El Salvadorian drive through shopping

We are in San Salvador trying to get access to our "crates" the container ship arrived last night and they should be unloaded today. To kill time, the girls went to the mall which is like any mall in America with extravagant prices that go with it. At these malls you can get your car "detailed" and washed while you shop.
I chose to shop where the locals shop "down town". Our translator thought I was nuts. I had a blast wandering through the labyrinth of amazing shops filled with fresh produce. It's really an odd experience I would not stretching the truth to say that I believe that there were over a hundred booths selling the same thing. Thousands of booths that extended for miles. Michel waited in the car with our El Salvadorian friend "Giovani" and I explored a corner of the market with a tall Canadian friend "Dave" who towered over all the vendors. We got a little lost- I was beginning to get a little freaked out - thinking we will never get out - lucky enough we had our cheap cell phones. Michel called us and we were literally a half a block away...it was strange.
Cell phones here are easier to buy than propane we drove for hours trying to find the one propane shop that will fill a barbeque tank.
You can purchase a phone for 16 dollars it comes with 10 dollars worth of minutes and a 10 dollar coupon for "Super Selecto" the equivalent to Super Store.

Trieste at anchor

Camerones

We drank a lot of liquid following Debora's meal of shredded fish and shrimp

a home cooked meal

We did a little side trip last weekend to the Bay of Fonseca. The drive was about 3 hours from our anchorage involving a trip over the mountains and volcanoes that separate the East from the West. These mountains provided a natural boarder for the insurgent gorilla (left) movement and the Military Gov't right. Our journey took us into the "bad lands" of the left. It is in the east where we saw a noticeable change of landscape of rural farms with impoverished farmers working small plots of land with corn and a few cattle. The land reform act enacted with the peace agreement in the 1990's moved the working poor from the servitude of working on large ranches to landownership of small plots of land and co-operative farm arrangements that failed. I am told they failed because the indigenous farmers lacked the management skills and resources to run the businesses. ( sound familiar?) I am not explaining this well but what I see is that the poor believed that owning land made them rich, however unless you do something with the land, it has no value. Pictured here is Deborah who's father was a ranch hand who received a plot of land on the estuary considered prime land. She lives in a humble house with a cook stove and a couple of hammocks. Our friend called her to ask if she would cook us a meal. She was extremely excited to have guests and used all her resources to get us the best seafood available. The result were the largest prawns or "camerones"
that I have ever seen. We sat in broken plastic chairs in her yard to enjoy the salt laden seafood dinner. My tongue singed with the salt and I started to worry about my blood pressure. I killed the salt with lots of limes that were growing over my head.

the land

El Salvador is boarded by 5 Volcanoes, this one San Miguel is still active

More fishing pics

The trophies, Ford Explorer, and outboard engines.

the big dorado

All the "Bill fish" under 600 pounds had to be released. There was one fish brought in at 578 pounds. The boat was disqualified because they were under the required amount. Talk about a bummer....
The Dorado were brought in and these 2 were the winners. There was no "weight" restrictions given on dorado fish, these are known as Dolphin fish, or Mahi Mahi, they are like Halibut in taste and texture.
I enjoyed eating our catch.
( we got 3)