Suchitoto - El Salvador

Incredible Hotel with 5 Star dining

Many unique Doors

 Traveled to Suchitoto for two nights.  Stayed at a 5 star hotel with incredible food and amazing art in every room.  Suchitoto is the art center for El Salvador.

Indigo Dyeing project

shopping in Herradura

Cooking over a wood fire for lunch

Restaurant  addition over the water

streetscene

cruisers lunch

lunchtime

local roofing supplies

This lady is waiting for a bus in her traditional apron.

Rick riding in a tuk-tuk with all our precious provisions.

Street scene in Herradura

Recycling plastic

All produce and foods are fresh from the producer everyday.

Mom is cooking torillas on a wood fire

Her sons happily sit beside mom as she works

street side restaurant

tuk-tuk (local cab)

This bakery is down an alley and looks like a private home from the street. But inside is an amazing 12 foot deep wood fired oven full of trays of pastries for the Easter holiday weekend. They made the best sugar cookies and triangular shaped fruit filled pastries. The oven is used for plain bread in the AM and dulce (sugar) breads in the PM.

School Fruit Festival in Zacateluca

18 cruisers traveled to this school in Zacateluca

Grand entrance to the fruit festival

The band was playing for our visit

Typical 5th grader chewing bubble gum

The elementary age boys were bored waiting for the festivities

The Principal of the school speaks excellent English. He was excited to have so many native speakers interact with his students. He teaches all 280 English lessons and expects them to practice speaking. He wants them to understand customs of English speaking peoples and asked us to share with the students. Students pay $17/month to attend this private school where the student/teacher ratio is 20:1. The public schools have approximately 60 students to a classroom.

The first graders paraded their costumes.

I made friends with 5 10 to 12 year old girls. They practiced their English and I attempted to speak some Spanish with them. They were working very hard at learning new words.

All students had to ask for fruit in English ONLY.

Rick in one of the classrooms.

The principal was answering our questions about the school in one of the classrooms.

El Salvador

 The sail from Puerto Chiapus to El Salvador was sunny and on a close haul riding the wind at 10 to 15 knots. As you can see in the picture we took water onto the deck with the wind waves. The usual weather for this season, in the waters we plied calls for motoring most of the 220 nautical miles we covered. Rick and I enjoyed sailing, but Snoball was a little sea sick. She quickly recovers with a treat of wet food and copious amounts of petting.

When we arrived at the bar entrance to the tributary a pilot and Bill met us on a jet ski. This is necessary to lead us over the deepest part of the bar and through the breaking waves with proper timing. As you can see Talaria cut the waves well with our great Captain Rick at the helm. I thought it was more fun than riding a bull in a Texas bar. There is a little anxiety at crossing this bar and going through the waves.

Chiapas

Marina is not yet on charts so gps shows us on land

Many Shrimp boats

New Marina at Chiapas

Nearby beach on Saturday afternoon

Large city 20 miles away

Chiapas is our last port in Mexico and we need to check out of the country here.  There is a very nice brand new marina which has not started charging for their slips even though they have water, electricity, wi-fi, showers and an incredible staff to help us.   Large city has Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Auto Zone, and lots of shops.

Crossing the Tehuantepec

Sailing at Sunset

Incredible Sushi

1 of 3 King Mackerels

10 Lb Tuna

Crossing the Tehuantepec was the most frightening passage since leaving San Diego.  There can be gale force winds blowing across from the Gulf of Mexico because of the narrow land mass and mountains.  We waited for a good weather report and made the two day passage with 8 other boats.  Had calm seas and a combination of sailing and motoring.  There is an abundance of life here.  We even had a whale dive lengthwise under our boat giving us a view of his large tail off our bow (little too close for comfort).