Long Journey Ends at Home for Man Lost off Mexico's Pacific Coast Marcos Aleman - The Seattle Times
go to original February 12, 2014

El Salvador's "castaway" Jose Salvador Alvarenga returns home to El Salvador to a rousing welcome after spending a year adrift at sea. Sarah Toms reports. (Reuters)

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A fisherman who says he drifted at sea for more than a year has finally made it home to El Salvador, exhausted and speechless.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga tried to address a media throng waiting at the airport, eager to fill in details about what many people have viewed as a fish tale: a man tossed 6,500 miles (10,500 kilometers) across the Pacific in a small boat from Mexico to the Marshall Islands, surviving on raw fish, turtles and bird blood.

But when handed the microphone at the San Salvador airport late Tuesday, Alvarenga could only put his hands to his face, appearing to cry.

Wearing a dark blue T-shirt, khaki trousers and tennis shoes, the 37-year-old left the airport in a wheelchair and was taken by ambulance to the National Hospital San Rafael, where he was greeted by a daughter who didn't remember him and a mother who had thought he was dead after not hearing from him for years.

Dr. Yeerles Ramírez described the reunions as emotional, and said that according to medical tests so far, "the prognosis is very good."

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