Our week in Playa del Tunco ended with a daylong surf contest, show casing some of the best surfers in El Salvador. Given that Playa del Tunco is home to a world-class break, the competition was fierce. The contest was scheduled to start at noon, which meant 2 in Salvadorian time. It finished by the light of spotlights about 10 at night. The surfing was amazing; I will post videos as soon as I have time. After the surf contest there was a chica reef contest (reef girl contest). The much-anticipated chica reefs turned out to be a group of 16 year olds parading down the stage in the bar. It seems so illegal?
From Playa del Tunco, we took 3 chicken buses to a pick up truck to the center of Barra de Santiago (aka The Barra) where we asked locals where the gringa lived. This was how we found our friend Meredith who is living in the Barra as a peace corps volunteer.
The Barra is amazing. Not only are there pupusas every day of the week (pupusas are Salvador's gift to food, a thick tortilla stuffed with any combination of beans, cheese, chicken, meat and shrimp. They cost between 15 and 35 cents each and 3 is a full meal), but there are miles and miles of unspoiled, sandy, coconut palm lines beaches and no tourists. Lonely planet has not yet caught on to this amazing location, easily my favorite of the trip so far. Barra de Santiago is a sand bar on the Pacific Ocean. It is no more than a quarter of a mile wide with one side being the Pacific Ocean and the other being a protected estuary with mangroves.
The estuary acts as a lake and is full of Salvadorians doing water sports, some on equipment dating back to the original days of water sports. We spent a couple of days on the estuary with some of the locals. We took out an inflatable rescue boat loaned to one of our hosts by the fire department. The weight of 7 people and a leak in the boat could not stop the fun. We had wooden water skis, nearly an inch thick, a surfboard, for surfboard-skiing as pictured here, and an original hydroslide. I was reluctant to believe that this 20 horsepower motor would pull up anyone, but once we evacuated most of the people from the boat, it was able to inch out the power needed to struggle up. It was great. The locals who took us out are friends of Merediths and are a great indicator of the generousity of the people who live in the Barra. On our last night, there was an impromptu Peace Corps party at Merediths one bedroom house. We strung up 10-hammocks throughout the patio, and it was clear the party was going to go well into the night. Veronica and I were leaving early the next morning for Antigua, and wanted to get some sleep before we left. We were invited to sleep on a second story patio at a local's house. They were kind enough to give us small mattresses and blankets. We could see the ocean and fell asleep to the sound of the waves, nature and the distant bass coming from the reggae-ton being played at the discoteque at the circus. It was amazing.
I would definitely recommend visiting Barra de Santiago if given the opportunity. Speaking Spanish is a must for this location, but quality of people and unspoiled beaches make it well worth the effort.
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