El Salvador

After the Christmas holidays talks usually start up among our friends about spring trip ideas. I’m usually up for any good epic as long as it involves more than just sitting on a beach and escaping dark, rainy coastal BC. Last January Dave Watson mentioned to me that a group of friends including riders, industry honchos, and a photographer were loosely planning a surf and bike trip to El Salvador. As it was the only country I had skipped on a previous motorcycle adventure to Central America so it didn’t take much convincing before I was all in.

 The view from our room at Punta Roca on the first day.
 
Plans came together, bikes and boards went into boxes, and we set off from our varying locations en route to Central America. The confirmed attendants were pro free riders Matt Hunter & Dave Watson, photographer Ian Hylands, Bike Magazine publisher Derek Dejong, and Steve Delacruz. Dejong had been to El Salvador many times and he’d arranged for us to stay at a place he already knew close to a surf break known as Punta Roca.

 Not our pool.  Poaching our friends’ new place.
 
As with most Central American countries, one of the first evident things on our arrival in El Salvador was the huge contrast between the poverty of the people and the natural beauty of the country. People were extremely friendly and genuinely happy to see visitors though. El Salvador’s tourism industry is on the rise and you can choose to vacation as cheaply or as extravagantly as you like. We chose to live on the cheap and we spent only about $150 each for the entire week including meals. Oh and beer was less than a buck.

 Watson shredding on the first real ride.
 
Our host, Bob Rotherham, runs the Punta Roca surf camp in the little dust bowl town of La Libertad. The camp has no address but if you tell the cabbie it’s 150 meters north from the town pier he’ll get you there. It’s the closest accommodation to the surf break and our rooms were above the kitchen and right next to the bar of the restaurant. While fairly basic they were at least air-conditioned. The break was just a short walk down a dusty old road and along a bit of rocky beach, so we were drawn to the ocean every day. There was also a break right in front of the restaurant, but it wasn’t nearly as nice.

   El Salvador shuttle truck.
 
While the primary “goal” of our trip was to scout free ride lines and trails it became more and more obvious that we were here to surf. It was scorching hot during the day and if you weren’t in the water you felt like you were going to melt. The swell was so big when we arrived that every surf break on the coast except for Punta Roca was closing out, which meant every surfer for miles was trying to surf our massive right-handed wall of water. After I had bounced off a few rocks, seen the odd broken board, and been swept down the beach by the rip more than once, I retired to the beach to watch Derek lead our crew in shredding wave after wave.
 
After more than a few days spent entirely in the ocean it was finally time to pull out our bikes and find some dirt. We made plans to take motos and go exploring in the hills the next morning but instead woke up to the sound of Dave being violently sick in the bathroom. It turned out that Matt’s idea of mixing drinks in coconuts was a bad one.  We left Dave behind and headed out to the hills but I barely made it to noon myself before pulling over to the side of the trail so sick I wanted to die. Dave, Ian and I ended up sitting around for two days reading surf mags and taking turns painting the bathroom walls from both ends.

  Hunter railing through the burn.
 
With just two days left in the trip the swell was down and it was time to go ride. A local friend Javier (our moto guide as well) had arranged for a shuttle for us. A beat-up old Chevy truck with steel belts showing out the sides of the bald tires showed up to take us into the hills. Tires spinning, we followed steep and winding roads way up into the mountains. After the hot sticky coast the cooler hills were an excellent treat.  We stopped when we reached the top of a ridgeline just below a mountain range full of the unmistakable outline of volcanoes. I got the feeling we were just scraping the surface of what was to be seen and done in this place. On the first day we bagged a couple of runs in the mountains above la Libertad, and then in the hills above San Salvador the next. Most of the riding was on generations-old farmers’ trails, and instead of running into other bike traffic as you would at home, we saw farmers carrying crops, groceries, water and supplies. We were always greeted with smiles and curiosity.
 
While we didn’t find any truly amazing singletrack trails we did get to ride our bikes on dirt, and from the looks of things there may be some great trails further up in the hills. The surfing was epic, and even the several days spent horribly ill don’t seem all that bad in retrospect. It was definitely a good adventure, and way better than sitting around in the Vancouver rain….

This story was originally published in fivefivenine magazine.
Fivefivenine Magazine is a brand new quarterly multimedia magazine that aims to showcase the best in mountain bike photography and art. It is a collaborative effort between some of the world’s most established mountain bike photographers as well as creative new shooters and artists. You can download issue one from the website 559mag.com

Looking for an out of the way spot for a vacation on a budget?  Been to El Salvador?  Checked out 559 yet?  Spill here…