Day 38 – Surfing in El Zonte
El Zonte is totally a surfing town, or more like a surfing village. There are a few small hotels along the waterfront along with a handful of eateries. Everyone is here to surf. There’s a beach on the east side of town with large waves for the pros and a beach on the west with more beginner friendly surf.
For two dollars at Teco’s, we got our favourite breakfast, scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, beans, local cheese, fried plantain and bread. Like we’ve said before, the fried plantain is incredible. Teco also rents out surf boards ($10/day) and gives lessons ($20/hour) so we asked if he’d teach us to surf. He agreed, but later in the day when the tide would be in.
Before our lesson we went out for a quick lunch of papusas (El Salvador’s national dish), which we’d have for lunch and dinner every day in El Zonte. They’re typically 50 cents each for thick tortilla stuffed with a variety of options, like beans/cheese/meat, fish, or spinach/cheese. We’d two for lunch and three for dinner. They’re served with a big helping of spicy pickled cabbage and watery non-spicy tomato salsa.
Surfing was great to try. We learned about where to stand on the board and how we needed to have one foot anchored at the back while sliding the front one forward in order to stand up. We spent most of the hour waiting for the whitewash of a wave, catching it, standing up for a few split seconds, and then falling off. We’re probably not going to be pros any time soon, but we had fun.
Day 39 – More surfing in El Zonte
Today was pretty similar to yesterday. We just rented the surf boards today and went out at 7am, because of the tide, before breakfast. On to breakfast, we were offered avocado instead of cheese and tortillas instead of bread buns, which was a nice change.
We went for papusas again for lunch and dinner and spent much of the day researching ideas and potential upgrades to our van. Some of the ideas include installing an auxiliary battery, having a fridge, adding a ceiling vent, and re-painting the panelling.
Day 40 – Relaxing in El Zonte
Today was the laziest day of the trip so far. We didn’t surf as our tummies were bruised from the last couple days. We laid in hammocks and read, dipped in the pools, and didn’t even muster the energy to walk over to lunch. We had “liquados” in the afternoon, essentially fruit smoothies with banana in one and strawberry in the other.
At night we’d heard that there were a group of people from a turtle sanctuary that collected the eggs from turtles that come onto the beach to lay them each night. We couldn’t find out precisely when this happened and scoured the beach for about an hour at night to no avail. At least we had a nice evening sitting under the stars and watching the waves crash.
It’s been a great few days relaxing by the beach before heading back north. This marks the point farthest south that we’ll be going this trip.
Looks fab.