Facing the waves in El Zonte
We hadn’t planned to stay too long in El Salvador – more to claim back some days from staying longer than expected in Guatemala! We had planned to visit Honduras next overland on our way to Nicaragua, but just at the start of this year the Honduran government changed it’s entry requirements for British citizens specifically, and now you need to have gotten a separate visa (in person!) from the embassy in London, and can’t use the CA4 visa… We didn’t realise this until it was too late, as we did our research in December. So our only option to continue overland was to take a boat from El Salvador over the Gulf of Fonseca, which avoids going through Honduras.
We found a tour company offering this route to Nicaragua departing from the beaches around El Tunco, a major surfing spot on the Pacific coast of El Sal, which basically dictated our next stop. Other than to get the transport from here, we didn’t expect much from the region as we’re not big surfers or into that flashpacker party scene… But, as usual, we were pleasantly surprised again!
To get from Santa Ana to the more sleepy surf town of El Zonte (just a bit further along the coast from El Tunco), we got the 209 bus to Salcoaltitan. We didn’t know the bus timetable, but heard they might be every hour, so headed to the station about 12, and didn’t have to wait long before we set off about 12:30. The bus was $0.71 and super scenic, as it went past Santa Ana Volcano on a similar route to the 248 bus.
In Salcoaltitan, we then had to catch the 287 bus to the coast, and had heard that locals start queuing for this bus an hour before it leaves as there’s only one a day! Luckily we arrived at about 2:30pm, a queue was already forming, so we joined it, and boarded the bus and set off at about 3:45pm.
We arrived in El Zonte just in time for sunset, and headed straight down to the beach. The sky was red, the sand was black and the waves were big… It was so cool and we were instantly a bit sad that we weren’t staying a little longer…
We were only staying 2 nights here, so had one full day here to enjoy the beach. We spent the day playing in the waves and chilling in the hanging chairs of a little beach front cafe.
We went out into the ocean to feel the full force of nature, we can see why it’s a surfing beach and not a swimming one – the waves were brutal and there was a strong rip current. We went out in turns so we didn’t leave our bags unattended, I didn’t last long, up to my waist I could barely stand-up, getting pummeled haha, but Dave had a whale of a time diving under the waves and spent way longer than me in there! I only saw him nearly get swept away once 😂
We enjoyed another amazing sunset and a cute little vegan falafel bowl before getting an early night, as we were due to get picked up at 3am to start the journey to Nicaragua… Wish us luck…!!
Tips and tricks for El Zonte
Travel
We took public transport to El Zonte. The 209 goes every hour from La Vencedora bus station and took about 2 hours for $0.71, stopping at the main bus terminal in Salcoaltitan. The 12:30pm bus gets you there right in time to catch the 3:30pm 287 bus from Salcoaltitan to La Libertad, stopping along the road at El Zonte. This bus cost $1.25 (the sign said $1.13 but we didn’t get any change from $1.25 😂) and took 2 hours. We heard there are only 2 buses a day, the other is at 5:30am, so this is the only one possible to catch really. And definitely get there early, like 3pm ideally, as there was a queue and the bus was packed with people standing as well.
Accommodation
We stayed at Casa Azul, a new listing on booking.com, basically a private room up on the main road. The only good thing about the place was the AC, everything else was terrible and we wouldn’t recommend it! Mostly it’s location on the road was the worse but as the room and bed would literally shake when a truck went past (and many trucks went past). But for us, since we only stayed 2 nights, it was the cheapest place we could find in town and still cost us about £35 a night, so super pricey for El Sal, but the AC saved us as it was HOT here!!
Food and drink
We were generally surprised how expensive everything was in El Zonte – accommodation and food. We ate both nights at Palma which had vegan options, a falafel burger and falafel bowl. Both were really nice, but each time we spent about $25 for the 2 of us!! Prior to this our meals had been about $3 each! But still, it was one of the cheapest places we saw.
For our day chill we camped out at Restaurante vista del mar el zonte which was reasonably priced for beach front views and drinks, but the only veggie option was french fries (Dave didn’t complain!) we got 2 haha.
