We are getting ready to leave El Salvador this weekend for a six to seven week trip through the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, then to Belize, and then to Guatemala. And we are backpacking! All that we are allowing ourselves to bring is whatever we can fit in two backpacks.
We are going back to Mexico on our friend Jason's boat, named Nirvana. He is singlehanding, working his way up to Portland, Ore. Mike and I are going to be his crew as far as Puerto Chiapas, and then we will jump ship and start our trip by bus and rental car. The boat will stay here in El Salvador, and when we get back, it will be time to leave for Costa Rica. I can't believe we stayed here so long!
Yesterday we took Nirvana out for "sea trials", which in this case consisted of motoring around the estuary for several hours to get a feel for the boat and to test the engine. There were some overheating problems, and I am a bit nervous about the whole thing, but after all - it is a sailboat. And Mike can fix or work around practically anything thaat might go wrong. We have never had a problem he couldn't handle or jury rig. And it's not MY boat, so if something goes south, it is but situational discomfort for me, I won't have to pay for fixing it. And Puerto Chiapas is only a 2-3 day sail. So what can go seriously wrong?
Since we got our new cameras, we have been taking dinghy excursions into the mangroves. Since we got the depth sounder and chart plotter for the dinghy (a ridiculous extravagance in the eyes of most cruisers, but all the men say that Mike has the best toys) we can ride all around the mangroves, cutting in and out of little canals that lead to small settlements and other canals, all the way to the Rio Lempa (and its tributaries) which is the biggest river in El Salvador. None of the other cruisers, and even a lot of the locals, have not explored this area the way we have. It's because of the chartplotter. We can't really get lost, no matter how deeply we penetrate the mangroves. The chartplotter has a display that makes a trail as we ride along, so all we have to do is follow it back. It is pretty much like Hansel and Gretel, but birds can't come along and eat this breadcrumb trail.
The people who live in these little settlements are pretty friendly, but they are always concerned about us being out there without a guide. The place is full of all sorts of water birds, but it is pretty well fished out. The locals string long nets around the mangroves, and net anything that comes out. Since fish breed and hatch in the mangroves, you can imagine what the result is. But this is how a lot of these people live, literally hand to mouth. A decent wage for general labor (outside of the city) is about ten dollars a day. Lots of people have small garden plots and sell their fruit and vegetables along the roadsides and of course in the local markets. (The only drawback to shopping in those markets is that you have to carry all the stuff you buy from place to place because of course there are no shopping carts.) I love to stop along the road and get my veggies - they still have dirt on them from being picked only hours before. Other people cut firewood and sell it, gather coconuts and sell them, and things like that. When you take a local bus, people selling little plastic bags of water, coconut juice, candy, and nuts get on at one stop, walk down the aisle selling their stuff, and then get off at the next stop and go back the other way. Also, people who live along the highways use the front part of their house as tiny little restaurants. I have had some new fruits, most of which are sort of like pomegranates in the sense that the way you eat them is to suck the fruit off the seeds and spit out the seeds. There are usually big seeds, unlike the pomegranate.
Well, I guess I have been all over the place in this post. Today we have work to do before the trip - cleaning out the vee berth (the defacto dumping ground for everything we don't know what else to do with - "just stick it in the vee berth. We'll deal with it later"). It is one of those chores that looks like it will be a huge hassle, but in reality, it rarely ever takes more than a half hour from start to finish. Knowing that does nothing to stop my procrastination, however. Nor does knowledge of the wonderful peaceful feeling I will have once I am done with it. Still I procrastinate . . .
We took our winches off and sent them to a machine shop to have the bases remade. We discovered the winches were not properly installed by the prior owner (surprise surprise) and had corroded away as there was no drainage. Or something like that. Anyway, we took them to San Salvador and will pick them up when we get back from our trip. Hopefully it will not cost too much! After all, BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand.
I hope to get some good mangrove pictures this afternoon - the problem is, the pictures do not really capture what it is like to be out there. Sometimes I feel like Merriweather Lewis.
"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes." (Henry David Thoreau)
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