Golfo de Fonseca, El Salvador
Today we arrived into El Salvador, not with a town band, but something equally as dramatic (but of a different nature): an entourage of officials from various official-looking vessels. Immigration procedures were quickly dispensed with and we were free to start operations on land. For some of us who boarded the Sea Voyager in Panama, it is our fourth country in Central America we will have visited on this incredible voyage of exploration, and for those that joined us in Costa Rica, it will be the third.
We dropped anchor just off the southwestern corner of Meanguera Island, in the enormous “Golfo de Fonseca.” This huge bay on the Pacific coast of Central America was used by Sir Francis Drake as a base of operations, and from here he made raids on the coasts of Baja California all the way to Peru, causing terror and considerable problems for the Spanish crown that dominated trade at that time.
We didn’t find the buried treasure suggestively mentioned as still here on one of the islands, but we did find some treasures of our own. We landed on a beach known locally as Majahual, but perhaps better recognized as Guerrero Beach, named after the small community of homes that lie just behind the dusky brown sand beach. The tide was going down, and we made our landing on the far southern corner of this expansive shoreline. The waves were perfect for some serious body surfing further along, and that’s what some of us did, but others more intrepid took the trail overland to the small town of Meanguera on the southern shore. This was the first time a group of visitors such as ourselves had made the hike. In fact it was the first time since the Polaris was here in 1998, that any cruise ship at all had stopped at Meanguera Island for a visit. Previously only the individual backpacker or exceptional traveler has made it as far as this island in the gulf, and here we were, the curious educated travelers from the Sea Voyager looking for new adventures. Efrain, a local who takes this walk into town twice daily to accompany his four little girls to school and back, escorted us the entire way. Although he walks the distance in under a half-hour, we took our own sweet time and many photographs, and made it in two hours. In a couple of years (the mayor told us over beers at the only hotel in town) there will be a graded road joining the town to the beach, but for the moment the only choice is to follow the steep trail over the top. The views were spectacular, and once we reached the summit (where just two years ago communication antennas were placed, so now they can watch Salvadorian TV channels, and not those from neighboring Honduras), the path became a carefully laid stone road of easy gradient leading into town.
Yes, drinks were welcome on arrival into town, and we met up with others from the ship that had come by Zodiac (which is how we returned, of course!). However before leaving Meanguera town, a visit to the local school gave some of us an unexpected insight into their lives, and a new potable water project was visited by invitation of the town’s mayor in his pick-up truck.
This exploration of today gave many of us a rarely encountered opportunity to interact and share a few moments with peoples of such a dramatically different culture and lifestyle. These heartfelt memories will remain with us a very long time, no doubt about it.
