Vacation: Playa El Tunco, El Salvador

Tom and I went on a 3 week vacation to El Salvador and Guatemala. While we were there we posted updates on Facebook, but I thought it would be nice to share some photos from it. I'm breaking the posts up into more manageable sections. Below is a route map of where we went.

We took the red-eye from Calgary to L.A. to San Salvador, landing in El Salvador around 7:30 am. We found out our luggage was left behind in L.A. but headed for the beach at Playa El Tunco anyway. TACA airline was pretty good about giving us a US$50 voucher and arranging to drop our bags off when they arrived, even though the town was 2 hours away... at least 2 hours away at that point because the main road was washed out by the latest hurricane.

We arranged a pick up from Jose, the owner of La Sombra (where we spent the first few nights in El Tunco, see below). Playa El Tunco is a pretty quiet surf town, and La Sombra was a comfortable place to stay.

The hostel was on a side-lane off the main road. The lane went right down to the beach, so a 1 minute walk to get surfing. Of course the town is pretty small so it was only a few minutes of walking to get anywhere. There's a great coffee shop in town called Dale Dale, a few surf shops and internet spots and a couple of beach-front restaurants... enough that we were able to buy a couple of bathing suits, a towel, and sunblock.

The view up the beach towards our door:

This is the view around the corner from the first shot, where one of the rivers entered the ocean. The beach is cobbly, although at low tide you can find some sandy spots to hang out... although if you want a dry bit of beach to lounge on you have to walk about 10 minutes to the opposite end.

This is the area where Tom (mostly) and I (kinda) surfed. Our bags arrived on our second day in El Tunco so Tom rented a surfboard and tried it out here, doing quite well and catching some waves. On our way back through we weren't as lucky and the waves were larger so we mostly got battered (so I gave up on the 2nd day, while Tom stuck it out for 2 more days of abuse).

Little hermit crab on the beach:

This is the view from our door along the beach. The point in the distance is the place where most of the surfers hung out because there's a long, consistent right-break that you can ride into the beach. We just lack the control to surf in a crowd. The area with the white wall is the main part of town where the restaurants and a few "posher" hotels were.