Isla de Meanguera, Golfo de Fonseca, El Salvador
Late this morning, we landed on one of the beaches of the southern part of the Island of Meanguera, within the Gulf of Fonseca. The shores of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras all touch this Gulf, and the sovereignty of the islands inside it was disputed by Honduras and El Salvador in three cases. The court found in favor of Honduras regarding the island of El Tigre, but El Salvador prevailed on Meanguera and Meanguerita. On to the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean and metal-rich sand we hopped; beach combing, body surfing, identifying some of the seeds washed on by the tide, or just sunbathing made our morning pass quicker than we thought. Back to the ship for lunch and an already late siesta, we could hardly wait for the exiting afternoon we had ahead of us.
Just a few days ago was the first time the Sea Voyager visited this island and town, a first for them as well. While visiting the town, we could not help looking at the beautiful children in their school uniforms, wandering the beach during their recess. The school is not yet finished, but already about four hundred children attend it. As it was to be expected, that picture drew the attention of all of the visitors and with that came a strong desire to help. We all put in what soon became a good amount and someone suggested we should donate school supplies to the newly built institute. Off we went to the small school supplies store of the town of Acajutla where notebooks, pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, pencil sharpeners, construction paper, coloring pencils, scissors, and much more was purchased.
Today, during the second visit ever by a ship with North Americans, or for that matter any foreigner, we got the chance to deliver the good intentions turned into school equipment. As it turned out, the children, the Principal, the teachers, and a good part of town were waiting for us. What chaos, what a party, what satisfaction! The children were all shy, beautiful and excited! A few of us had finger puppets, which helped break the language barrier and got what is understood universally: big, radiant, innocent smiles.
This would have been enough to last for the day, but we had to live another adventure. Up on a truck heading towards some mud pools we went. Adventure travel we call this! And so it was! Ducking branches and leaves, and rolling down a cobble road was the kind of thing “we haven’t done for a while,” and in a very Latin American way, what was promised to be “barely twenty minutes away” turned out to be a lot more than that. So, without getting to the Promised Land, we turned around, giggling while ducking the same branches and with our adventure mood a bit under the weather, we loaded our Zodiacs to head back home.
With our spirits still on the go, we managed to take some time to do some birdwatching along the island just in front of Meanguera. Magnificent frigatebirds, blue-footed boobies, black vultures, and brown pelicans covered the trees on the cliffs of the island. Few things deliver such a “free-spirit” feeling as a Zodiac ride on rolling waves and dusk colored skies. After a fulfilling day we went to bed looking forward to a new one!
