El Salvador: August 2006

Page 5 - Perfect Waves I Can't Ride & A Trip to the Hills

Alright, another day done. Been a long one.

We’ll begin at the beginning.

Why not?

So I wake up at the new place with the golf course, and maybe a wave out back and maybe not.

Up before breakfast call, packed and ready to go, and walked down to the ocean to see what the deal is, with offshores and some daylight.

Son of a motherfucking bitch, THERE’S A WAVE OUT THERE!

And I have no surfboard, I’m surrounded by people that could not possibly be more clueless when it comes to surfing, I’m going to be leaving for the uplands in less than an hour, and there’s nobody surfing.

The swell looks to have picked up some overnight, but it’s hard to tell.

I’m just a mile or so down the beach from where I was yesterday, but what a difference that mile makes.

From the Decameron, I could see that there was something off to the east, but aside from whitewater kind of swashing around, that was about the extent of it.

From here, it’s all laid out in front of me.

There’s all these rocks and shit that stick up all over the place, way down the beach, and extending seaward for a pretty good damned ways.

Past that, there’s multiple reefs working, and even beyond that, I can see places where it stands up, thinks about it, and then backs completely off.

The result of all of this is that the line is nicely broken up into peaks, which then come in here there and everywhere, some much better than others, and all of them with their own little lineups.

What caught my eye late yesterday afternoon is what’s catching my eye right now.

About a quarter mile out there, there’s this sort of double peak, with a left that wants to wind along that sometimes drops sections and other times just kicks ass.

It all depends on how the sets arrive from way the hell outside, and where the energy is concentrated when it hits those inside reefs.

The swell is head high or better, with occasionals that look quite a bit larger than that, and once in a while WAY the hell and gone outside, some fairly substantial stuff is coming over once in a great while.

I’m instantly thrown into HOLY SHIT! mode, and can’t believe my rotten luck with no surfboard.

Shit hell damn cuss fuck piss!!!!!

Without a board, and in the company of my fellow travelers who are without a clue, I’m powerless to do anything except stare in amazement.

There’s a ripping good wave out here, and apparently NOBODY knows about it.

I’m having trouble believing that I’m the FIRST person to drop by this hotel and see what’s in the back yard, but every last employee is consistently as innocent of surfing as a newborn baby.

It would appear as if not only do these people not surf, none of them has ever so much as seen anybody surf, at least out here, behind their hotel.

Holy shit.

So I do the only thing I can do, and that consists in breaking out the camera, and going at it hammer and tongs for the next hour.

Got me some shots, I did.

Over a hundred frames.

Some of ‘em even came out fairly decent.

My FAMbuddies were all back there behind me somewhere, eating breakfast, and just as blithely unaware of the nature of what was going on in the ocean as you could possibly imagine.

This, despite the fact that I’m bouncing off the walls like a tennis ball on meth.

I’m lit up like a christmas tree, and about to go nuts from watching this wave unload out there and NOBODY anywhere near it.

I’ve got to figure out a way to get back down here and RIDE this sonofabitch.

We finally depart, and as we do I inquire as to room rates, and the nice hotel lady informs me that they’re VERY reasonable, especially if you come down here with a group of buddies.

This I must surely do some day.

Ok ok, enough of that.

Where’s the tour?

Turns out that the tour is FOUR HOURS away and we get there by spending those four hours on a bus.

Oh joy!

We’re headed almost up to the Honduran border, to a little town that’s famed for it’s arts and crafts. And also famed for being a center of FLMN or whoever those guerilla guys were who were having a war with the rest of this country back in the Regan days.

Ok, whatever, we’re here so let’s see what’s going on.

And you get your not so typical little town up in the mountains, with your not so typical paint job on all the buildings. Bright colors, flatly rendered, and all folksy and charming.

Hoo ha.

So we walk down the street like a bunch of complete idiots, and we stare at the town and the town stares back.

Eventually we get to a place where they have a little storefront and a shop in the back where they cut little pieces of wood into shapes, assemble them into a variety of trinkets and knickknacks, and then paint stuff on them with bright colors, flatly rendered, all folksy and charming.

In the wood shop, we’re allowed to take some of the wood and paint it.

Which makes yesterday’s indigo gig look positively exciting.

So me, being me, I walk over to where the saws and stuff are, and ask if I can make a surfboard.

NOBODY THERE even knows what a surfboard is.

No shit!

These people know more about flying saucers than they do about surfboards.

Eventually, my persistence pays off and I’m actually permitted to go over to the coping saw and cut out a surfboard.

I’m the only guy on the crew who cuts his own wood.

Fire the saw up, keep close track of where all the thumbs and fingers are, and cut me out a little surfboard, about four inches long.

Everyone ooh’s and ahh’s over it, and attempts to try to persuade me that I’ve really DONE something here.

I’m not having any of that noise, but I AM having fun.

Take my little treasure to a different room and apply a couple of coats of paint to it.

Blue with yellow flames on the nose.

Wahoo.

They’re all just completely wowed by my creation.

Or, more like it, they’re all lying through their teeth about it.

Don’t make no never mind to me, either way.

And then we mill around and finally get back on the bus.

Drive through the mountains and finally get to a hotel up in the piney woods with a life-size statue of a naked lady in the lobby, with another statue of a creepy-looking little man wearing an oversize hat, staring at her.

Uh……ok. Fine.

Apparently it’s a local legend or something, and the creepy little man lives in a nearby pond, only comes out at night, and only women can see him staring at them.

Uh……are you guys SURE you want us to know about your legend?

This ain’t really the kind of thing to be telling the kids, is it?

The Legend of the Naked Lady and the Perv.

Kinda has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Anyhoo, I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel right this second, naked lady statue in all its glory right before my eyes, along with the creepy little man, and I guess it’s ok.

It’s getting late, and I’m getting tired.

Enough of this shit for now.

Tomorrow we go look at how Taca airlines maintains their planes, in their airport facility in the capital city of San Salvador. After another goddamned horrendous bus ride, of course.

Hope nobody drops a jet engine or anything while we’re there.

Here's some more pictures of the giant Perv Mural that was in the main dining room. They really take this damned thing seriously around here.