Playa El Tunco, El Salvador

• Rustinandjenn's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Playa El Tunco

Trip Start Nov 05, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Playa El Tunco, El Salvador
Thursday, November 29, 2007

Greetings to all from Playa El Tunco/Playa El Sunzal, El Salvador.  We have been living in this little beach town for the past week and a half and loving everything about it.  We arrived here on Sunday November 17th (i think that is the date) after taking a shuttle from Antigua, Guatemala directly to our hotel "La Tortuga", which is The Turtle Hotel.  We crossed over the border with no problems at all and journey down the beautiful coast of El Salvador to our destination of Playa el Tunco.  We pulled up to this beachfront hotel that we had found on the internet and heaved a sigh of relief as it instantly felt comfortable. This is what we had been in search of since our arrival in Central America.  A cozy little hotel, directly on the beach, nestled in this cute little village of El Tunco. There is one main road of the town that consists of two restaurants, a couple little surf shops and some hostels and hotels all cozied up together.  It has this peaceful tranquility to it that we both love. The El Salvadorians are full of smiles and warm hearts and even though they do not always understand everything that we say, they smile and make a great effort to figure it out.  The local people are so patient and understanding in helping us to learn the language. 
We have had the chance to get to know the owner of our little hotel.  His name is Roberto, and he is an Archaeologist who loves to surf and his mother passed on this piece of land to him directly on the beach and over the past 9 years he has built a beautiful little hotel that consists of four rooms. A get away from the busy city for him aswell.  He has been so kind to us since our arrival and took up to a little town in the hills one evening by the name of Taminique to listen to a speech he was giving to the town about how to develop tourism into the mountains.  90% of visitors to El Salvador head directly to the coast, and he is trying to pioneer a way to distribute the tourism amoung the different towns.  It was a very interesting experience.  We were the only 2 gringos (a term used for white people) at this gathering and quite possibly the only 2 gringos that have visited that area in recent times.  A pure cultural immersion.
Roberto took us out the other afternoon on a drive up to one of the other beaches in the area, took us out for beers and on a little tour of the area.  He took us to a new restaurant that had just opened on the coast and lead down this massive rock staircase to these wave pools that had been hand built by someone on the beach.  When the tide is high, the waves crash over the rock wall into this massive pool and collects and you can sit there and enjoy the waves crashing around you while bathing in a natural pool of sea water.  It was a pretty amazing experience, and it was dark. I kept having visions of a shark lurking around under my feet, but that was just the days of watching Jaws haunting my mind.
We have been enjoying the ocean to its fullest, in the water every day swimming and surfing.  I (Jenn) took my first surf lesson early last week and can proudly say that I officially caught my first real wave.  I also got tossed around quite a bit aswell.  The conditions are perfect for beginners as the waves are not too big and the swell not too strong.  The weather is consistently about 32 to 34 degrees every day and sunny!! Gotta say we are not too jealous of the cold Canadian weather, but missing all of you of course :)
This Sunday that has just passed we had a visit from Reverend Brian, a contact of Rustinīs family.  He came down to El Tunco for a visit with us and we shared some stories over lunch and dinner.  Reverend Brian does some pretty amazing work in San Salvador working actively in prisons around the country aswell as with street gangs in San Salvador.  We discussed with him the possibility of spending a bit of time with him and getting involved once we get some spanish under our belts.  
We have successfully mastered the bus system so that we are able to get on the chicken bus in Playa El Tunco, which costs $0.30, and bus into the town of La Libertad, stock up at the supermarket, and bus back.  We hae also been able to figure out the local villages water system, and have 4 gallon jug that we can fill at the village purified water station for a mere $0.20.  Things are simple and great here! 
We have been enjoying eating fresh seafood every day literally caught right in front of the restaurants where we are eating. Fresh ceviche, whole fish fried and stuffed with shrimp, onions and garlic. (The fish is large enough for both of us to eat). They serve you the fish with eyes, fins, tail and all!!!  We have eaten fresh shrimp, crab, calamari, oysters, clams, mussels, etc. Dad, you would love the selection of seafood!! :) They have a specialty snack of El Salvador which is called Pupusas, that consist of fresh corn tortillas stuffed with beans, cheese and meat and then grilled and served with pickled vegetables and tomato sauce! It is delicious, one of our favourite snacks! Rustin is pretty stoked that beer is the usually cheaper than pop or juice! Why not drink beer, when you are saving money!! LOL
We are beginning to think about heading farther down the coast of El Salvador to a place called Las Flores, which is south of the town of San Miguel, on the coast.  There is apparently some surfing there and a neat little beach to check out.  We are planning to leave on Monday to go down there for likely a week and then head possibly down to Nicarauga for a bit and then back up here to Playa El Tunco before we begin to make our journey over to Honduras to meet up with my family (Jenn) which we are very much looking forward to.
All in all we are loving the vibe in El Salvador.  The people around our town are becoming familiar faces and the people working at our hotel like family!  We are noticing the postives in spending a longer period of time in smaller places.  Relationships are able to develop instead of just two gringos passing through. 
Internet connection is pretty off and on around the places we are visiting.  But we are both safe, happy and loving our journey.  We will keep you posted with more adventures as they unfold.

Slideshow Share

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Our Slice of Luxury (the room)	Playa El Zonte	Playa El Zonte #2	Sunset from our Hotel Room
The Beautiful Sunset	The Classic Hammock Photo	The Classic Self Portrait	The Electric Palm Tree
The Parrot	The Rock of El Tunco	The View from the Room	Tropical Flowers

Previous Entry Next Entry