Bahia Jiquilisco, El Salvador
For those that are “collecting” countries, we arrived to our third country within this one week trip, El Salvador. El Salvador is the smallest (the size of Massachusetts) and most densely populated country in Central America. After cruising all night, the Sea Voyager anchored in the Bahia Jiquilisco, a beautiful bay surrounded by several miles of mangroves and a couple of small fishing towns. This bay is located in the southern part of the 390 mile long pacific coast of El Salvador.
El Salvador’s name evokes images of the chaotic civil war fought from 1980 to 1992 in the tangle of mountains and quilts of farmland. But the war has been over for over ten years now, and this small but varied country is doing its best to distance itself from its sordid past.
Adventurous travelers are well rewarded. Nowadays the landscape is the most turbulent aspect of El Salvador; volcanoes arise from flat valleys, majestic cones tower into the sky, and the Pacific Ocean slams the coast and mixes with the fresh waters of the many rivers that slice through the country.
Everyone onboard was ready to give this country a chance, so as the sun began to sneak through the clouds, we were hypnotized by a majestic volcanic mountain range, which looked so close we could almost touch it! The first on scene was the San Miguel Volcano at 6784 ft; it still is active, erupting as recently as 1976.
With the perfect cone-shape San Miguel Volcano as a giant witness, we loaded the Zodiacs and departed for true exploration. We went through the ntangled prop roots of several miles of mangrove forest, where quite a few spotted sandpipers, little blue herons, green-backed herons, great egrets, woodstorks and several other migratory birds. The mangrove ecosystems are very important places for the billions of birds that migrate from the northern temperate latitudes, through the tropics and into the southern tropical forest. These wetlands provide resting areas as well as food sources, which are required to store fat to fly away or back home.
The several species we got to see might be early arrivals, since most of the North American migratory birds that will stay in El Salvador will be expected around early October. The mangroves forests are not just important to the bird migration but as well to the fishes that breed within their roots.
And as the day washed away we felt a little like that those migratory birds that give a chance to any place that welcomes them to relax and feed… well we were definitely taking a chance in El Salvador, weren’t we?
For those that are “collecting” countries, we arrived to our third country within this one week trip, El Salvador. El Salvador is the smallest (the size of Massachusetts) and most densely populated country in Central America. After cruising all night, the Sea Voyager anchored in the Bahia Jiquilisco, a beautiful bay surrounded by several miles of mangroves and a couple of small fishing towns. This bay is located in the southern part of the 390 mile long pacific coast of El Salvador.
El Salvador’s name evokes images of the chaotic civil war fought from 1980 to 1992 in the tangle of mountains and quilts of farmland. But the war has been over for over ten years now, and this small but varied country is doing its best to distance itself from its sordid past.
Adventurous travelers are well rewarded. Nowadays the landscape is the most turbulent aspect of El Salvador; volcanoes arise from flat valleys, majestic cones tower into the sky, and the Pacific Ocean slams the coast and mixes with the fresh waters of the many rivers that slice through the country.
Everyone onboard was ready to give this country a chance, so as the sun began to sneak through the clouds, we were hypnotized by a majestic volcanic mountain range, which looked so close we could almost touch it! The first on scene was the San Miguel Volcano at 6784 ft; it still is active, erupting as recently as 1976.
With the perfect cone-shape San Miguel Volcano as a giant witness, we loaded the Zodiacs and departed for true exploration. We went through the ntangled prop roots of several miles of mangrove forest, where quite a few spotted sandpipers, little blue herons, green-backed herons, great egrets, woodstorks and several other migratory birds. The mangrove ecosystems are very important places for the billions of birds that migrate from the northern temperate latitudes, through the tropics and into the southern tropical forest. These wetlands provide resting areas as well as food sources, which are required to store fat to fly away or back home.
The several species we got to see might be early arrivals, since most of the North American migratory birds that will stay in El Salvador will be expected around early October. The mangroves forests are not just important to the bird migration but as well to the fishes that breed within their roots.
And as the day washed away we felt a little like that those migratory birds that give a chance to any place that welcomes them to relax and feed… well we were definitely taking a chance in El Salvador, weren’t we?
