Bahia del Sol, El Salvador
Since our arrival here at the Bahia del Sol resort, we have been very active. It seems as if there is always something going on or someplace to go. This is part of the reason why my posts have been so infrequent of late.
The hotel has been very busy this last week, largely due to Semana Santa. El Salvador takes "Holy Week" seriously. There are solemn masses, village-wide feasts, and days of flower-filled parades and masses culminating in the Easter Sunday service. At the resort, this mostly translates to lots of partying into the night. In the marina it has made for a very uncomfortable rock and roll session each day as the local pangas and sport-fishing boats go blasting up and down the estuary, throwing up huge wakes as they pass the docks. Everything is quite quiet in the mornings though. After this coming Monday, it will no doubt be a lot more subdued around here.
For the cruisers, the hotel offers a special deal. For $14 a week, you get 30% off of all purchases at the restaurants, a somewhat reduced slip rate, beers for $1 each, 1/2 price happy hours from 4 till 6 PM at the bar, and the use of the showers and pools, etc. All in all, it is pretty sweet.
So far, in addition to hanging around at the bar or in the pool, we have gone on a few local excursions.
Last Monday, a bunch of us cruisers rented a van and driver to take us to the nearby town of Zacatecoluca, mostly as an opportunity to visit the main grocery stores - some of the people needed to do some re-provisioning, although we were still pretty well stocked from Chiapas. The town is about a 1-1/2 hour drive from the resort and is the site of the nearest ATM machine in the area.
With the resort being out on the end of a long peninsula, it is pretty isolated except for some small local businesses along the road. Walking down the road is interesting but very hot. We did walk down to a small roadside restaurant for lunch one day, in search of some of the local Pupusas, a thick hand-made tortilla stuffed with cheese, beans, or pork (the national dish of El Salvador). We did not actually find any Pupusas, but had an enjoyable lunch anyway. Fresh fish is, of course, the main fare.
Last Wednesday we launched our dinghy and took a 3 or 4 mile cruise up the estuary, winding around some islands till we found the small town of La Herradura. When you get to the "wall" at the town, you hand your dinghy to a local attendant who looks after it until you return, for a $1 fee. This is a dose of authentic rural El Salvador, walking along the long, windy main road, lined with small stores and glimpses of rural life, and an interesting market, where we did buy some fresh fruit. We were accompanied by a couple of other cruisers, who assured us that the prices for fish were 1/2 what they were at shops near the hotel (around $2.50 a pound at the market here).
After the long walk along the busy street, we hopped into one of the 3-wheeled Tuc-Tucs back to the wharf, for a price of 25 cents each. We had not thought to see these vehicles outside of Asia, but they seem very popular here. Back at the wharf, we scarfed down some cold drinks before making the trip back to the marina. This was the first real trip of any length for us in the new dinghy and we were very happy with its performance - easily getting up on a plane with the two of us, with only our little 5HP motor for propulsion.
Later in the day, we dinghied over to a local ex-pat lady's home on the island across from the marina, where she put on a delicious chicken dinner for a group of cruisers - a fund-raising effort to support a local school. A good time was had by all.
Our third excursion was just yesterday (Friday). We again hired a van and driver and journeyed to a mountain peak on the outskirts of San Salvador, by the name of Puerta Del Diablo "The Devil's Door". This was a sacred site used for sacrifice rituals by the Mayan
Pipil people.
Along the way, we had to stop to let one of the many holy week processions go by. A bit of bonus for us.
We hiked to the top to take in the view, where I am sure you could see all of El Salvador, from the Pacific Ocean to the borders with neighboring countries. It was very windy at the top. There was a small zip-line across a gap, but Sue and I chickened out.
Around the parking lot, there were some of the usual souvenir shops and restaurants. Our group ate at a little Pupuseria, located in some volcanic caves at the bottom of the mountain. We finally got to try some Pupusas and were very impressed - very tasty fare indeed. As you can see from the picture below, we were a pretty somber crowd, in honor of Samana Santa.
On Thursday last, we also participated in an event very unique to cruisers - a dinghy raft-up. We motored a short distance over at slack tide to where some boats were anchored, tied all the dinghies together and let the ebbing tide float us all down the estuary, while much drinking and lively conversation ensued. As darkness fell and we were in jeopardy of being flushed out over the entrance bar, we all motored back to the marina.
So you can see that we have not been completely idle here, so you can stop feeling sorry for us.
Life is good.
{GMST}13|37.523|N|89|11.385|W|Puerta Del Diablo, El Salvador|Puerta Del Diablo, El Salvador{GEND}
{GMST}13|20.708|N|88|56.825|W|La Herradura, El Salvador|La Herradura, El Salvador{GEND}
{GMST}13|30.000|N|88|52.000|W|Zacatecoluca, El Salvador|Zacatecoluca, El Salvador{GEND}
During last week's holy week celebrations, there were a lot of people on the nearby road, coming and going from an international beach soccer tournament, but now it is much quieter. We cruisers almost have the entire Bahia del Sol resort to ourselves.
This week's activities have included another trip to the town of Zacactecoluca (shopping and eating of pupusas and ice cream), a beach bonfire (traditional roasting of hot dogs and marshmallows of course), another chicken dinner at Jan's house on the nearby island, a really nice panga ride up the estuary and into the Rio Lempa (Lempa River) for a picnic on a real beachcombing type of beach (I forgot the camera so you have been spared from a lot of spectacular scenery), lots of pool time and travelling to nearby restaurants for good food and fun.
In addition, a few of us took a day tour to a nearby nature park and a short hike up to a volcano caldera. The park was interesting but really hot going. The volcano was very refreshing as it was much cooler at the higher elevations.
