Estand Up! Estand Up!

One of the many perks of working at CEE is the fact that we have to leave Honduras to renew our visas every 90 days. Let me reiteratre, we receive a check every 90 days whose sole purpose is to fund our travels. Not educational/ professional travels. Relaxing, fun vacations.

 

For this trip, we decided to pack up and head on over to Playa El Tunco, El Salvador for some surf, sand, and sun. All of which we received. Josh Vega and Daniel picked us up around 8:30 on Saturday morning and we began the 10 hour trek over to El Salvador. Erika, Sarah, and I pretty much slept the entire time, so the whole day was pretty uneventful. After rolling in to El Salvador around 6:30pm, we set off for "downtown" to find some good eats. And by "downtown" I mean one of the two main roads in the town. We were looking for a relaxing beach town and we had certainly stumbled into one.

 

Might've had a photo shoot. Might've loved it.

Sunday morning called for some swimming and preparing for our 4:30pm surf lesson. I was NERVOUS! I envisioned a lot of this happening:

 

 

Miraculously, I did make it to the standing position on more than one occassion. Enough times that it couldn't even be considered a coincidence. Not to say that I didn't have my fair share of sitting around on the surfboard or riding the waves in on my knees because that certainly happened as well.

 

Ready? Ready!

Monday rolls around and we had a NINE AM surf lesson. Good grief, I could barely get out of bed. I had muscles hurt that I didn't even know existed. But I pushed through (sort of) and made it through another morning of surfing. Despite the fact that I was one on one with my instructor this time, depsite having the same instructor as Erika the night before, I did exponentially more sitting on the board this time than the night before. My instructor told me to paddle, I looked at him like he was out of his mind. He told me to get ready for the next wave, I just laid down on the board. I'd just like to stay out here and chat, if that's okay with you, bro.

 

 

I have to give my instructor credit though. I'm not a natural surfer, nor was I super inclined to work hard to enhance my abilites, but he was very encouraging and seemed more than willing to just let me hang around. He got paid either way, so I don't think he minded too much. I did frequently hear the same phrases from him over and over throughout our two days of surfing together. One: estand up, estand up! Clearly, when I was riding a wave and needed to stand up. Two: muy fuerte, muy fuerte! When we were taking the board under a wave and I had to hold on tightly. This came about when I didn't hold on and was propelled backwards due to the strength of the wave. And three: ees okay, ees okay. When I was coming back from yet another failed attempt to stand on the board. Or when I could sit on the board. Or when I could relax and lay day. Basically any time the language barrier came between us, he started saying "ees okay, ees okay".

My surf instructor and myself.

 Monday after our surf lesson was spent in the ocean and napping. That was all. Swim a little, nap a little, eat a little, and repeat. Not a bad life, if you ask me. Unfortunately, our weekend in paradise had to end on Tuesday when we packed up the car and headed back to Siguatepeque.

 

Surfing at sunset, eating delicious food, relaxing with friends, and not being required to wear anything more than a bathing suit all weekend? Not bad for the end of October.