El Zonte
EL SALVADOR
Not As Easy As It Looks
By LYNDI
Monday, June 30, 2008
The surfing in El Salvador is legendary, so Aaron and I figured – when in Rome, right?
After spending a week in eastern El Salvador hiking, jumping, and eating bunnies, we figured a relaxing week at the beach was in order. We made our way to Playa El Zonte, approximately 10 minutes east of La Libertad. Now La Libertad has two very distinguished reputations:
1. Best break in the world at Punta Roca, and
2. For being the most dangerous and seedy city in El Salvador.
Seeing as how we´re not good surfers and we don´t like dying, we figured staying just outside of La Libertad would be just fine.
Upon Crazy Manolo’s recommendation, we found dorms available at Escencia Nativa in El Zonte. The owner, Alex, is clearly a surf bum and gives lessons to the wannabes like us. The hostel was beautiful as it was right up against the black sand beaches, had a great bar and pool on the premises, and an enormous flat screen TV where we could watch pirated movies.
Aaron and I signed up for a surf lesson and Alex showed us the basics on land (a.k.a. how to actually stand up and how to not break your board), and then we were off for the ocean. There were three of us in the surf class and two instructors, and I got one of the instructors all to myself because I sucked so bad.
However, after an hour, I was able to stand up and ride every 100th wave in without toppling over. Aaron, on the other hand, was now instructor-less and was easily cruising into shore with each approaching wave. We were ready.
Since surfing is actually pretty tiring, we took the rest of the day off and just relaxed around the hostel. The next day we took off to try another beach a bit further down at Playa San Diego. We figured we’d stay in San Diego for about two days and then head to Nicaragua, but we loved it so much we stayed for four. The hostel was a lot of fun, and the owners Daryn and Seca were almost over-accomodating. They would drive us into La Libertad to use internet or to go grocery shopping, they prepared amazing meals for us every night, and had pools, badminton and basketball courts, ping pong tables and just about everything else to keep us entertained in the meantime.
The day after we arrived, Seca drove us to a nearby beach at Playa El Tunco so we could rent a surfboard for the day. However, due to an enormous storm the night before, the surf was extremely high and crashing into large rocks on shore, tumbling all the garbage and downed trees in the surf at the same time. So we waited about an hour to see if the surf would go down at all, but it didn’t really change at all. Since we were both new at surfing and getting barreled in the back of a head with a swirling tree didn´t appeal to either of us, we returned the board and headed back. Surfing would have to wait another day.
That night was July 4th, so in honor of our beloved country, Daryn added a few sparklers to our chile con carne dinner and made us a big bucket of some alcoholic type beverage to celebrate. Probably as good of a July 4th celebration as we could ask for in El Salvador.
So the next day we decided to try again. We headed back to El Tunco and rented a board from the same shop and headed out to the waves. Now it was a Saturday, so any surfers in nearby San Salvador flock to the beaches and try to tear it up, so the water was pretty crowded with people that actually knew what they were doing. For all those beginner surfers that may be reading this, I’ve compiled a very important list of tips on how to successfully learn this craft:
- Have patience
- Don’t break the board
I failed at both.
Since Aaron and I were sharing one board, I headed out first to see if what Alex had taught me had stuck. After being knocked over repeatedly as I tried just to break past the surf, I attempted one wave and failed miserably. Seeing as how the surboard hit me on the head on the way down, I decided to give Aaron a shot. When I handed Aaron the board, he noticed that one of the fins was missing – and if you don´t have three fins, you’re completely off balance… and out about 30 dollars. Excellent.
But we weren’t swayed! We both tried a few more times but turned in after a few hours. Aaron had a bit more success than I did, but seeing as how we were working with faulty equipment (and seeing as how I sucked), we were at a bit of a disadvantage. What followed was about a 3 hour journey as I tried to take the incredibly slow buses back to our hostel to get more money and then navigate back to pay for the replacement fin. But we got things taken care of, had a nice seafood soup at a little store, and returned to the hostel for our big Saturday Seafood BBQ. Every Saturday, El Roble hosts a big BBQ and cook up seafood, prawns, cauliflower and broccoli blue cheese bake, nachos, fresh salad, rosemary potatoes, and garlic bread. After wasting 30 dollars and breaking a surfboard with my head – it was just what I needed.
After a few more days of relaxing and playing in the pool, we decided to head out. It was off to Nicaragua for us. After only two weeks in El Salvador, I can honestly say it is competing for one of my favorite countries in the world. Now we’ll see if Nicaragua can keep up.
