Welcome to Central America

The negative was that it would cost $165 just to check into the country, and then the daily marina fee would be another $95 per day on top of that.  The short trip, and being close to our desired inland side trip destinations was all good but it was going to be more than $500 just to get off the boat and touch shore.  Ouch!

For the next 36 hours we debated what we should do.  Just as we could see the entrance to Puerto Quetzal, where the marina is located, we decided to wave off and push on for another 24 hours and head towards El Salvador.  In the end it was just too much money, and common sense prevailed.

Plan B - Marina Barillas

After a total of 45 hours and 270 nautical miles we caught up with Ogopogo at the entrance to Marina Barillas in El Salvador.  The marina is nine miles up a river which is accessed by crossing a sand bar with 10 foot breaking waves out on the reef.  The marina sent out a guide in a small fishing panga to guide both of us around the waves, across the bar, and up the river to where we would attach to  mooring balls in the middle of the river.

The marina is a type of Disney Land environment, having nothing to do with the every day reality of El Salvador.  The marina is a small portion of what once was a very large coconut and sugar cane plantation.  With the end of the civil war in 1993, the owner of thousands upon thousands of acres was forced to give the land to the locals.

The former owner purchased a small portion of the land back and built a private club, where the upper class of El Salvador could retreat on the weekends.  The club is limited to 100 members, many of them, including the former President of El Salvador, fly in on their own planes or helicopters and land on the private air strip which is part of the club.

The club's perimeter is surrounded by large walls and secured with a small army of heavily armed guards who continually roam the grounds, keeping an ever-present eye on the guests and those outside the walls.

We have come to think of this place as "camp for adults".  It has everything except craft time.  The daily mooring ball fee is just $12, the food is cheap and the 3 pools are cool.  It is nice having your own security detail.  We could see ourselves staying here a while.

Every Tuesday and Friday, the club provides a small bus to take whoever wants to go into the local town, Usulutan, and get groceries or do whatever you need to do.  The van comes complete with an armed guard brandishing a shot gun.  It is right out of the Wild West.  Supposedly, the gun is not for us but to keep the bus from being stolen.  I'd almost believe that if it were not for the limp that one of the guards has from being shot in the spine during the war.

The 30 minute ride to Usulutan requires that you leave the fortified bubble.  A mile from the gates is the small encampment where the marina workers live and are picked up each morning by van.  These are the most basic and primitive structures that are used for home and shelter.  Most are made out of homemade mud bricks and metal roofs.  Most of the ones visible from the road have the window openings bricked in.  My guess is that they were easy targets during the war.

Monkey Business

Inside the marina grounds there is not much to do, so we have twice ventured out of the gates to walk into the jungle to find a group of wild monkeys which a family gave shelter to during the war. 

The monkeys were given shelter because the guerilla fighters were catching them for dinner.  We are told the 40-minute walk through swamp, forest, jungle and 12-foot sugar cane is safe, so we are only given one guard to go with us.

As we worked our way down the small dirt trail, we passed something right out of 100 B.C., a team of oxen, with a handmade wooden yoke, pulling a wooden cart, with huge wooden wheels.  There was not a nail nor anything metal to be found on the cart.  This technology had not changed since the last "stone wheel" was abandoned and the new "wooden" model was introduced.

Every few days I think about Amy's concern that Robert is not getting the structured education that he needs.  And every few days I point out to her, as in this case, that he is seeing first hand everything that we have ever read in all of our social studies, humanities and political science text books.

Enough people have sought out the monkeys that they have developed an eye to spot if you have brought gifts of ripe bananas for them.  With the proper offering, a troupe of about 15 monkeys will descend from the jungle canopy and politely take the bananas right out of your hands, whether you were ready or not.

Robert seemed to have a unique connection with them, so he became our intermediary.  I think since the monkeys are just about his size, they did not view him as much of a risk.  Robert summed them up with the same assessment.