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Published: February 7th 2012
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I had managed to book a shuttle from Antigua to Playa El Tunco in El Salvador, this was the furthest away from my final destination I would be which means that from now on I would be headed back in a roundabout route to Cancun. In the shuttle was a Canadian (there are lots of them here) 3 Dutch guys and 3 Brits so we all had a good laugh on the journey. The journey took 6 hours across sometimes potholed roads and dirt tracks. The border was a bit crazy with huge tailbacks and the queue for immigration took 45 mins to get through and after all that they don’t even stamp the passport! But at least they don’t charge you to cross the border. Fellow travellers have always said that the people from El Salvador are the friendliest and I can’t argue with that, we had a laugh with the hawkers at the border by taking their baskets and trying to hawk their stuff to the locals that passed by, they were in hysterics.
Playa El Tunco is essentially a surfers paradise, it is famous for having some of the best right point breaks in the world and
the neighbouring towns are also fab for surfers. La Libertad further along the coast is far more built up and parts of it can be a bit dodgy to say the least so most travellers end up here instead.
On arriving at El Tunco I must admit to feeling a little out of place, it may surprise you that I am not the stereotypical surfer beach bum, I don’t know what would give it away the white skin, the hair or the fact I don’t call anyone “man” but I soon settled into the groove of this place although I won’t ever get the sun tan that most of the guys here had.
I stayed at the Papaya Lodge which was surf central and I soon got into the lingo talking about barrels and breaks, people were even asking me what the waves were like, as if I’d know what a good wave was compared to a bad wave:-)
Towards the evening I bumped into a few chums that I’d kept bumping into on the journey from Mexico to Caye Caulker. They were from French Canada and were a riot, we also found another guy from that
corner of the world and another Brit and headed for the bars for a Saturday night out. During the night I nearly got run over, probably due to the amount of drinks and the fact that I was gassing I failed to notice that a car was reversing towards me and ran into me!! I was shocked rather than injured but my Canadian chum went apesh** at the driver of the car and I thought he was going to get in a fight!! I couldn’t care less and shook the hand and the driver and that was that but me and my chums had a good laugh over it through the night.
The next day I had my first ever surfing lesson (for $10) and was made up as I even managed to stay on the board quite a few times!! I rented the board and went out on it a few times throughout the day but spent most of my time in the water, my balance has never been that good and I spent most of the time falling headfirst into the waves, so much that I was starting to get a headache.
I had
to have an early night as I had to be up to catch my shuttle to Copan Ruinas in Honduras the next day:-(((
Boring bits
The shuttles from El Tunco to Copan Ruinas do not run regularly and only run when there are enough people to make it worthwhile, so don't bank on this. Otherwise you would have to wait on the main road for a bus to San Salvador and get a bus from there. Cost of shuttle = $35.
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