La Libertad, the Salvadoran surfing capital (San Diego)

Written by Tyler Cole | 07 May 2010

 

I made my way to the coast in El Salvador after spending a chill day and a half in the capital, San Salvador. The capital seemed nice and I was suprised by its modernity, but hearing stories from a taxi driver about the gang violence from Mara Salvatrucha and MS-18 (when they robbed him, they even took his shoes) I was not planning to linger around. It was also off-putting when, accidentially knocking on the wrong door while looking for the hostel in the captial, I was greeted as door opened with a revolver and a "What do you want?". Oh right, and while riding the bus I could see from above that about half of the car drivers had a pistol of some sort on their laps. It seemed like a tormented city. In any case, the beach town I stayed at in the department of La Libertad

called San Diego was quite the change of scenery, but the supposedly fantastic surfing waves were non-existent and foiled my plans to rent a board and try to become less horrible at surfing. It was relaxing nontheless, yet a bit hot, and totally deserted. There were no shortages of mangoes, with trees all around weighed down by the succulent, ripening fruits. There were so many they were left to rot on the ground.

Pictures are below.