La Libertad and the Beaches of El Salvador

With nothing to do in the city and the stifling heat, we decided to spend Julita’s and Paulina’s last day in a more relaxed setting.  3 buses and 2.5 hours later we made it to Playa El Tunco, a highly acclaimed surf beach in El Salvador.

Whether it deserved this highly acclaimed status I do not know since I do not surf.  Overall the beach was nothing exceptional but it did serve our purpose. We swam in the warm Pacific Ocean, avoided the massive waves as much as possible, sprinted across the scalding sand to our sun chairs, and had strawberry smoothies and lobsters.

Like so many beaches in Central America, this was a black beach.  In low tide it was quite pebbly and kind of dirty.  At high tide it virtually disappeared.  The sand was so insanely hot that it was impossible to walk barefoot across even 5 meters of it.

We spent the day bumming around before heading back via La Libertad to San Salvador.  Since we had to switch buses at La Libertad, we decided to take the opportunity to explore a bit more.  Within a couple blocks of the bus stop were the waterfront and a fantastic pier.  The first 50m or so of the pier were devoted to fish stalls.    The smell was quite overwhelming, but the sight quite fascinating.  You could get everything there from live lobster, gigantic red snapper, dried fish, little tiny fish, shrimp, prawns etc.  The selection was amazing and got my appetite going all over again.  The latter half of the pier was devoted to all the fishing boats. (Not quite sure what they were doing on top of the pier, as opposed to below it).  It was quite a picturesque setting. 

We eventually made it back to our hostel in San Salvador.  The next few hours were spent packing and repacking since Julita and Paulina were catching a 4am taxi to the airport. However, before going to bed we decided to visit Mister Donut and celebrate “Fat Thursday”.