Welcome to El Salvador! Shortly
after docking this morning, we were treated to some music and local dancers just outside
the ship. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of them, so this one will have to suffice. ;-)
We took the complimentary shuttle into the city (20 minutes away) and as we rode, our host gave us some information about his city. El
Salvador is home to 6 million people – very overpopulated for the amount of
land space they have! Acajutla (means “place of the cashew”) is El Salvador’s
principal port and handles a large portion of its coffee exports and shipments
of sugar and balsam (a resin used in perfumes and cosmetics). Acajutla also has
a petroleum refinery and a fertilizer plant. Tourism is also becoming an important
part of their economy.
El
Salvador has more water than land space. It is also home to 248 volcanoes,
most inactive. Locals refer to them as “sleepy giants.” The last big eruption
was in October 2005. The Salvadorian population is made up of mostly Catholic with Baptists
or evangelicals coming in second at 39%. Only 7% of Salvadorians speak English.
Since so many of their citizens have left the country for work in order to send
money back home, and surprisingly, the American dollar has now become their currency.
The
estimated population of Acajutla’s urban area is 26,000. That’s a lot of people
for just 3.8 square miles!
We
were in port on a Saturday, and it happened to be the end of the month, so many
people had received paychecks and were forming long lines at the ATM machines. We walked
through a local market where women were cooking food in small booths and people were eating on long tables in the back.
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| pupusas cooking on griddle |
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| tortilla making |
There was also a variety of other products - everything from spices to shoes, hardware to herbal remedies.
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| something for whatever ails you |
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| dried herbs |
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| if the shoe fits... |
From
there we strolled a few blocks down the main street with stores lining both
sides (each one with its own LOUD music being blasted into the street). In front of, or in between stores were vegetable or product vendors with their wares laid out on
the sidewalk, ready to be seen by a steady stream of potential shoppers. Cars, buses and
trucks filled the streets as well. It was a busy, noisy downtown. Overall, I found the people very
friendly, even allowing me to take pictures of them or their children as we walked
along.
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| avocado vendor |
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| truckload of Salvadorians |
Even
though tourists are easily recognized wherever they go, the locals didn’t appear
to pay much attention to us and we never felt threatened or uncomfortable, even
in the thick of it. However, it was 86 degrees with an warning of unusually high UV so
after 1½ hour of walking, we were ready to hop on the air conditioned shuttle bus and head back to
the port.
A
half hour or so before our afternoon departure, a uniformed military band set
up on the dock and performed a mini concert for us, playing until we had to
push off. Acajutla doesn’t get a lot of cruise ships. I thought it was very nice that they would make that effort for us.
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| back to the ship |
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| military band send off |
It's unfortunate that between this blogger site and our internet service on the ship, I'm unable to include any videos. They would tell the story much more effectively than my feeble descriptions do.
Thanks so much for following along. It motivates me to blog when I'd rather be lazy! We're headed to Mexico now. We should be hearing soon how the civil unrest there is going to affect our travel plans.
