El Salvador, May 5, 2008

The lonely cry of the Peruvian Leafcutter filled the air…

I was dreaming (nightmaring?) I had to get up and go to work. I was tired and hitting the snooze button…

I woke up in the dark with my alarm going off.

5:00am

Time to get up, make instant coffee, break-fast with a Cliff Bar, stretch, and be in the water for the 5:40am sunrise.

Alarm off.

5:00 am in El Salvador has a pleasant climate. A breeze was coming in through my north-facing window, nice and cool and in the high 60´s.

North wind? The wind is offshore this morning.

Coffee.

Get up, find a mug in the community pile – and mix it strong – about one quarter instant coffee, three quarters water. The trick is to drink as much as you can as fast as possible – instant coffee tastes like mierda.

Power down the bar (and glad that it´s chocolate chip to cut the aftertaste of the coffee), chase it down with a juice-in-the-box. Manzanillo today.

More wax on the board? Nah, I´ll finally do it tomorrow… tomorrow… tomorrow…

8:00am

Eyes open, it´s light in the room. I must have drifted off thinking about what I was going to do when I got up.

Wind still blowing through north-facing window – still offshore.

Walk downstairs and buy a fresh cup of coffee from Alba.

Surf looks clean – 15 people on the point. Offshores are holding up the lip, making the usually slow sections raceable.

Power down the bar (chocolate chip). Stretch. Get a second cup of coffee – tell Alba “Cafe es mi sangre“.

8:30am. Ten people on the point. Wind still offshore. Motivation found.

Talk to an older former-gang-member-looking guy getting out of the water. (because generally, if they´re still active in the gang, they´re not active in the surf – especially in the early morning (okay, mid-morning)).

Francisco wants to check out my surfboard (a 7´10″ Takayama egg). Francisco is leaving tomorrow – he spends half of his time working in Cocoa Beach, FL. He complains that he, “never has time to surf anymore, and it´s getting harder to paddle his shortboard, and” – he pats his gut (about the size of a five-pound sack of flour). I say, “Yo tambien“, and tell him about all the time I spend in the “praying mantis” pose in front of a computer at work – and the egg is easy to paddle and can be ridden in almost any conditions (although I imagine that it might have a harder time in really hollow waves).

We´re talking boards, surf, balancing work and surf… Francisco stops. He says, “You´re a nice guy. If you ever need anything, just let me know.” (always nice to be thought of as a nice guy from a guy with serious gang-related neck tattoos)

His two friends get out of the water – he calls them over, “Luis! Mario! I want you to meet this guy, he´s a nice guy.”

He tells me, “If you need anything, Luis and Mario can help you out. We usually surf sunrise to about now. Mario lives in Tunco.”

As I´m paddling out, my mind wanders through all the things I could possibly obtain from a local former gang member.

I like El Salvador. My normal day-to-day babbling seems to mesh well with the locals.

The wind is still offshore, the tide low and just starting to push in, and the sets head-high plus. Every ten minutes or so, three to five head-and-a-half waves roll through, cleaning up the inside. This creates two distinct take-off zones.

Three long-boarders sit on the outside zone waiting for sets. One of them is Tom – a real prick who got forced out of the water by locals when I was here last year. The outside sets alternate between really racy walls and some slower sections all the way to the beach.

The inside waves stand up and race for 100 or so meters. A half-dozen shortboarders sit here – an even mix of locals and gringos with no apparant alliances formed.

Luckily, there are plenty of waves to go around. I catch a half-dozen waves (with a slightly stiff shoulder) before paddling outside to wait for a big one. On the next set, cabeza de pene Tom paddles for and misses the first wave – leaving me on the prime spot for the next. After surfing this beautifully-groomed wall of water all the way to the beach, I get out – no way to top that one.

10:30am

The wind is still offshore. All of the beachbreak looks perfect on the incoming tide. I take my camera down to La Bocana and snap a few pictures of the great surf (today´s photos). Everywhere looks great – it´s offshore, peaky head-high plus waves everywhere! Surfers getting tubed, surfers busting phat staley-fish-pop-whatevers. I get lunch where I can continue to watch the show. The wind stays offshore until noon.

I´m suprised by how unaffected I am by the heat. My advice – spend your first day and night sweating with a fever and no air conditioning. When the fever goes away, you´ll feel great! Possibly, there is more wind this year – more offshores in the morning and onshores in the afternoon. This would make sense, last year an El Niño year and this one a La Niña. Either way, I don´t miss the air conditioning.

Just another day in the Bungalow)