Perspective and perseverance

Estero Jaltepeque, El Salvador

Since we are semi-permanently stuck here in El Salvador, and nothing was about to happen re visas during the weekend, there was only one thing we could do...

Road Trip!

With our old friends Bill and Jean and our new friends Jeff and Judy (another cruising couple), we rented a mini-van and did a whirl-wind trip to the far NE corner of the country, to a town called Perquin.  We stayed overnight at a cool hotel called Perkin Lenca, the brainchild of a former aid worker from the USA who was here during the bloody civil war in the 80s.

San Miguel (Chaparrastique) volcano.
This is the one that covered our boat in ash a few weeks ago.

In the evening, we were treated to an impressive vertical rainbow, with the pot of gold firmly entrenched in Honduras.

One of the main sites to see in this area is the hill village of El Mozote.  On December 11, 1981, government soldiers terrorized and executed all of the residents; men, women and at least 131 children, as suspected supporters of the local guerrillas.  There is a memorial wall with plaques with the names of those who had died and a rose garden planted over the collective grave of the massacred children.  Hearing one of the local women describe the events that took place does tend to make our troubles seem petty in comparison.

At the town of Perquin we visited the Museo de la Revolucion Salvadorena, which charts the causes and progress of the armed struggle, primarily through pictures taken during the war.  It is a somber, stirring place to visit.

On the drive back to Bahia, we ran into a progression of vehicles travelling to a political rally.  The election is scheduled for February 2nd.

As for our petty problem with petty bureaucrats, on Monday we called once again to find out the status of our visa extension - they still had no idea how much longer it would take.  After some discussion, it became apparent that the latest holdup seems to be with our request for the maximum 90-day extension.  When we explained that we did not need the full 90-days any more, since our engine problem has been rectified, they perked right up.  They said they could have our passports ready as soon as the next day or the day after - they assured us they would call when they were ready.

With renewed hope for seeing our long-lost passports, we did a major re-provisioning run into San Salvador with Jean and couple of other cruisers on Wednesday (Jean still had the rental van we had used for our weekend trip).  We hit all of the high points, Vidri (hardware store), Fruend (another hardware store), Galarias mall (for the Claro phone kiosk), Super Selectos (grocery store) and finally PriceSmart (think Costco).  We had a long drawn-out lunch at a new "Hawaiian" restaurant.  We got back to Bahia del Sol after dark and proceeded to haul our booty back to the boat in our overloaded dinghy - we had not even thought to turn on the anchor light as we had no idea it would be such a long day.

Then a miracle happened!  Yesterday (Thursday) we received a call from immigration saying that our passports were ready for pickup.  Once again, we conscripted Jean to drive us the hour and a half to San Salvador, where our passports, complete with brand new visa extensions, were waiting for us.  They gave us 60 days, of which over 3 weeks have already gone by.  We are now legal again!

Now comes the tough question of when we actually get out of here.  The delays have now put us into the peak of the Papagayo gap wind season, which is what we hoping to avoid.  In order to postpone any decision, we are going to a "Superbowl" party at Lou and Lynn's on Sunday - being the huge football fans that we are (not), we couldn't possibly miss it.

{GMST}13|18.396|N|88|54.0948|W|Estuary Mooring, El Salvador|Estuary Mooring, El Salvador{GEND}
{GMST}13|57.21|N|88|9.399|W|Perquin, El Salvador|Perquin, El Salvador{GEND}