We got up at around 4am and loaded the gear into the car. We figured out how to get through the gates without the key and left the key on the small table just outside the door of the accomodation. The trip to the airport was smooth until we got to the service station to fill the car. Now in Australia we generally fill up our own cars, the service stations stopped having people around to help you years ago. In fact only a couple of weeks back I helped a lady figure out how to use the pre-set keys on the fuel bowser, because the service attendant refused to come out of the building. Now in Guatemala on the other hand as soon as we arrived at the fuel station a bloke rolled up who looked like he may have been living there and announced that he was going to fill out tank for us. I needed to go inside and give them some form of identification and then the bowser was unlocked so that the filling could commence. The bloke asked what type of fuel I wanted and I replied with regular, he immediately selected the premium and started filling away. Once the tank was full, he continued to try and get some more fuel into the tank, this caused the fuel to run down the side of the car, then as he pulled the pump handle out of the vehicle the fuel splashed onto myself, the bloke, and most things in the near vicinity. The bloke then cradled the handle and asked for a tip. I said not only did you use super when I specified regular, but you also decided to soak everything in the near vicinity with fuel, and now you want a tip! He just smiled and continued to hold his hand out. In the end I gave him G15 for his troubles, I guess it made for a great story. 

The Near Miss 

We left the fuel station and continued towards the airport. Now in Guatemala City they have traffic lights, I am not sure what they actually mean and there is a good chance that the locals don’t either, It was around Christmas time and I guess they could have been there for decoration. As we drove through the intersections I was still a little wary, I was under the assumption that I would need to give way to my left, and that the use of traffic lights was an unknown. Sure enough as we came through an intersection, we had the green light, which would mean that the other person probably had a red light, but that didn’t slow them down one bit, they carried right on through that intersection as fast as their car would take them. Thankfully I had enough reaction time to hit the breaks, the breaks on the vehicle did their job immediately, and we didn’t have false teeth, because for sure they would have gone through the windscreen. We avoided a high speed accident by only a couple of centimetres, I would say inches, but there is a good chance there wasn’t enough centimetres to make an inch.  

Pupusa Village (Olocuilta)

We gathered our composure, decided that we had been given a second chance and carried on to the airport. After our action packed adventure to the airport everything from that point out was relatively straight forward. We handed back the car, full to the brim and in one piece, even if it did smell a bit like petrol. We coasted through the checkin procedure and had a bit of a snooze on the plane flight to El Salvador. 

Going through immigration was a piece of cake and the bloke manning the counter even gave us the name of a suburb called Olocuilta where we could find all type of pupusas, El Salvador’s national dish. In fact I think if he hadn’t been in the middle of his shift I am pretty sure he would have come with us to get some pupusas for lunch. 

This time we had booked the car from Budget and it was ready to go when we arrived. Not only that the bloke behind the counter was happy to carry on the pupusa conversation that had been started by the immigration officer. He let us know that Olocuilta had over 60 places that sold pupusas and that his favourite ones were the ones made with rice flour. We loaded our gear into the car and headed for the Pupusa village.

The roads in El Salvador have gone through and were going through some major upgrades and as such were much better than those in Guatemala. We were still cautious, but it was a smooth drive. On the way we passed dozens of coconut vendors, however without US dollars we were not able to buy any. We didn’t know it yet, but this was going to be our problem when we arrived at Olocuilta.

We arrived and spoke to the vendors, they quickly let us know that only one of the many pupusa restaurants had a card machine. With their help we located the said Pupusa restaurant and asked for recommendations. The server was not keen to give recommendations and in the end we took a guess at a few different types of pupusas. They were all delicious, if not a little carb heavy. Essentially Pupusas are like a tortilla made with different varieties of flour and filled with a wide variety of delicious fillings including various types of meat and cheeses. They would make a great addition to a more balance meal. 

El Sunzel

We enjoyed our Pupusas, paid the women who were running the restaurant and continued on with our adventure. We had a smooth journey to the coast and to our accomodation. We checked out the accomodation, unpacked and then had siestas. Well Christine and I did, Luke had slept in the car so he went off exploring. In his explorations he found a cash machine that was similar to the one that we had used in Guatemala. 

When Luke returned we took the vehicle and wandered over to an American style shopping centre to collect some supplies. Unfortunately being an American style shopping centre, it came with American style pricing, as such it was a little on the expensive side for us Aussies. Never the less we collected a few bits and pieces to get us through. We took our bounty back to the accomodation and cooked up a delicious feast of spaghetti with a meat sauce and vegetables. We had plenty of left overs to use as a mince through together for breakfast in the morning. 

El Salvador Day 9

Our First Surf 

We got up reasonably early and went in search of cash and surfboards. Neither Christine nor my card worked in the cash machines and in fact one of the machines appeared to want to hang on to the card for a while, which created a bit of a nail biting moment of will it, or won’t it release the card? 

Thankfully Luke’s card worked in the machines and we were able to transfer cash to him and he was able to take it out through the machine. Once we had some cash we went in search of boards. We managed to hire a couple for $10US per hour each. I did let them know that it was cheaper to hire boards in Australia. The guys manning the shop were interested to hear this and repeated it to some of their colleagues. 

We wandered down to the beach and managed to catch a few nice left and right handers not far from the rock out the front of the main village. We took it in turns to surf with one of us watching the bags and operating the drone while the other two surfed. 

Once our hour was up we returned the surf boards and made our way back to the apartment to cook some breakfast. We made a mince throw together with last nights left overs, added some vegetables and then cooked some eggs to go over the top of it. We also chatted with Bolter, the bloke who looks after the accomodation, and he said that we could hire his boards for $10US per day. 

After breakfast we did some washing and got ourselves organised. 

La Libertad

In the afternoon we made our way over to La Libertad to pick up some groceries and see if we could get some more cash. We used Google maps and it took us through some crazy back roads that took ages to get to, and to get through, so that we could avoid a road closure that wasn’t actually closed. We found this out by using Ways on the way home and taking half the time. The roads were ultra narrow with large drop offs on either side. We are lucky that no one else was using Google maps otherwise we would have had to figure out how to squeeze past another car.

La Libertad is less touristy than El Sunzel, as such it is a bit more bohemian with some dirt roads and run down buildings, there were a stack of locals going about their business. We found a car park and then tracked down a restaurant along the beach, we ate some delicious food and watched the waves roll in. Bolter was saying that the waves a generally empty between 2 and 4 pm and this checked out with what we were seeing. 

After lunch we wandered up to where some markets were operating in the streets around the church. We picked up some veggies and then went to track down a Western Union, of course it was 4pm by this time and the Western Unions were closed. Our grand plan to pick up cash as we travelled was not working out at all well. We learnt a valuable lesson and for our next trip we paid the extra to get it from Travelex and took it with us so that we could hit the ground running. 

The Gym

We drove back to the accomodation using ways which took us through the road works that Google had said were closed. This route took 20 minutes and was much more civilised than the one lane goat track that took an hour to wind through the bush. 

We dropped Luke along the way so that he cold go and track down a coffee in El Sunzel. Christine and I headed back to the accomodation where we brought in our washing and hung out Luke’s washing. We then made our way down to a Gym that Luke had managed to track down in El Tunco, which is just a bit further along the beach from El Sunzel. 

The Gym was awesome and much needed, it was in a large shed and was fully equiped. We did a full body workout and then stopped for some coconuts on the way home. We had the vendor cut them in half so that we could scoop out the flesh. Interestingly these coconuts didn’t have a lot of flesh indicating that they were a bit young, this is probably why they were not as sweet as the ones that we had been living on in the Philippines. 

After our coconuts we took the risk of walking back to the accomodation along the road. We crossed a narrow bridge just as a truck was coming the other way, I can assure you the truck was very close. For the rest of our time in El Salvador we decided to take the track that went along the beach and over the rocks, this was faster and safer.