El Tunco Tan Lines

As promised, I shall attempt to describe the major differences between San Salvador and El Tunco but be warned that the major differences are like ALL of them.

We took a taxi from San Salvador today. A public bus would have cost like a fraction of the price but it would have meant piling all of our gear onto a chicken bus and we just couldn't figure out how that would work. Plus the taxi cost less for both of us combined than some of the bus tickets we've purchased for ourselves in the past few weeks so that was cool. EXCEPT FOR WHEN WE ALMOST DIED ON THE DRIVE HERE! Yup, seatbelts are not really a thing here, apparently, because while our taxi had them, thrusting actually have buckles so it was that awkward strap that doesn't really do anything. Combine that with some reckless driving and you get a really fun ride where you're holding your breath because the driver is attempting to pass three cars and a truck by going into the opposite land and you're suddenly staring at oncoming traffic.

But it was only a near death experience as you know because you're reading my blog and while I'm sure that heaven has WiFi, I'm not sure about hell and we all know that I booked my ticket there before this trip was even a thought in anyone's brain. Plus, whose ever heard of a ghost writing a blog that no one reads? I mean, that would totally go viral.

Anyways, El Tunco vs. San Salvador. San Salvador is rather industrial and strangely hilly. El Tunco is exactly two streets worth of town and complete beach. Parts of us felt weird for not going out and doing things in San Salvador but that is the point here! Plus, our hostel here has hammocks, a pool and BIG BONUS air-conditioning in the dorms.

The clouds that hung over us in San Salvador parted this morning and we had clear skies when we arrived in El Tunco. We ditched the sweatshirts for swimsuits and headed to the beach.

The beach that has BLACK SAND. I know these are the things my mother likes to know. Yes, the sand here is black. It surprised us too. Black sand is hot, fyi, but cool. The waves were monstrous and the tide was quickly coming in so we didn't lay out there for too long but we did book surf lessons for tomorrow morning. Remember what I said about giant waves (of course you do, it was one sentence ago... if not, please refer to the previous sentence), well, yeah, people surf those things. Whitney has been talking about it for weeks. I'm a good sport and I'm going for it. But the thing is, I'm bad at sports so this is probably going to end up with me swallowing a lot of sea water.

So we went back to lounge by the pool. I sprawled out with my kindle and worked my way through the first third of Amy Poehler's Yes Please (it's strangely apropos even though Amy Poehler, to my knowledge, has never backpacked through Central America with her sister. I do KNOW that she doesn't even have a sister because I read that in her book). Around 3pm, the clouds started to come back but that didn't send us inside, it just moved us under cover -- there are hammocks on a covered porch at our hostel so we set up camp there and I kept chugging along through Yes Please until we decided we needed to wash away the sunscreen and blog (well, I wanted to blog, Whitney is talking with some British tourists and trading tips on where they should go in Guatemala and where we should go in Costa Rica).