The Rainbow Slide

We got up a bit late after last night’s gym session we made some breakfast and did some DuoLingo. Luke had gone over to El Tunco to get a coffee. We got organised and waited for him to return. Once Luke got back we packed up and made our way to the Rainbow Slide which is at the Picnic Steak House about 20mins outside of San Salvador. 

The Rainbow slide opens at 10:30am and we arrived there shortly after it had opened. This was a great time to arrive as there wasn’t a lot of people there yet, so we were able to get a carpark and have a look around. We paid our $5US each to ride the slide and tracked down the short line to ride. The slide was good fun, I didn’t manage to capture all of the ride on video, I did however capture some of it. I also managed to film Christine and Luke who came down after I did. We decided not to run the drone as there was a bit of wind around and we were still new to using it. 

San Salvador 

We had a look at the prices of food and decided that they weren’t for us. We did however have a couple of drinks before making our way back down the mountain and into San Salvador. We scored a car park after first navigating our way to a carpark that appeared to have had a cave in and was being cleared with trucks, a bloke helped us to back out into the street and then directed us to the other side of the road where there was another car park with parking for $1US per hour, after all of our adventures in the capital it would only end up costing us $4US for the parking. 

In San Salvador we finally managed to track down a Western Union that was open. Christine used the app to transfer money to ourselves and we collected it at the Western Union. We only just managed to get the app working before they were set to close up for lunch. The Exchange rate was pretty good at US59C to 1AUD and there weren’t any other fees or charges. 

Luke tracked down a restaurant for lunch that had spectacular reviews and a massive line. We joined the line and ended up in a chicken shop that was probably best described as being similar to an early version of a McDonalds. The meal consisted of 1/4 of a roast chicken, some fermented vegetables, this is a common food staple across Latin America, chips, a bread roll and a drink. It was indeed really good and one of the blokes in the shop was super excited to see tourists in San Salvador. He started a conversation with Luke and myself were he let us know that it was so good to see tourists in San Salvador and that only a couple of years prior it would basically have been impossible for us to be there due to the rampant crime. 

The Curry Expedition 

Once we had finished our meal we went on a mission to track down ingredients with which to make curry. Not long after we left the chicken shop we asked a lady on the street by the name of Jessica Gonzales where we could find a market and she took it upon herself to show us around personally. Tracking down curry powder in San Salvador proved to be quite a mission and we chatted with Jessica as we searched. It turns out the Jessica has an uncle who lives in Melbourne and has lived there for a quite a while, we tried to connect with Jessica via Facebook but couldn’t find her, so we connected with her Uncle in the hope that he could put us in touch with her. 

We ended up tracking down all of the ingredients that we needed, we parted company with Jessica and located our car. The drive back to El Sunzel was relatively straight forward and we cooked up a delicious curry when we got back to the accomodation.

El Salvador Day 11

Surf before breakfast

We got up relatively early and went to have a look at the surf, it looked really nice if not a little crowded. We wandered back to the house collected a couple of Bolter’s boards and went back down to catch some waves. Unfortunately at this time there were way too many people on the point to catch a ride. We went back to the rock where we were surfing on the first day, here we managed to catch a few rides but they were short, steep and fast. After a while we decided it was time for breakfast. We wandered back to the house and cooked up a curried mince throw together with vegetables, using the left overs from last night’s dinner. 

The Tortillas 

After breakfast I went to get a large bottle of drinking water from Antonio, the bloke who runs the shop behind the accomodation. On the way back I spoke to a mother daughter team who were cooking tortillas on a bbq. I asked if they were pupusas, they said no, they were tortillas, I asked if they were going to make them into tacos, again they said no they were just selling tortillas. I bought four tortillas for 25 US cents. We ate them with our lunch and had the left overs with dinner.

Another Surf

We decided to go exploring, Luke went off towards El Tunco while Christine and I walked along the beach towards the Guatemala Border. After a while we had to walk along the road to cross some of the rivers and skirt around rocky outcrops. Our walk was cut short when we came to a hairpin bend that had many large trucks rolling around it. We made our way back to the accomodation to cook some lunch. We had just started cooking when Luke rolled in to say that the point was empty and the waves were amazing. We grabbed our boards and headed for the point, alas everyone else must have seen the same thing and we all converged on the point at the same time. There were indeed less people than this morning, but it was still pumping. We managed to catch a few waves before it really packed out again. 

The missing key

After we were done with the crowds we made our way back to the accomodation and discovered that the key was missing. It must have come out of the bag on the beach. Luke and Christine went looking for it while I cooked lunch. They didn’t find it, so after lunch I went out to take a look. I asked at the three main resorts near the point at El Tunco and although they did have one key handed in, it was not ours.   

Dinner in El Tunco

We re-convened at the accomodation and got prepared to make our way into El Tunco for dinner. We walked past the point and along the beach to go to dinner, at this time the tide was right in and the waves were rolling right up onto the rocks that are at the base of the break wall, as the water rushed out it moved many of the rocks which made a spectacular musical clacking sound as they jostled against one another. 

We found a great little restaurant that was serving Mexican style food. Luke ordered a burrito, Christine a pizza and I had a plate of tacos. Luke and I ate our food and then helped Christine to eat hers. After dinner we picked up some artesian ice cream and wandered around the town. The atmosphere was electric with people everywhere eating in the bars and restaurants and listening to live music. We decided to come back in the morning so that we could take some photographs in front of the El Tunco and Surf City signs.