Home Away from Home

Two 13 hour bus journeys, two border crossings and a fading hangover later, Nathan and I arrived at our destination, a fishing village in West El Salvador. Back to my concrete cell above a shop, with a balcony overlooking my favourite wave, pupusas stuffed with various lava hot fillings and the best fruit salads of my trip. With pretty consistent waves, and cool locals, this was the perfect spot to settle down for a while for some cheap living.

Surfing the point small but fun during the first week, it was all about healthy living ready for the monster forecast swell the following week.  The locals, knowing how accident prone I was, suggested to Nathan that he slip me a sleeping pill during the forecast swell, so as to avoid any further incidents with the infamous boulders that form El Salvadors dream wave. The swell arrived, smaller than predicted, but still pretty sizey for me, and of course it did not pass without a few scrapes. Day one, paddling back out after one of the biggest waves of my trip, I got cleaned up, snapped my leggy and had to swim in, scramble in over the rocks and rescue my poor battered favourite board. I then spent the rest of that swell surfing a new board that I still hadn’t quite figured out yet. Gutted.

Stoked that the Italian legend Matteo (aka The Italian Local) was still bopping around, super animated and funnier than ever, and later joined by two of the most entertaining characters from the start of my trip in Nicaragua, Ozzie surfies Rohan and Tommy, there was never a dull moment in or out of the water.  With not many budget surfers staying in town, we entertained ourselves with trips to the HUGE supermarket (a novelty on a trip like this!), turned our balcony into a living room, played with plasticine and made the odd trip up the coast to party.

We stuck around for a second big swell which didn’t line up quite as we all hoped but we got waves every day, often crowded and sometimes onshore. I couldn’t have asked for better people to surf with, they called me into waves, laughed at my many wipeouts and gave me a nod of approval  if I did something right. Legends!

Almost one month surfing the point, which was consistent but not always epic, it was time to move on and get away from the ever increasing crowds. Tommy was off to Mexico and Nathan, Rohan and I, a man down, headed to East El Salvador. Back to the forest and another of my favourite waves.