La Conchalita

26 June

We left at 7 am this morning, as soon as the fog burned off and headed to the district of La Libertad.  Roger had talked quite a bit with a park policeman named Juan (John) Vaquero.  Juan liked to be called “Cowboy”.  Roger and he talked about Cowboy’s life and his desire to improve his English so he can get hired by the protective force for the United Nations mission.  Currently, Cowboy works 5 days straight at the park and then has 3 or4 days off.  There are 20 park police, so the rotation works with overlap.  His wife and three children live in Sonsonate, which is about an hour away from the park.  Roger gave Cowboy a small Leatherman (since he had 3 in the RV) and a flashlight.  Cowboy was extremely touched by Roger’s generosity.  This morning Cowboy had some tape on his thumb, which he eventually admitted to Roger that he had cut himself checking out his new Leatherman.  Sandra had an extra and old pair of binoculars that she gave to Cowboy as well.  Cowboy gave Roger his official park police hat and Sandra a park police t-shirt.  All involved felt special about the friendship that we made with Cowboy.  Cowboy was anxious to get home the morning we left Cerro Verde National Park because his oldest (teenage) daughter had been briefly hospitalized during his duty day with an asthma attack.

It took about 2.5 hours to drive to the Police Compound on La Conchita beach in La Libertad.  The road on Sandra’s map software looked extremely curvy, so we were somewhat concerned about the drive.  As it turned out, it was no worse than a drive along the Washington/Oregon coast, save for the pot holes. 

There were 5 tunnels of various lengths, but not much in terms of a scenic view, because there were lots of banana plants, coconut trees and other vegetation on the right side of the highway.  We did come across one place where there was a family drying corn on the side of the road.  The corn is laid out on the roadside ground where it is wide, and periodically raked during the day.  The black roadside helps by providing a good hot surface to dry out the corn.  This seems so odd to us sanitary freaks, seeing future edible corn being raked on the roadside.  Of course, Norm was going so fast that we missed the photo opportunity.  Hopefully we’ll come across another example as we head south.

The Police Compound is a public park that is secured at night.  We’re parked behind a cement wall and can hear the road traffic on the other side of the wall.  Access is limited after 10 pm, so Norm considers this a safe place to spend two nights.  The swimming pool is like lake water swimming.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.  The ocean water is very warm, with a very strong undertow.

We have no idea how much it is costing us to park here, but Norm did point out a couple of resort places on the drive south that he said “are upscale places to stay.”  Sandra and I were wondering what was wrong with staying at a few upscale places?  This question may or may not be raised at a future prep meeting.  We have prep briefs every evening before we head out the next day.

The beach is rocky in some places and smooth in others. These pictures were taken close to high tide.  Facing west, on the southside from the compound the Conchita river (think big creek, when there isn’t rain storm runoff) flows into the ocean.  There was lots of human generated flotsam in the area around the river.  We made sure we entered the ocean well away from where the river meets the ocean.

Looking south, you can see where the river is meeting the ocean on the left mid picture.

Looking North