Playa El Zonte, El Salvador

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Hola! Gorf here again doing another froggy blog, this time from El Zonte beach, El Salvador.

This is a great coast for surfing, one of the best in Central America - and El Zonte has a right hand point break (just in case that means something to you). Keith has been in heaven. Bit of surf fitness to find again after a few weeks off, but great waves to be had just outside our door and surprisingly noone else out on them at 5am! Tessa and I prefer a bit of a lie in, but on a few days I managed to drag her out of bed to hang out watching the early surfing action.

Keith couldn´t bring a board (planes won´t take them at this time of year) so luckily there was a range of boards for hire and he bonded with one of them. Can´t imagine the drama we would have had in all those modes of transport so far if he had been allowed to bring his board!

Its a bit of a strange setup at El Zonte, with a river mouth right on the point. Almost every night we get rain, so often the water is quite brown and sometimes when the rain has been particularly heavy there´s a whole pile of branches and debris floating in the water. A bit dangerous when you´re coming in, as Keith found out one morning. Gorf to the rescue... pity I left my nurse´s outfit at home.

One night we had a thunderstorm that took out the power for the night and a real torrential downpour of rain. We were tucked up in bed by that time, listening to the music pumping at the fiesta across the road, and knew when the power went because the music was replaced by screams as the lights went out.

We heard the next day there were all sorts of dramas around the area from the rain. The road outside our hostel was knee-deep in water and a car almost washed into the river. A whole pile of guys were jumping up and down on it to get traction to move it out of the stream of water. Then water had washed through someone´s house and she was missing, so there was a bit of a panic before she was found somewhere else.

At El Tunco, another beach down the road, a number of cars got washed into the river and one ended up in the sea. And the river cut into the bank so much that a number of bars and restaurants lost some of the area for their tables. Now they are trying to do repairs by placing rocks on the bank and moving support beams. They seem to be used to the rain around here, though.

One day on the beach we saw a fishing boat come in with the catch still in the net. It was fascinating seeing what they caught. Mostly it was what looks like a type of catfish, with these viscious long spines in the fins. The guys were breaking off all the spines so they didn´t stab themselves when they were handling them.

They got a few crabs as well and even some prawns. They had scales on the beach and were very quickly weighing the fish and packing them into plastic bags for selling.

One day we took the bus to La Libertad, the nearest town with an ATM. We´d heard from some others that they had gone all the way there to get money but found that one ATM was out of order because it had lost its connection and then the other one was out of money. We were hoping it was all go by the time we got there a few days later. The ATM was in the middle of a huge American style chicken restaurant, slightly bizarre, but no complaints from us when the ATM spat the correct amount of money out at the right time.

La Libertad is known for its seafood, with heaps of places along the waterfront selling all sorts of super fresh things. We had ceviche (raw fish) in a cocktail with all sorts of other yummy bits. We checked out the fish market along the base of the pier, and saw one fishing boat arrive - not through the waves as usual, but lifted about 10m from the water to the top of the pier using a derrick. Up on the pier piles of boats lined the sides. Guess thats where all the seafood comes from for the market and the restaurants!

One exciting thing that happened while we´ve been at El Zonte was that we got interviewed for a TV program in El Salvador! Well, Tessa and Keith did, they didn´t bring me out for some reason, so I was a bit disappointed, but excited for them. They were filmed as part of a program called ´cultura extrema´apparently, covering a surf competition happening the next day a few beaches away.

Tessa and Keith were just sitting on the beach when they got accosted by them. Luckily one of the presenters spoke English because these two looked a bit bemused to start with when they babbled away rapidly to them in Spanish! Hopefully their bit didn´t hit the cutting room floor too quickly...

The food has been great here. We´ve become big fans of pupusas - like tortillas filled with things like beans and cheese (frijoles y queso). That´s our favourtie combination and you can find them all over the place. Even on the roadside in the middle of nowhere there´ll be someone cooking piping hot pupusas. They serve them with pickled vegetables, a bit like pickled coleslaw, and salsa.

Anyway El Zonte has been a great spot to hang out, even for a non-surfer. And to top it all off the surf has been ´epic´ (jealous Diggers?) so Keith got more than his fix of surf for the moment. Hopefully that will keep him going til we get to the next surf spot!

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Photos

From my hammock
Thats Keith on that wave!

Uh-oh
Nurse Gorf to the rescue

After heavy rain
Inside the car that ended up in the river

The catch
Pescadores get the fish from their nets

Clever!
At La Libertad, using a derrick to lift fishing boats

Mmmmm
Pupusas at a road-side stall