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.), ),
