El Salvador is primarily rural with the exception of the capital, San Salvador. Since we had been advised to avoid San Salvador as it might be unsafe, we headed for the beach. El Salvador has beautiful beaches that draw surfers from all over the world. A seven hour shuttle ride from Antigua brought us to the small surf village of Tunco. The beach at Tunco is not really a beach. It is covered with round river rock like stones that makes getting to the water difficult but the surfers love it. We stayed in a great little resort with a pool, air conditioning in our room (what a luxury that is in this hot humid climate) and a yard rooster.

After a couple of days of lounging around we moved on down the beach to El Coco. In El Coco we stayed at La Tortuga Verde. This is a resort on a long sandy beach. The beach is beautiful but the surfing is not as good. The resort does work to help the sea turtle population by preserving the eggs in a safe place. When the babies hatch they keep them in a little pool for a couple of days before releasing them into the surf.

We lounged around some more, swam in the pool and ocean and rented a boogie board to try our skill on the surf (we have very little skill). We had planned to stay three days but there was a last minute problem with our shuttle so we “had” to stay an extra day.

El Salvador was a different experience for us with no cities or tours. We enjoyed it but after a week were ready to move on to Leon, Nicaragua.