We had high hopes for the coast road in El Salvador…hoping it would be a less popular version of Big Sur in California. It was an attractive road but we were only able to catch glimpses of the ocean through the trees, not the stunning vistas we were excited to see. The road is also known for its tunnels, which I thought were a brilliant idea as surely they would go through the lumps and eliminate the hills? Unfortunately the tunnels were short and only cut the top off the hills…but this is better than nothing and they were a nice cool reprieve from the heat of the day. We stopped before each tunnel to turn on our lights, both to see and be seen by. This didn’t eleviate the nervous feeling I got on hearing a fast approaching lorry rumbling up behind, the sound echoing off the tunnel walls…what if he doesn’t see us, there is nowhere to run. Anyway…we didn’t get squashed in any dark Salvadorian tunnels, we survived and the tunnels were fun.
We spent our first night with warm showers hosts in a small village called La Perla. It turned out that our hosts are Canadian and only live in El Salvador for three months a year so we were welcomed in by the El Salvadorian family who live there and look after the house. Our home was a stilted palapa overlooking the ocean…awesome spot for our newly purchased hammock!
The following day we rode to El Tunco, where we stopped for a few days in a popular hostel near the beach. This part of the coast is famed for its surfing…but the enormous Pacific waves looked far too daunting for beginners like us and we opted to watch others show us how it’s done!
We had a big day of 73miles from El Tunco to a random town that we decided must be a suitable resting place. The route was fairly flat and it rained pretty much all day…this coolness was heavenly. A day that I thought would be a slog in the heat was fine in the wet…I was reminded of riding in Britain and the whole thing was very novel! It would seem the wet season is truly upon us, I wonder how long it will take for the novelty to wear off? The mood was spoilt somewhat by the attitude of the Salvadorian men towards me…shouts of ‘Hey baby’, accompanied by blown kisses and the clutching of their crotches was common and made my skin crawl. I do not know why they thought this was acceptable behaviour towards a tourist in their country and it made me feel uncomfortable, vulnerable and angry.
The rain subsided as we left our grotty hotel for the coast again where we spent a happy couple of days relaxing on the beach near El Cuco, while sat in a hammock on the beach watching the sun go down, beer in hand…I felt very content that life is good. That being said – at this stage in our trip things seem to be falling apart rather…our water filter ceased to work, our stove is blocked and we are struggling to fix it…and I dropped my phone which smashed the screen. We had come to rely heavily on our filter and stove so both were a big blow and rather dampened our moods as we prepared to leave the next day.
With low moods we left the beach for a town near the border of Honduras, it was the only apparent available stopping place before crossing the next day, but it was a 10mile diversion in the wrong direction which was soul destroying and in the heat of the day seemed like 100miles. This is a problem with travelling by bike – you are limited by how far you can pedal in a day but have to find somewhere safe to sleep for the night, often this requires a detour. Still, we made it and arrived at a hotel which wasn’t as grotty as we had expected, ate pupusas (the local street food, a cornmeal pocket filled with cheese and beans) and hid from the late afternoon rain.
El Salvador was one of the countries we thought about avoiding on this trip due to worries about safety…I am glad we didn’t but it has definitely been the country we have felt the least comfortable in so far. The people seemed a little on edge and often came across as threatening, especially in the towns and countryside where they don’t see many ‘gringos’ and definitely not a blond haired female gringo riding a bike.
To the border the next day and into Honduras..
Out for a Spin 