El Salvador

La Libertad, El Salvador. This photo pretty well sums up what it felt like surfing here: like you were in a war zone. The crime rate was sky-high and there was a lot of gang activity at the time (2001). And the U.S. had long-running political issues with the El Salvador government. Just because El Sal had such a sketchy reputation at the time we decided to hire a guide for this trip, something we had never done before on any surf trip. It turned out to be a good move because he was a huge and intimidating guy, and kept us out of trouble. He also knew where all the surf spots were and got us to many good ones. On the other hand, he stole more waves from us than all the other locals put together! Still, worth it.

El Zonte, El Salvador. This was the first place we surfed - right off of the plane. Our huge guide, who we took to calling "Lurch" (I hope he doesn't see this webpage), had been drinking all night and was a little foggy-headed. He pulled up under one of these thatched huts to park the car, misjudged the height of the roof vs the height of the boards stacked on the car racks, and sheared off a fin or two from the top board. One casualty already and we hadn't even hit the water!

Punta Flores, El Salvador. For the most part we did not score great surf on this trip - there were some days that were too flat to even bother going out. But this day was pretty good, and we were in the right spot. Punta Flores is out in what they call the "Wild East", well away from town and the crowds that go with it. It's a long right-hand break and on a really good wave you could ride for 50 yards or more. This wave is about head-high, maybe a little more; you can barely see the surfer out in front of the white water. All of these pics are low quality because: a) they were shot on film and then scanned, and b) being that this was El Salvador I'm sure I didn't bring any decent camera gear.

Punta Flores, from a water perspective.

Punta Flores, El Salvador. Here's an adventure that I could've done without. About one minute after the top photo was taken I was wading around that rock on the way back to our camp when something in the water grabbed my foot - hard. It scared the hell outta me; at first I though it was a giant crab. My foot had been punctured, with the stab wound going almost all the way through my foot from top to bottom. And it nicked an artery cuz I could actually watch it spurt a little blood with every heartbeat. So I laid down on the beach and elevated it on a rock; no difference. Local kids ran down, ooo'd and ahhhh'd over it for a minute, got grossed out, and ran away. Many minutes passed and the bleeding wouldn't stop. And we're truly out in the

middle of nowhere! It didn't take long to figure out that I'd been hit by a stingray, mainly 'cuz the venom started kicking in at that point. The stab was bad enough but that venom was unbelievably painful. A quick medical conference between our guide and some locals determined that heat would neutralize the venom. So what better way to administer heat to a deep stab wound than to stick a lit cigarette into it! The blood kept flowing and the pain just kept getting worse. Clearly the problem was that there was not enough heat, so they took a stick out of the fire and started poking it around the wound. By now the venom hurt so badly I couldn't even feel the fire. Luckily at this point the calvary arrived before my 'health care team' could permanently damage my foot. We had been surfing with some Californians who just happened to be EMT's. They came in, took a look, and couldn't believe what they were seeing. Turns out we were right about the heat but very wrong about its application. They quickly heated up a pot of water on the fire to near-scalding, then put my poor foot into it. Ahhhhhhhh.... instant relief!! It turns out stingray venom is heat - sensitive. These guys saved my @ss cuz the pain was getting so bad I was about to go nuts, even though my medical team was feeding me beers - anesthesia I mean - as quickly as I could put 'em down.

Here's the aftermath of the stingray hit, a few days later. The stab wound itself is fairly small but very deep; the much larger wound is the burn from my 'medical team'.

Our hotel is right on La Libertad, which is probably the best surf break in the country. And the waves were good on this day as you can see in the background. Too good to stay out of the water, as it turned out. It was a tough place to surf because the water is highly polluted here and I was really worried about getting this horrible wound infected. Oh well, we'll be back home to 'real' doctors in a couple more days...

What looks like a bag of pingpong balls is actually a few dozen sea turtle eggs. This dude just walks through the local seaside cantinas and sells them; they'll cook 'em right on the spot if you want. It sounds hard to believe because of the way we protect them here in the U.S. but this was the year 2001, and it was the country of El Salvador, where many people don't know where their next meal is coming from.

This seemed like a much better food option - fresh caught fish bought from the guys who caught 'em. But I think I'd go with the whole fish option (below) instead of the sun-dried fish (above) that birds were pecking at and I'm sure occasionally crapping on. Check out that tub full o' nice red snapper!

Goofing around (or possibly wasted on rum) somewhere in the middle of the country. El Salvador has many volcanoes; I'm not even sure which one this is. Just one of many..

Punta Flores, El Salvador. Ya gotta have something to do when the surf is flat.