Spanish Adventurer, Álvaro de Marichalar, departs Belize to Honduras
Spanish Adventurer, Álvaro de Marichalar, has left the jewel. He left Florida on the twelfth of December en route to Panama and is expected to complete the journey on January ninth. After docking on our shores on Saturday, Marichalar was to depart the country on Monday, but had to make repairs on the water scooter which he is using to traveling the waters. Today, he packed up the few supplies he is carrying with him and headed to Honduras. Before leaving, the Rotarian spoke of his experience here in the jewel and the mission of bringing awareness to the End Polio Now Campaign.
Álvaro de Marichalar, Adventurer
“My aim is to arrive in Puerto Cortez, Honduras around four o’clock if the ocean let me go. If not I will arrive later. But I have to arrive today and probably tomorrow I will depart towards Nicaragua. I am very happy that I could stop here in Belize. I am very thankful to everybody; especially Jose, and all the media here. I am very happy about the princess hotel that welcomed me also and everybody in this amazing, magic, fantastic land, country that I always wanted to meet and finally I arrived here. I really love it and my souvenir will be fantastic.”
Duane Moody
Álvaro de Marichalar
“What’s your anticipation from here to Honduras?”
Álvaro de Marichalar
“I think the ocean will be good. In the night it was very windy; I was just staying a few meters from out of my boat and I was worried about the current and the shocks, but finally I came a couple of times during the night to check it. But I think the ocean now is calmer and I think it will let me go easier.”
Duane Moody
“Now there are a lot of challenges that come with this and a lot of logistics behind it could you tell us about that? You know to make sure that everything is ready when you are entering a different country.”
Álvaro de Marichalar
“Exactly, as you well said, there are a lot of backstage logistics in these kind of adventures. I spent like eight hours on the internet. I just left four hours because I had to prepare arrival in Honduras. I had to prepare footage and send some pictures to my sponsors, especially BBC, my Russian main sponsor; international group based in Moscow. Had to send all the pictures to other collaborators around the world. And I had to send information also to the rotary people. We are trying to prepare a big charity dinner in Panama on the ninth or tenth of January to get funds for the End Polio Now Campaign; that’s one of the aims and objectives of this crossing. And I also have to organize the welcome act in Panama to make a tribute to Vasco Nunez de Balboa who was the European Discoverer of the Pacific Ocean.”
It is Marichalar’s fortieth mission since 1982. Each expedition has been for a different cause.
