King of the waves!

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Hello again. As the title of this here entry suggests, I decided that being as I´m in a country where surfing is pretty much the main tourist attraction, I´d give it a try. It might have given you a false impression of my ability though. Sorry about that, but I´ll get there in a bit. I did a bit more in El Salvador before I got to the beach, and I like to tell you about things in a nice chronological order.

Santa Ana

So when I left you last, I was in Chiquimula, Guatemala, not entirely sure whether I was going to go to Honduras or El Salvador. As you´ve guessed, I chose the latter, and headed for Santa Ana, reputedly a really nice colonial city. All lies. I really didn´t like the place at all, but can´t really put my finger on why. It just didn´t have much going for it. However, the hostel was quite easily the best I´ve stayed in so far, and probably the best I will. Javier, the owner, has basically turned his house into a hostel, and is a great host, offering to go out on beer runs, making sure his guests had enough food, and making everyone coffee in the morning. I think I mentioned that in Chiquimula I found a Hotel California, well this place really was like the one in the song, but just without the name!

Sadly, a nice place to stay isn´t going to keep me in a place I don´t like, so I headed for the hills (literally), to a small town called Juayua.

Juayua

Now Juayua I did like. As I´ve said, its a small town, in an area of Salvador known as "La Route de Flores", so called because surprise surprise, theres quite a few flowers around. It´s also a great place to do some hiking, one day I was there, I did a 6 hour hike through coffee plantations and tropical forest visiting 7 different waterfalls, each more impressive than the last. I also climbed down one, but was made to feel a bit silly, being as I did it with a rope, and still nearly fell, but my guide scampered down without in about 10 seconds. Ah well.

Later on, we also stopped to do some swimming in a pool underneath one of the biggest waterfalls. I think it was possibly the coldest water I have ever been in, although obviously being a hardy northerner, I happily swam on... for about 20 seconds.

Another highlight of my time in Juayua was the weekly food fair they have on a Saturday. It´s a carnivore's dream, with about 50 different stalls, each selling different types of meat. Well actually, most sold the same, usually chorizo, chicken or beef, but amongst them you could find things like rabbit, or frog. For the record, I had a chorizo starter, and a rabbit main course. Very nice too.

This weekend however, happened to also be the annual El Salvador marching band competition, so during our meat guzzling, we were entertained by bands from all over the country, each with a troupe of dancers. Although someone should really have told some of them that the big dragon things belong in China, and not El Salvador, unless I´ve got my world geography horribly wrong. Anyway, a band from Usulatan won, and they all looked very happy with themselves.

Playa el Tunco

My next destination was to the beach. Now, at no point in my life did I ever think I would be a surfer, and now following having a go at it, my opinion hasn´t changed. But history will show that Stewart Bartlett did give it a try. After a brief lesson on the beach, my instructor took me out into the sea. The first problem is paddling out. It´s alright for 5 minutes, but much longer than that it gets really tiring. Another beginner suggested putting motors on the things, and I agree entirely.

So when we eventually got out there, my instructor found me a couple of waves, which I tried to "ride", to use the correct terminology, without much success. However, on about my 3rd go, I successfully stood up and soared along on the break. I truly was the king of the sea, and from now on it should obey me... for about 5 seconds. Then I fell off, the wave pulled my shorts down, and the surfboard landed on my head. Oh how fortunes are fickle in the ocean.

Still, I´m glad I tried it, and those 5 seconds of standing up made me see why people keep going back. It was all a bit too much like hard work for me though, and I´d managed to get just a little bit sunburnt in the process. I may yet try again, but I suspect that the next time I meet an ocean, I´ll just stick to swimming.

Anyhow, thats all for now folks. For those of you that can´t get enough of this blog (thats a lot of you right?), the next exciting installment will include my visit to San Salvador, and going to see El Salvador´s national team play a World Cup qualifier.

Until then though, it´s goodbye from me, and goodbye from... me again.

Stewart.

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