We can't take it any more!

Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador

It is really hot!  It is really humid!  This just isn't much fun any more!

Living on a boat in this heat and humidity, with no air conditioning and not much of anything around, is taking its toll.  Susanne has found a flight for tomorrow (Monday) that will take us back to the land of ice and snow, so we will be back in Edmonton before you know it.

Due to the shortness of our stay on the boat, we have been forced to try and eat everything on board.  Coupled with the extreme lack of interest in physical activity (due to the aforementioned heat and humidity) we are turning into classic couch potatoes - not a good thing.

We have tried to get out a bit, enjoying a couple of short walks out of the marina and down the road, taking in the languid pace of life led by the locals.  We try and do this very early in the morning before the sun starts beating down mercilessly.  We thought this was supposed to be the "rainy" season here, but so far we have only seen a couple of short-lived storms - in the late evening - the rest of the time it is mostly blue skies and sunshine.  There is some breeze occasionally but even this is not very refreshing.  I guess this is the price you pay for staying in an estuary, with the sea breezes blocked by the peninsula.

Yesterday (Saturday) we made a quick trip into Zacatecoluca to make a last-minute purchase of some cockroach-killing products.  Susanne made the disturbing find of one of these charming creatures a couple of days ago, and promptly dispatched it to its maker.  In spite of my assurances to her that it was probably a one-off, solo, bachelor kind of cockroach, she is not completely convinced.

The ride on the chicken bus in and out of Zacate (about 1-1/2 hours each way) was a nice way to remind ourselves of what we really love about life here in El Salvador.  They always just seem to know how to enjoy themselves and are always so very friendly to us.  While in Zacate, we were able to walk around a bit and see some of the town that we somehow missed when we were here a couple of months ago, and took the opportunity to have a last lunch of Pupusas (3 for a dollar - hard to beat the price).

These buses always instill confidence.

Before

After

Back on the boat, we are frantically packing and trying to think of anything we have to do to the boat before leaving it for an extended amount of time.  Fortunately we had done most everything before our last departure and the tasks were small - taking down our Canadian flag, topping up the water in the batteries, running the engine, etc. etc.  One small job that I had left was cleaning up the triducer (a thru-hull depth, temperature and speed log transducer).  I had pulled this out of its hole before we left the boat last time but had not actually cleaned all the crap out of it yet - it is hard to believe just how fast stuff grows on anything below the water line.  As for the rest of the bottom, we have arranged for the marina staff here to keep it cleaned off while we are away, so hopefully it will be all good to go whenever we get back.

{GMST}13|30.000|N|88|52.000|W|Zacatecoluca, El Salvador|Zacatecoluca, El Salvador{GEND}

Back in Paradise

Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador

The mad dash across Central America is done!

We left Belize City behind on Wednesday morning, on the Maya de Oro bus (Yes, it showed up this time).  We crossed into Guatemala around noon, paying the $18.75US (each) Belize exit fee and getting a fresh 90-day visa stamp for entry into Guatemala (for no charge this time).

In the afternoon, the bus dropped us off at the bus terminal in Santa Elena so we could buy tickets for the bus to San Salvador the next morning.  We then took a taxi to a random hotel in Flores for the night, having another great super at La Luna restaurant.  Since we wanted to leave early for the bus terminal in the morning, we took the precaution of pre-booking a taxi for a 5AM departure, since we noticed that they don't usually start circulating around Flores quite that early.

On Thursday morning, the taxi was right on time, whisking us to the bus terminal for our 6AM departure on a first-class, direct, bus to San Salvador.  This one bus goes all the way from Santa Elena to Sal Salvador but it is anything but a non-stop ride.  For the first half of the trip, we were backtracking the route we took from Rio Hondo to Flores (via Rio Dulce), then we started cross-country for the El Salvador border.  This journey should take, at most, 9 hours, even in a slow-moving bus.  However, due to the many stops along the way, it took almost exactly 12 hours.  Note: Exiting from Guatemala and entering El Salvador was all done for no charge this time.

All in all, it was a very nice ride.  We had good seats, the bus was air conditioned, and we really enjoyed just watching the scenery pass by - it almost seemed like home as we started to see the familiar hills and volcanoes of El Salvador again.

The weather was great until just before we pulled into the bus depot in San Salvador, when the skies opened up and dumped rain on us for about 15 minutes.  Fortunately it had pretty much stopped by the time the bus was parked at the terminal.  We caught a taxi to a hotel (which was full) and then another taxi to another hotel, where we crashed for two nights.

Our hotel was in a great location, close to a major mall and lots of restaurants, etc.  We were able to make use of the ATM's in the mall to replenish our supply of US dollars (the official currency of El Salvador) and we did a little shopping for a few things we thought we could use on the boat.

On Saturday morning we had our favorite taxi (thanks Jose) take us to a Super Selectos grocery store, where we bought a few supplies, then drive us to the marina at Paradise Fishing Lodge.  Here we found Sine Timore resting peacefully, none the worse for wear for our absence.



Tennis anyone?

The marina here is very picturesque but desperately isolated.  And man is it hot and humid!  I'm not sure how long we can stand it here before we will just have to get out.  Susanne is busy checking airline schedules and such to see what our options are - we could conceivably by back in Canada very soon.



{GMST}13|19.4376|N|88|56.682|W|Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador|Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador{GEND}
{GMST}13|42.1237|N|89|13.6933|W|San Salvador, El Salvador|San Salvador, El Salvador{GEND}
{GMST}16|55.7274|N|89|53.4318|W|Flores, Guatemala|Flores, Guatemala{GEND}
{GMST}17|29.769|N|88|11.0214|W|Belize City, Belize|Belize City, Belize{GEND}

Belize forever

Belize City, Belize

This was supposed to be a quick trip into Belize, just to check things out and renew our Guatemala/El Salvador visas.  Six days later and we are still here...

The trip from Flores was quick, inexpensive and comfortable, aboard a small bus, although it did leave at the ridiculous hour of 5AM.  The only glitch was an unexpected delay at the border with some sort of mechanical issue with the bus.  Fortunately, once we were again on our way, our driver virtually flew through Belize and we made the 10:30AM water-taxi in Belize city with 5 minutes to spare.


The water taxi gave us a 45-minute thrill-ride to Caye Caulker, one of the very Caribbean-like islands just offshore, all within the huge reef system that runs down the entire coast of Central America.  Laid-back is the only way to describe this dusty island.  There are no cars, only bikes and golf carts, none of which are really necessary since you can literally walk around the entire town in about 15 minutes.  Lots of small hotels, restaurants and dive shops everywhere.  One of the hardest things for us to get used to is the fact that the main language here is English.  Oh yeah, it is also really hot and humid - without the sea breeze you basically stew in your own juices here - the national pastime seems to be sitting in the shade with a cold drink.  Just the sort of place to completely relax.

We really like Caye Caulker.  After a couple of days of R and R, we started investigating the local attractions.  First up was a snorkeling trip out to the reef.  This was probably some of the best snorkeling we have done to-date - lots of fish and live coral and an interesting encounter with some sharks and rays.  Our backs are a bit sun-burned but it was worth it.

 

 

Next, we took an excursion to a river on the mainland, where you can ride on inflated tubes through a natural limestone cave system.  What a great way to do some spelunking.  The water in the river was wonderfully cool in the otherwise hot, steamy jungle - very refreshing!

We had not planned on it, but we somehow ended up also paying a short visit to some local Mayan ruins. Nothing as spectacular as Copan or Tikal, but they had their own unique charm, somewhat ruined (if you will pardon the pun) by the intense attacks of the biting insects - probably why the Mayans left this city?

Our planned 3-day stay on the Caye got extended to 5 days - it is all too easy to get sucked into this lifestyle.  But we finally made the decision to start making our way back to El Salvador.  We have a open-dated pre-paid return ticket on the bus to Flores from Belize city, so our first step was to take the morning water-taxi from Caye Caulker to Belize city, where were to meet the bus at around 10AM.  That was this morning and the bus did not show.  We checked with the local office and they said "Yeah, they called to say they weren't coming today - don't know why.  Probably be here tomorrow.  You could get a credit for the ticket and take the competition's bus this afternoon, except it isn't running today either."  Very helpful.

So here we are, at a very nice little guest house, about a block from the bus station, taking the opportunity to explore Belize city a little.  After about an hour, we have seen about as much as we want to see of this place, so I am using my time productively updating this blog.

Tomorrow, with any luck, we will finally be on our way back across Central America.

{GMST}17|44.6033|N|88|01.5048|W|Caye Caulker, Belize|Caye Caulker, Belize{GEND}