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."
As he was unloaded from an ambulance, Alvarenga tried again to answer questions shouted from the crowd. How do you feel? "Happy to have arrived," he said. Alvarenga's story stunned the world when he washed up on the Ebon atoll almost two weeks ago, appearing robust and barely sunburned after more than a year at sea.
"I'm so happy to know he's alive, that he returned. I want to give him a hug," said Emma Alvarenga, an aunt who arrived at the airport to see him but was left outside the VIP lounge where he was taken. His father, Jose Ricardo Orellana, 65, who owns a store and flour mill in the seaside Salvadoran town, has said his son first went to sea at age 14.
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