Surf, Ruta de las Flores, Coffee, Waterfalls in El Salvador . Enjoying Central America

It was all worth it.. After fighting off cracked ribs, bust transmissions, ear infections, travellers sickness and one rv down we had some really nice long righthanders at El Sunzal… that were worth it. We swapped a bunch of photos made by photographer Paz for our mountain bike, and stayed with Antonio & Amelia at Surfer’s Inn for about 6 weeks. Nice, once again it made me realise I prefer to sit in one spot a little longer. We got to know the local dogs, courtesy of Omar, and then the local dog owners, the local oyster fisherman, the local surf dudes, the local teenage surf chica, and most importantly the local pupusa* ladies..

It was a home away from home, and super nice not to move the van for a while. We had a great set up in their yard, with fresh mangos dropping (nearly) on your head each day. We woke up to big mango bangs on the roof most nights, and enjoyed many mango smoothies. And yes, that’s me the fruit hater saying it..
I had my birthday at the Surfer’s Inn, with Paul flying back from his week of work in Aspen the night before. Mauricio, who is Antonio’s son in law and me picked him up from the airport and whilst I was trying to chat away in Spanish to him we talked about my birthday. Mauricio mentioned I should have a big party, and I feared a re-run of his birthday party 2 weeks before, with Karaoke blasting out of the biggest speakers I have ever seen until at least 3am. I kindly declined.. But we chatted on about favourite fish etc. So… the next day Paul, Matt& Lara and our newfound friends at the Surfer’s Inn were being secretive about the Pinata they bought for me.. But even they could not expect Mauricio breaking out the 6 foot speakers, the grilled fish, the ‘caviar’ and a pretty necklace present.. It was great. We all shared our foods and then got busy whacking the s&^%t out of the Pinata which had a scary resemblance of me… How do they sell Pinatas that resemble blonde girls in Central America…?
Lucky fo rme, no karaoke, however the speakers where there for our table music.. So my birthday meal was accompanied by Ace of Base and other fine tunes. Pretty special.
The surf break was a 4 min walk down the way with no wind every morning, and waves every day. Also a bunch of people every day, but it made our turns get a lot more solid! I now also know how to yell someone of my wave in Spanish, and how to turn out real quick. Drop-ins were inevitable. Got some lovely long rides though, saw turtles and a flying fish in the water, along with Nemo’s brothers and the water was WARM.
Our friends from Mexico Lara, Matt and their 2 year old son Tasman came to join us for our last 10 days there, and we had some fun times with them, and decided to drive up the Ruta de las Flores together, and then into Antigua Guatemala. We are in Juayua with them now, enjoying more, and different pupusas* and doing tours to waterfalls, coffee plantations & cooperatives and just chilling out. When Tasman lets us… They are touring Canada, the USA and down to El Salvador for a year on a break from their lives in Australia. Pretty cool.

The coffee tour was really good. Local boy Cesar took us to a small plantation and factory, after which we roasted his own organic beans at a friend’s small roasting machine. We learned about the subtle details and how to make French press roast or Espresso roast. Believe it or not but the difference is in 10 seconds of roasting time. We learned how to properly taste coffee and that the processes are not so different from wine making since we are staying with Alex, outside his hotel, in the van, who is a French wine maker..
I am really starting to like El Salvador, but its back down to Guatemala tomorrow, where we are going to check out Antigua, and are hopeful we get to camp for free with the Tourist Police there. Watch this space…


*pupusa-
 (from Pipil pupusawa) is a traditional Salvadoran dish made of thick, hand-made corn tortilla (made using masa de maíz, a maize flour dough used in Latin American cuisine) that is usually filled with a blend of the following: cheese (queso) (usually a soft cheese called Quesillo found in all Central America), cooked pork meat ground to a paste consistency (called chicharrón, not to be confused with fried pork rind, which is also known as chicharrón in some other countriesrefried beans (frijoles refritos), or queso con loroco (loroco is a vine flower bud from Central America). The two most common pupusas are the pupusa de queso (cheese) and more popular pupusa revuelta with mixed ingredients of queso (cheese), frijoles (beans),[1] and chicharrón. Pupusas are typically served with curtido (lightly fermented cabbage slaw with red chilies and vinegar) and a watery tomato salsa.), ),

El Salvador

9^th February 2011

We made it out of Panajachel. And out of Guatemala into El Salvador.
Sitting in a restaurant, that’s closed in the daytime but serves nice beer nevertheless we are hopeful the internet may work again soon. El Salvador is the most developed of the Central American countries we visited so far, though Internet is by far the hardest to find. Strange. Paul really needs it to work on the rafting business but it is hard to come by, and kinda super frustrating.
To be honest, the trip has not been very easy at all. It is a lot harder to travel by vehicle through all these countries than by plane and local buses, for sure. Suddenly you have all those belongings, your house on wheels, oh and the dog to think about. It has been nice to be stationary for a while, here in El Sunzal, at Antonio’s ‘Surfers Inn’, a very basic Guesthouse with a nice El Salvadorian family. I was asking about Laundromats the other day, so Antonio volunteered that his wife will wash my clothes. I obviously did not want this, but there was no arguing. The next day I get my clothes back, all hand washed, dried and folded. Antonio’s wife proudly exclaimed that they were way cleaner than a machine could do it, the river, rocks and sun are far superior than Laundromats. Sorry earth, I have just contributed some more to your demise. Again, it is hard to tell people here that their way of life, burning trash, using the rivers like they do etc etc is not sustainable. They haven’t reached our welfare level to even consider it. What makes me more angry are the big-ish hotels lining the beachfront. The one right on the point is being done up all fancy, with earthy colours an modern arty white stones on threads off the walls. It looks good, I have to say. But with all the costly modifications they still cannot stop dumping their waste water into a gutter next to their big compound wall, to run off directly into the wave. It is those that really annoy me, the ones that know about environmental measures but just ignore them.

but at least we have some waves again. El sunzal has a great right hand point break, right at the end of our track.. Paul is enjoying it a little more than me, as my rib has decided to play up again.. but it is nice to be here anyway..

travel day

Drama drama

29^th January 2011

So here we are. Back to square one. Hoping that a mechanic can fix our van. Except this time we are in a little town in Guatemala (yes they let us in, pretty easily) surrounded by big volcanoes and very steep roads out, with not a lot of access to parts or mechanical tools and oh yeah we don’t really speak much Spanish. I am tested to the max. My language and dictionary-look-up skills; my patience and my hope and positivity. We are hopeful it is ‘just’ a vent on the transmission box, which is broken, and making our ATF poor out faster than we can fill it. It may need a whole new transmission tho. Which they can only do in Guatemala City. A VERY long old tow up a steep steep curvy mountain road away. Not even sure we can find a tow truck who could do that, as we are very heavy, and tall. We were extremely lucky to find a tow into Panajachel, as tow-truck numero uno couldn’t lift us up. Tow-truck numero dos managed to drag-tow us down the steep steep mountain road, and drop us at the mechanic, where we are still.

Drama drama

29^th January 2011

So here we are. Back to square one. Hoping that a mechanic can fix our van. Except this time we are in a little town in Guatemala (yes they let us in, pretty easily) surrounded by big volcanoes and very steep roads out, with not a lot of access to parts or mechanical tools and oh yeah we don’t really speak much Spanish. I am tested to the max. My language and dictionary-look-up skills; my patience and my hope and positivity. We are hopeful it is ‘just’ a vent on the transmission box, which is broken, and making our ATF poor out faster than we can fill it. It may need a whole new transmission tho. Which they can only do in Guatemala City. A VERY long old tow up a steep steep curvy mountain road away. Not even sure we can find a tow truck who could do that, as we are very heavy, and tall. We were extremely lucky to find a tow into Panajachel, as tow-truck numero uno couldn’t lift us up. Tow-truck numero dos managed to drag-tow us down the steep steep mountain road, and drop us at the mechanic, where we are still.
We managed to convince Mario’s Hospedaje* (guesthouse) to accept the dog and that’s where we slept last night. Paul slept. I did not, too worried about break-ins to the van, as people are so very poor here, it is so tempting as we have so much STUFF. Although we are parked in the mechanic’s yard, who have a ‘guard’ dog and the Voluntary ‘Bomberos’ as neighbours I just couldn’t stop worrying. So tonight it is back to sleeping in the van. Gustavo, our mechanic is shopping for parts in Guatemala City today
which is quite a day-trip really. We hope he can find the right size vent-plug and filter. And then we hope that our fluid stays in and the transmission works. Then the next challenge will be trying to very slowly make it up those steep mountain roads…
I am starting to think about how easy it was to just fly in as a traveller, and not having to worry about a vehicle (and a dog!) and all that STUFF. What was I thinking?? This has so far not really been an easy adventure at all. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? I am ready for some easy times now tho. Bring it on, please.

No Plans

I like how 1ong trips make me, the endless planner, relaxed and without plans. Because of this we met these great people who invited us to stay at their beachfront palapa* at San Pedrito, a lovely surf spot right out front. We were meant to camp there anyway at this old disused RV site, but took the wrong road, the one that does not exist no more. So Leah got her van stuck in deep sand, we dug her out a gazillion times and finally managed to pull her out with our van, all this in the dark of course. Then we drove past some great guys next to the basil fields, asking for directions to the right road, got invited to camp at theirs and here we are still. Pretty sweet.

push em off!

Over Christmas we managed to be asked to work for Leah’s employer, BOA, and help out the panga* driver with loading up each day and cooking meals for the 10 customers on Leah’s 4 day kayak trip.. Not bad.. We got to stay a bonus night on our own, watching the gear and panga.. Fun. Snorkeling with the sea lions was AWESOME again.

Time has come to put some effort into making it further south tho, so we have just spent a joyful 16 hours on a ferry to Mazatlan and are now in touristy surf city Sayulita. Not entirely sure it is our cuppa tea, but there is free internet and more stuff to buy than you can shake a monkey at. It is also nicely tropical. Something to get used to again, especially for Omar. The whole world is offering us boards for rent here tho we seem to not see a decent wave. So leaving tomorrow for further touring south and to find us a more quiet beach…

Living the dream

Finally.. We are.
On the beach, on the Sea of Cortez side for the moment.. Chilling out, getting a base tan and camping right on the beach at Puerto Escondido (the Baja version) amongst a bunch of BC (british columbia, Canada) and north west americans. All seem very friendly and unlike the folk we spend one night with in the Bay of Conception these people don’t have generators running all evening, and chainsaws to cut wood. These people seem a little more back to nature, focused on fishing, and eating that fish and with impressive solar set-ups. Our neighbours have been here 15 years on the trot, and are very sweet indeed. And now they believe Paul is an A*M*A*Z*I*N*G fisherman as he caught a Mahi Mahi (Dorado) off our inflatable kayak today. They typically migrate south by now, and Mrs Neighbour says no-one has pulled one up for months. Ha! Pure luck I am sure but it was a fun kayak trip. Paul did all the hard paddling work, as I am still recovering from a fractured ??? rib, and only allowed to chill for next few weeks. OK. So this is why I am not too worried about being on the non-surf side of Baja for now. We were gonna move south to Punta Conejo=surf spot today, but it was just too nice here this morning at sunset. Maybe tomorrow. The relaxing has begun. Hopefully meet up with Leah at Conejo and have a load of fun.
The van is fantastic so far, small and a little bit compact inside but also very easy to navigate into smaller spaces and onto rougher roads.
Omar seems to think that sea water is fine to drink.. So I am sure he will get sick good soon.. We are working on it.. Other than that he loves being a free dog and running around in the cacti, playing with the neighbourhood dogs and rolling in dead things. He loves the van above anything though and just wants to be in there curled up on the driver’s seat.
Saw Parrot fish and Clown fish from the kayak today, didn’t even have to stick my head in, nice. And snorkelled among a gazillion little bait fish.. Kinda scary how many surrounded us.

LOST in the US…..

LOST in the US…..
But at least we are now surfing with dolphins..

So we limped it to San Diego, found ourselves broken down in front of a posh garage, who were obviously way too posh to help us with our nearly 30 year old camper. Though they did send us to Bob (‘s Carbs, mister carburator fixer upper) who sent us to Gary (‘s RV fixer upper) who then told us we needed a new engine. Awtsj. After the initial shock stage (lasting 2 days only) we got a ‘second opinion’ at the RV Specialist who after a bunch more research told us that yes, unfortunately we do need a new engine.. Poor old rv, poor old us. Another day of shock, after the hope, and we found ourselves not being able to part with our 30 your old new love that has taken all the effort to make her look so nice, the bamboo floor, the solar panel, the extra leisure battery, the fitted cushion covers with matching curtains. We are giving her a new life. Now we just hope someone will want to buy her after our big (adapted to fit the more than halved budget) adventure. Surely??
Anyway it was time to adapt. Sure enough it is Thanksgiving today. Meaning we had to wait 10 days instead of 5 for our new engine to arrive from Ford. Luckily our RV Specialist Darryl put the hood back on our valves (I think) and we were ready to roll (though at a snail’s speed) again, so away from the Airforce’s backyard that is home to the rv specialist we went. Back to San Elijo, a great cliff top State Park (campsite) so we can surf the river mouth and beaches of Cardiff-By-The-Sea again. Ironic, I know. After some true welsh like weather it was lovely and sunny with 2 foot lovely sets of long board perfection rolling in. Still not as warm as we were hoping to be in by now, as we still need our suits, and I even wore my boots today but pretty nice. As it is Thanksgiving today all of San Diego was in the ocean, though it was all pretty happy and friendly. And then everyone went silent, a pod of dolphins cruised through the line-up, closer past me than I have ever been to a dolphin in the wild…. A perfect start to Thanksgiving.
We also managed to score a campsite again, a big feat as the whole park was booked up for Thanksgiving, so no more scary and noisy roadside camping for us. Yay. Another true adventure, or time-killer really was the Del Mar Dog Beach. An institution. Beaches here are mostly off-limits for dogs, and if you are allowed on them it is leashed only. At Del Mar dogs get to be dogs and run in packs. It is weird but great. So nice to see Omar smiling so much!
Our other time-killer when it goes dark is the 3 box set of series 1-3 of LOST I got us as evening entertainment. We are not quite managing to limit us to one episode a night, and watch a disc a night as it is so gripping… maybe that’s why I am scared when camping roadside!
We may be out of here in 6 days… fingers crossed. I do love San Diego and could live here, if I had a real job. Or a job as it ain’t cheap… and it is time to explore Baja again. Leah’s waiting….