Usulután, El Salvador – The AVATAR Logs

Among the highlights of our brief Puerto Barillas stopover in El Salvador was a provisioning trip to the chaotic (at least on market days) little city of Usulután, seated in the shadow of Volcán Usulután. We hitched a ride on the marine club van, bouncing down a dusty dirt road past expansive sugarcane fields en route to town, where we hit both the modern supermarket and also the traditional open air mercado across the street. Friday must be the big shopping day because the streets were jammed with what appeared to be thousands of people crowding the market. We saw weatherbeaten rancheros wearing cowboy hats and 3 foot long machetes holstered in leather scabbardss, local ladies wearing frilly little aprons and balancing their loads (everything from egg crates stacked six high, to bundles of fruit, to a festive tray of street food snacks) atop their heads, and men in camouflage pants quite possibly left over from their days as guerrillas in the civil war that ended in 1992.

The currency of El Salvador is the US dollar and in the market one dollar appeared to be the standard asking price for just about anything – for a kilo of mangoes or a bag generously filled with tomatoes or limes (actually limes are expensive – $2 per bag). You could buy anything from a slice of watermelon and a glass of lemonade to a side of beef to a floor length evening gown in the open air booths lining the market alleys. However for lunch we opted to forego the local cuisine and instead went to the modern air conditioned Pizza Hut where we made the mistake of sitting by a window where kids on the sidewalk tapped repeatedly and pressed their noses to the glass trying for our attention and presumably another dollar.

Back at the resort we strolled through a section of Bahía de Jiquilisco, a UNESCO-designated Biosphere Reserve, where we hand fed bananas to a tribe of spider monkeys after our guide called them down from the treetops by name (María and Pancho). As best I understood from our guide, there are several species of monkeys in El Salvador, but their numbers were severely depleted during the civil war when they were shot by the combatants, more for sport and target practice than for food. This particular group of 30 monkeys are escapees from a zoo, living free and safe in an ecological preserve while enjoying handouts from the tourists.

AVATAR was tied to a mooring at Puerto Barillas, in the wide quiet waters of the river that mirrored reflections like glass. I spent one morning side-tracked from bird photography, kayaking instead amongst a fleet of dilapidated shrimp boats that are gradually disintegrating along the mangrove banks.