SailingKnitter

Every Tuesday and Friday are market days in Usulutan - the nearest town to where we are moored here in El Salvador. We always go along in the private van even if we don't need to shop. It's entertaining and educational to go watch the local people and try new foods.

El Salvador...land of chocolate, volcanoes, bicycles, and sugarcane fields. Here's a photo of the Niki Wiki on a mooring ball here in the Barillas Marina Club in Jiquilisco Bay. Yes, that IS a volcano in the background, the active San Miguel volcano to be specific, which last erupted in 2002.

We are 9 miles up a river estuary in the mangroves. Yes, there are biting bugs. But, there is also other wildlife that hasn't bitten us (yet). Each morning we are awakened by the sounds of the birds - we've seen collared forest falcons, osprey, great blue herons, yellow crested herons, mangrove swallows, egrets, and of course, the noisy grackles. Then there are the racoons, and the occasional crocodile.

What have we been doing? Well, first a photo of a pair of quick generic socks for Jonesy that came off the needles right before we left Mexico. The yarn is Regia stretch - my first time using this yarn. Jonesy wore them today for the first time so I'll save my final opinion on the yarn until after a few washings. More photos to come of the 3 more pairs of men's socks that I knit since then. I turned off my designing brain and just knit generic socks while we traveled. After working so hard on the Holiday Mystery Gift patterns I needed to unwind.

We've been busy with drives (rides in a free van with a driver) into the nearest town (Usulutan) about 45 minutes away twice a week for basic provisioning and visits to the dentist for Jonesy in San Salvador. Wouldn't you know it? Just as we left Mexico for the 4-night, 5-day nonstop passage to El Salvador, Jonesy got a toothache.

And it was a big one. I started him on antibiotics just in case it was an abcess - it turned out it was. He suffered the whole trip. Thankfully, the motoring & sailing across the gulf of Tehuantepec was almost a non-event. No winds, calm seas, clear skies, very smooth going.

The same day that we arrived at the Barillas Marina Club, the manager got a dentist appointment for Jonesy and off we went. First the 45 minute ride to Usulutan (about half of that trip is on the dirt road pictured here going through the sugarcane fields and cacao forests). That dentist referred him to a specialist in San Salvador 2 1/2 hours away for treatment (root canals). The manager here in the marina got a SAME DAY appointment at the specialist and arranged a van to take us there. WOW! What personal service!

Today was his 3rd visit to the specialist (at $100 per 5-hour round trip with private driver) and he's out of pain. Now just a couple more visits to the first dentist for a crown and he'll be good to go again. Excellent dental experience - the endodontist was trained in the USA - Conneticut. The cost? $250 US - less than what the deductible would have been with our old insurance back when we worked at jobs (sorry I used that dirty 4-letter word - jobs). We'll see what the crown costs later this week.

So... I mentioned cacao forests. Yep - we're talking chocolate in the rough. See, the cocoa pods grow along the trunks and branches of the cacao tree, which grows in the shade of old growth giant trees. Here is me with a little tree at the club. And below is one of the pods cut open.

I was shown that you could eat the fruit inside that surrounds the seeds (later called beans) and I tried it. Not special. Just really slimy. Snot slimy. Eeeew. In order to become cocoa beans the seeds have to ferment for a few days, I'd rather not think about that.

At the open-air market in town I bought a chunk of chocolate about the size of a can of beer for 80 cents. It is the BEST chocolate - as it melts in my mouth, a rich floral smell rises up my nose and I actually close my eyes and make little murmuring noises. The sugar is a little grainy, but for the flavor I'll overlook the crunch.

Oh, and I did decorate for Christmas this year. See? I hung up the ornaments.

More later ... the cheeseburgers and real french fries have been delivered to the table. We're sitting in the dark under thatched roof picnic tables using the free WiFi in the pool area.

From Oaxaca, we took the local bus for the ride out to Tlacolula, a smaller town in the Oaxaca Valley area. The bus station was in a very seedy, garbage-strewn part of town and was difficult to find in all the chaos, but we managed to find it by asking a lot of questions. We paid the approx. $1 US each for the 20 minute ride and headed out of town to Tlacolula. Along the way we picked up more passengers until we had an over-full bus, then we just passed by the folks waiting along the road.

Tlacolula has the oldest and largest “market” in the valley. Every Sunday, folks from other small villages in the valley, including the indigenous peoples come to buy and sell all sorts of mostly basic goods. Whatever you really need can be found there.

We were looking to buy a couple of handwoven wool rugs made by the Zapotec people of the village of Teotitlan del Valle. I had been eyeing these beauties in some of the better shops throughout Mexico for the last couple of years. I wanted to buy mine directly from the family who wove them so that I could get the most money to the craftsperson and have a chance to meet them personally too.

The “market” is held both outdoors along several streets, and indoors in a large building which houses the baked goods, fresh flowers, food stalls, and more. The most active, colorful, noisy (lots of non-spanish/local dialect spoken), and crowded areas were out in the streets. Want to buy some fried grasshoppers? These chapulines are a local treat. No…I didn’t even try one.

How about a couple of live chickens or turkeys with their feet tied together? We saw several folks walking around the market carrying the chickens hanging upside down by their feet. The chickens were amazingly calm. Why? I don’t know. We think that folks were buying them as breeding pairs as they looked to be a hen and a cock in each pair, and there was plenty of fresh already-slaughtered and cleaned chicken available in the interior market building. But then, if you lived many hours away up in the hills and had no refrigeration, then maybe you DO buy your chickens alive.
Chilies, both fresh and dried were in abundance and their spicy aroma was wonderful! You could even buy meat, vegetables, and the extra large & thin tortillas and they would cook it all for you in the indoor market.

Look at all of the colorful clothing worn by the local women! Where do they buy their embroidered aprons, ribbons and embroidery yarns? Right here in the market of course! No wool yarn though. I kept my eyes peeled for some, but didn’t see any. Is your stone mano (roller) or metate (slab) worn out? In the market you can test drive new, lovely painted metates for grinding your corn. Both pieces are carved from stone and the vendor also sold the bowls for grinding your chilies.

Finally, we found the street where all the handwoven rugs were being sold. Now we had to make the difficult choices – so many beautiful rugs to choose from. We checked out several stalls…looking…looking…and then we saw IT.

Yep. It was the one. The weaver showed us several more styles and sizes and we again found another, smaller rug for our stateroom. Because we were buying two rugs, the price was bargained (gently) down – total cost for these two works of art? About $70 US dollars for two 100% wool handwoven rugs.

What a day! We woofed down a couple of tacos, flagged down the bus again and headed back into the city of Oaxaca to our hotel. Our heads were spinning with all that we saw, heard, and smelled - and still are!

We've safely arrived here in El Salvador! More later on that...here's what we did in our last port:

From Zihuatanejo, we set out for a 3-day, 2-night passage southeast along the coast of Mexico. Because we hadn't heard anything to change our minds about skipping Alcapulco, we motored on by this mega-tourist city at 3am. We could see the bright lights for many hours as we first approached, then left them behind. Remember...we are moving at about 5.5 to 6 knots or about 6 to 7 miles per hour.

We were always within sight of the coast which was almost all natural, uninhabited mountains and white sand beaches. Along the way we were visited by many Brown Booby birds who would fly around the boat checking us out before they headed back out to sea. Many sea turtles floated by, both Green Turtles and the hump-backed Olive Ridley Turtle. Often, we would see little white birds riding along on the backs of the Olive Ridley turtles. But, they would always fly away before we could get close enough to get a photo.

Several times we traveled along with schools of dolphins. We were twice treated to dolphins leaping up into the air, spinning as they surfaced. One of the days we kept scaring off large flocks of small white tern-like birds. They would be wildy diving and fishing and at the same time trying to keep their distance from us. We saw small flying fish, and large leaping bill fish - were they Blue Marlins?

At first we had calm seas and no wind so our passage was quite pleasant and the knitting was easy. At one point we had a strong (3-knot) current running WITH us so we were making 9 knots! Whoo hoooo! Speeding right along!
THE ATTACK OF THE LOG

But, 50 miles or so past Alcapulco, thankfully in daylight now, it happened. Niki Wiki rose up out of the sea and dropped back down again - HARD - as if we had hit a speed bump in the road! Not the usual tossing from mean waves - but a hard bump. What the heck was THAT? I jumped out of my berth and flew up the ladder to the cockpit where Jonesy was dumbstruck. A giant log had suddenly surfaced behind our boat. We had hit a log! What is the damage? Are we going to sink?

Jonesy practically threw himself down the companionway ladder to pull up the floor hatches and look into the bilge. No water coming in there. Next, we tossed the mattress off of our berth to look at the rudder mounting, sure we would see water gushing in. Nope. Dry. No water was coming in anywhere. We had surely dodged the bullet this time. There was really nothing we could do at the time except motorsail on towards our destination and watch for leaks.

As we got closer to Puerto Angel, the seas started getting rough. The swells increased in size to what looked to be about 8 feet high. They were pushed by the opposing current which made them stand up in steep walls. The ride got pretty rough. Unfortunately, we had to change course eventually to make the turn into Puerto Angel. This would put us abeam of the seas and make the boat rock from side to side.

What happens when we rock that way? Well, the bananas peeled themselves. The books and baskets of sailing magazines and knitting gear got tosssed behind the settee. Nope, the refrigerator stayed closed this time because I had made a new bungee strap to tie across the door so I didn't have to chase jars of mayonaise and jelly around the galley floor and mop up milk like last time. Also, the onions, jicamas, and avocados were fine because I had them stored in the red hanging basket in the galley.

PUERTO ANGEL
Ahhhh....as soon as we got behind the shelter of a point of land, the seas instantly calmed and we slipped into tiny Puerto Angel in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. This place is a little slice of heaven.