El Salvador

So our travelling started with us heading with Lisa and Olivia to El Salvador. After a load of buses and amazing views, we finally arrived in San Salvador, the capital. We spent a night in an interesting hotel to say the least and woke up the next day to explore the city.  There were loads of amazing markets packed with everything from eggs and tomatoes to watches and anything else you can think of! We also visited a couple of cathedrals and the national palace which were pretty nice, and full of interesting stories. We met Ellie and Bryony at out hostel for the night, so the 6 of us were finally together. We headed out in the evening, as you do, and I left my phone in the room so I wasn't robbed while I was out - good idea right? Well...no. Our room was robbed and my phone went with a load of money, so not a great night to be honest. Anyway we got to up the next day and got a bus to Playa El Tunco, our next destination in El Salvador. 

Playa El Tunco is probably one of the most touristy places I've been this year, a surfers paradise filled with bars, tourists and English folk! I even met a guy from London whose girlfriend was form Corfe Mullen, about 5 minutes from my house ! It really is a small world. We spent a few days there just chilling out on the beach and in our hostel, which was amazing and had a nice swimming pool. We went swimming in the sea one day and the waves were true surfers waves so we got bashed around, but it really was amazing fun, even if a bit sketchy a times!

We tried surfing one day, an interesting experience to say the least! We had an hour lesson with our own instructor an I stood up a few times, which was pretty cool. But...when we tried it again later in the day without our instructors we were pretty terrible and gave up after about 20 minutes of trying, failing, crashing in to each other and just getting bashed around by enormous waves! We decided to go for a swim after which was nice though the strong current was not the best place to swim...

We ate loads of great food over the few days at the beach. Most conversations in our group seem to revolve around food - what we're going to eat for dinner, what snacks we're going to have and what we're going to eat after dinner. It's constant, but pretty fun how everything comes back to food and what we want to eat!

We left Playa El Tunco and made our way to Ruta de las Flores, which apparently we shouldn't have visited because it's boring but we found it amazing. We were only there for one day but we went on an amazing hike through the mountains and waterfalls. We climbed down a few waterfalls, walked through rivers and swam in pools which was great, even if the water was freezing cold! We went out that evening for Lisa's birthday, and it was one of the most amazing meals I've ever eaten! And it was very cheap too. We went back to the hostel and had a massive cake which was amazing.

Then we set off to Guatemala to Antigua, but that'll come later.

Adios,

Sam xx