El Zonte, El Salvador (Why we may not return to the US)

Crossing borders is not my favorite activity.  The governments down here love piles and piles of paperwork.  They want 4 copies of your title, passport, DL, exit paperwork from the previous country, birth certificate, parent’s marriage license, vehicle owners manual, and a high school report card.  Ok, so maybe not all that stuff, but they do want an inordinate amount of crap and it all has to be stamped.  They stamp a bunch of papers, you go make 17 copies and take it to another office and they stamp it some more and send you back to the office you were at three offices ago.  And on top of all that you are constantly swarmed by people who just want to help …for a fee of course.  It’s not a terribly difficult process but it still makes me anxious and I don’t like it.  So after a particularly unorganized border crossing with long lines in hot, dingy offices, I was ready for some relaxation.

As the sun set, Kaytie kicked back to read her Kindle.  I kicked back to enjoy the view.

We were planning on hitting up the beach at El Zonte anyway, so when we got there and found a nice place to park the Montero, I told Kaytie that we should just stay a couple days and relax.    Kaytie was okay with it because she had found a super tasty and super cheap pupulsa place about 20 yards from where we were staying.  A couple days turned into about a week because there was just so much to love about that place.

When we pulled into town we weren’t sure what to think, mostly because nothing was open.  It was like a ghost town.  We drove towards the beach and finally found one little restaurant that was open.  It was a wood frame shack with dirt floors but they had a TV playing the Simpsons in Spanish so I was happy and they had pupulsas so Kaytie was happy.  The food turned out to be really good and the lady was helpful in finding a place to park the Montero.  There was a hostel/cabana resort/surf bum village with a big wall surrounding the compound.  It was right on the beach and it was clean.  For $10/night we had a very secure place to park, bathrooms, showers, access to two pools, a large outdoor dinning and living area with a huge TV and American cable channels.  But most importantly there were about 30 hammocks strung up around the place.  It was awesome and it was cheap.  Along with a large iguana and quite a few birds of paradise, there were 5-6 other people staying in the rooms and they were all very nice.  We had a fantastic time there.

It wasn’t just our accommodations that rocked.  The beaches were made up of a fine dark sand which was surrounded by steep cliffs with deep caves that we explored during low tide.  After living in Hawaii for years, you think I’d be hard to please but this was easily as nice as any beach on the North Shore and about 1% as crowded.  It wasn’t uncommon to look around and not see another person on the beach with maybe a surfer or two out on the waves.

I got washed back onto shore.

Kaytie taught me the art of mud drip sand castles with her castle in the foreground. Then the student became the teacher with my masterpiece. 

Speaking of surfing, there was a nice consistent break that was supposed to be pretty good for beginner to intermediate surfers, so we decided to give it a go.  One of our big regrets from our time in Hawaii was the fact that we never went surfing together and we rarely went on our own.  So we talked to Ramon, a local kid who agreed to rent us some boards and give us some pointers.  First things first, he taught us the importance of stretching, then we made boards in the sand and got to practicing.  Once we were out in the water, we had a blast.  It was more fun than I’d had in Hawaii, mainly because we were practically the only ones out there.

Ramon stressed the importance of proper stretching before surfing. 

Kaytie has way better form...

It was hard to leave El Zonte.  I probably never would have left if Kaytie hadn’t reminded me that we have 5 more countries to visit.  She was right, there is still so much to do and see.  I’m starting to think that we may have to extend the trip for another couple months…