EL TUNCO TO SAN SALVADOR


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Published: March 25th 2010
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After a calm weekend spent in Juayua, Fin and I grouped together with a pair of tall Blondes - one Danish and the other Australian - and embarked at around midday for El Tunco, a tiny surfing town about three hours away.

Getting on a chicken bus with your backpack is pretty difficult: often these buses are full the point that no seat is holding less than three people, and when you´re in a quiet area such is Juayua, there´s no bus conductor to hike your pack up on the roof, so it´s up to you to maneouvure it in through the hordes of passengers. When you multiply this already tricky situation by four, you can understand that the Fin, me and the two Blondes had a fairly hard time travelling soley on chicken buses this day.

The first bus was relatively stress-free. With my bag sandwiched beyween my legs, and someone else´s on my lap, I could sit back and enjoy the nineties dance tunes that were blasting out of the giant speakers at the front of the bus. Although the locals are obviously used to this state of affairs, I always felt like I was on some kind of party bus listening to Pump up the Jam, as we swerved in and out of sharp turns and, quite literally, held on to our seats for dear life.

Disembarking in San Salvador, El Salvador´s dangerous capital, things should have been easy. The guidebook gave clear instructions as to which bus we should catch and from which bus teminal. It was therefore, with even greater consternation than one might expect, that I found myself - several contradictory directions and forty-five minutes later - tramping through a hot overcrowded market that seemed to line the whole city. On one side were cheap knock-off goods, on the other various fruits in bags, and throughout, countless milling and sweating people, though noone, I think, who was sweating as much as I, with my giant backpack and the fast pace of the two athletic Blondes to keep up with.

When we did eventually make it to our destination, after two more sweltering chicken buses, I was angry. It was too late to see the sea, and all I wanted was a bed. We found one in a little hotel, and for our first night in El Tunco, this was all that we saw.

El Tunco is a tiny place - a surfer´s haven with only a few surf shops and sparsely stocked grocery stores. The beach was a little disappointing - black sand that was much too hot to walk on, and a sea that was a little too wild to swim in, but its main purpose here was for surfing, and that was what I thought I should try. Every other shack in El Tunco - whether it be a bar, hotel or shop - offers some kind of surf instruction, so I only had to step outside and across the sandy road for to find a board and a teacher for both myself and Julie - the Danish Blonde acquired from Juayua. So with a teacher each (both of whom were about five inches and four years below me), we headed for the beach - Julie and I carrying our surfboards, and Fin her camera, for documenting purposes.

Having surfed a bit when I was younger, I was fairly confident that I would be able to pick up where I´d left off. I didn´t consider the difficulties inherent in trying to understand Spanish shouted through thrashing waves. I also didn´t think that I would be as unskilled as I evidently am. I managed to stand up only once in an hour, and spent most ot the lesson cursing under my breath and praying that it would soon be over. Confusion over the instruction ´fuerte´ (meaning either ´strong´ hold on the board, or go under for ´strong´ wave) lead me to attempt huge waves that would drag me under, and to give up on waves that would have been more realistic for me to surf.

After the lesson I stood on the sand making awkward small talk with my instructor and lamenting to Fin that Julie´s instructor must have taken a shine to her, as she didn´t come out of the water until half an hour after me. When Julie´s instructor offered her a back massage, my suspicions were rightly confirmed. She gracefully refused.

That evening we ate in a little place that offered around four menu options, all of which where were very cheap and delicious. The restaurant was located atop a surf shop on the main drag and was a good spot for people-watching, unobscured by windows and not too high up. Incidentally, this was a place where you could see and be seen. During our meal Fin noticed our surf instructors down on the street talking with some friends and gesturing up at us. The next thing we knew, the instructors plus one ´fat friend´(purportedly for Fin) were squeezing themselves into our small booth with talk of taking us out that night. Not interested, we said that we didn´t know what our plans were or when we´d be heading out. This was no problem: we were kindly assured that my instructor could be found at this very spot (which was on the way to everywhere in El Tunco), at any time day or night.

We didn´t take the locals up on their offer that night; instead we packed and got ready to leave for San Salvador the following morning, where we planned to spend my birthday weekend. Like most Central American capital cities, San Salvador is renowned for being a dangerous place, but it sounded like the nightlife and culture would be fun, so we weren´t worried. As it turned out, the city did feel very sketchy, and our intended hostel had closed down due to bankruptcy. Consequently, we stayed only half a night in a hostel that looked like it might have been good ten years ago before they stopped cleaning or carrying out repairs. We decided to leave the fold-up bunkbeds and dodgy characters behind to for Granada, Nicaragua, and at 5am we boarded a Tica Bus headed for, what we hoped to be, a better time.

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