador requires a combination of patience and iron nerves.  The roads are mostly single lane and very windy, with a wide mix of fast and slow vehicles.  Sugarcane trucks, 3-wheeled tuk-tuks and farm vehicles are often parked or moving slowly on the road shoulders. The widely accepted driving practise is to pass using the “faith-in-god technique”.  To drivers schooled in more rule-driven methods the condition becomes one of hyperactive vigilance: at all times you need to be primed for an imminent driving crisis to suddenly jump out from a blind spot.  With a potential road crash at all times seconds away, the calm voice of the Google map lady has proven to be essential.  We speculate that she and her counterparts all over the world are actively preserving marriages that otherwise would surely be foundering. 

Stuck behind another sugarcane truck.

Many Volcanos

The Salvadoran sky-scape is punctuated by numerous volcanic peaks and periodic explosive eruptions have played a major role in the area history, from the times of the Maya and into modernity.  Viewed from the Bahia del Sol estuary, the prominent massif is a double-coned formation that appears as a shapely set of breasts.  It is called Volcan de San Vicente, but it is more usually called Chinchontepec , which boyishly translates to “mountain of two breasts.” Our first stop was on its eastern slopes – for a lunch break in the church square of San Vicente.  We were struck there by the sight of a simply humongous 500 metre long queue of elderly men and women, cowboy hats galore, in a line that wrapped around the block.  They were all patiently waiting to enter a bank, to what purpose we never learned with certainty, though it was later suggested that in the lead-up to the presidential election a newly available rural pension cheque might have been issuing inside.

One-one-thousandth of a bank line

The extremely charming town of Suchitoto awaited us after our first day driving.  Clean, well-kept and colourfully painted residences line the cobbled streets.  Our late afternoon stroll after hotel check-in found us randomly stumbling upon the quietly spectacular deck of the Restaurante el Mirador.  Expecting our cervesas to be served on a non-descript table, the cliff-edge view of the completely-invisible-from-the-street lake below was incredible.

Main church square

Choir boy statue

Street scenes

Lounging outside our Suchitoto room

|Street scenes

Street scenes

"In this house we want a life free of violence towards women." This phrase is stenciled on many of the walls in Suchitoto.  Leaving aside those encouraging words, note the old bullet pock-marks on the wall...

Street scenes

Suchitoto offers attractive tourism opportunities, but overwrought international fear mongering and travel advisories have proven highly effective in keeping the crowds away.  We woke for a 6am morning bird watching tour down on the lake.  The two of us were guided by our English speaking guide Robert, by Melvin the expert naturalist, and by our panga driver, Edwardo.  Both of us being incompetents in the subject of bird-watching, we were still pleased to see and have so many birds identified for us.

Bird touring

The afternoon brought a little shopping (indigo dress for Alice), an otherwise nice dinner at a Tex-Mex styled restaurante but where the Mexican art of Margarita making has fallen into a condition of “lost art.” This drinking disappointment was amiably rectified later that evening at the El Necio bar, where we took shots of rum and moonshine with Billy the bartender and with Gerry, an aging veteran FMLN rebel fighter.  Bar El Necio has a character that exudes rustic authenticity, conveyed distinctively in the form of a bare-planked bar, lashed-together stools, earthen floors and a rusting tin roof structure.  They with no English and we with our less than rudimentary Spanish made for a sort of communion that only lubrication can remedy.  By the end of the evening we were best of friends with Gerry and we understood each other perfectly…

A poster in Bar El Necio.  Women were considered the bravest fighters of all.

The following day was all about the 1980-1992 civil war.  Near Suchitoto is the mountain village of Cinquera, which was bombed to oblivion and abandoned.  The majority of the town was taking refuge in the church when it suffered a devastating direct hit.  Rebel fighters from the area regrouped in the nearby mountain forests, where we were guided on a very interesting walking tour by a metal band rocker and affable young conversationalist named Daniel.  The tour began by sitting down with a rebel veteran fighter (Daniel translating) who first trained at 16 years of age in Cuba.  There he learned Vietnamese jungle fighting techniques so as to properly lead his troop of fighters. World geopolitics was in major play back in the 1980’s: funding and armaments to fuel the conflict came from around the world, with the US backing the right-wing government and the communist bloc the rebels.  At least 80,000 dead was the consequence and since the 1992 truce El Salvador has been in rebuilding mode, scars of war fading slowly but not yet forgotten.

Alice posing with an a rebel veteran leader.

Daniel showing us the kitchen of the rebel fighters.    The smoke was tunneled underground to seep out undetected away from the kitchen camp.

The rebel hospital deep in the Cinquera woods.  This was the operating table.

Guns from the civil war were disabled by the United Nations as part of the peace keeping process. 

The village church rebuilt many years after being destroyed by bombs dropped by the military.  The villagers were seeking refuge in the church and not many survived.

The rebels proudly brought down this fighter helicopter supplied to the right-wing military by the US government.    As with many of the military's weapons, it previously saw action in the Vietnam war.

This mural in the main village square depicts first a beautiful rural economy, then the tragedies of the civil including the torturing of village women, and finally the peace treaty.

Cotton Trees

Two hours drive onwards, in Santa Ana, is a city of beautiful Spanish European influenced architecture (both intact and crumbling).  The main square is fronted by an impressive Cathedral and Theater.  A pleasant dinner can be had there overlooking the night-lit buildings at the restaurante Simmer Down. Yet in this area it is nature’s architecture that stands most impressively.  Hiking the Volcan de Santa Ana our hot exertions were rewarded by a view of the huge caldera with its stinky green steaming lake far below, laying at the bottom of the shear drop edge of the crater wall. Afterwards we drove a little distance away for a cooling off dinner where we enjoyed the view of another even more gigantic lake caldera, Lago de Coatepeque.  The explosion would have been epic indeed that formed this now serene 5km diameter lake with its dockside homes for the local wealthy.

The Cathedral of our Lady Saint Anne.

Teatro de Santa Ana

A typical Santa Ana store front.

Strings of Salvadorian meat balls in the Santa Ana market.

Beautiful but neglected architecture everywhere in Santa Ana.

Pretty crinoline dresses for the little girls.

The dairy shop, obviously.

Santa Ana market

View of Santa Ana from the room top of the Casa Verde Hostel.

Hike up to the summit of the Santa Ana Volcano - 2,381 metres 

This young entrepreneur over passes the gringos on the trail both up and down.   He had cold ice cream to sell at the summit.

Despite the fearful xenophobic stories you may have heard or read we have found the people of El Salvador to be friendly and ever-helpful.  On a tip from Carlos of the excellent Casa Verde hostel, we journeyed en-route to the town of Ataco, taking a 10km detour on a rough rabbled road to the waterfalls of Salto de Malacatiupan.  These infrequently visited by tourist falls are unique in that they flow at the absolutely perfect-for-hot-tub temperature of 40C.  Far out! (as we used to say).

Thermal waterfalls of Salto de Malacatiupan

The Tazumal site was occupied by the Mayans from 1200 BC.

The geothermal potential of the Ataco area has been developed and 15% of El Salvador’s energy is produced using this natural resource. The area is also coffee-bean central and this means both good brew is available in the mornings and of course, a tour of the coffee bean processing plant. Very interesting 1930’s era equipment is used, though the strongest memory imprint of the tour came from watching the line of 14 women pick sub-standard beans from a conveyor belt.  Eight hour days of the most tediously repetitive work we have ever seen is compensated by daily wages of $8.00 (the minimum wage here).  The bliss of morning coffee ought never to be the same for us, yet already our guilt fades under the silk-sheeted blanket of our every day privilege. 

Enjoying a latte at our modest hotel in Ataco.

Ataco murals everywhere.

A short morning hike to El Mirador de la Cruz provides good views of Ataco.

Brightly painted shops in Ataco.

Kids all over the world enjoy a pop and their toys.

Sight seeing party bus in Ataco.

Greg lost in the coffee bean stores.

Women working for $8.00 a day sorting out the less than perfect coffee beans.   Every 30 - 60 seconds the conveyor belt brought them a new pile to sort.   Greg and I agreed it appeared to be the worst job in the whole world.

By every road since departure we had been climbing.  Leaving Ataco we stopped for brunch in the garden of the Celeste de Jardin, before reaching the summit of our trip in Juayua.  Sundays are known for their food festival and people travel from near and far to enjoy plates of food served in the square.  After choosing a plate for lunch, we trekked downhill to another system of waterfalls and cheated on the return trip by hailing a tuk-tuk. Not being much hungry anymore, our dinner was a small meal of pupusas (corn-flour tortillas stuffed with cheese or meats) at $0.25-0.35 each. 

Brunch at the lovely Celeste de Jardin.

Flower petals

A typical room on our road trip.

Greg enjoying the gardens at Hotel Anahuac in Juayua.

Joining the weekend crowd at Los Chorros de Callera waterfalls near Juayua.

Unfortunately, the local street foods brought Alice a stomach bug and crappy feelings for the next 48 hours.  Such is the pleasure and sometimes stomach pain hazard of travel. Declaring herself fit for the road we zoomed downhill towards San Salvador where Greg was seeking hard to find plumbing parts and Alice could complete her recuperation in a comfy citified bed. She felt just good enough that evening to try a beer flight at the nearby Cadejo Brewing Company.  By morning she was recovered and shopped at Kreefs, a German deli.  Life on the boat involves frequent evening invites for drinks and at those events appetizers are required.  Ingredients for good appies are darned hard to find in coastal village tiendas, so a German deli must never be passed over.

With another shopping stop at a Super Selectos supermarket and a 1-1/2 hour drive back to the boat, our road trip was complete and declared a happy success.  More of El Salvador will most certainly be in our future plans.

Greg & Alice