El Salvador is Open For Business
El Tunco, El Salvador
“Tomás?”, Gorilla asked as he approached me from behind, a few yards outside the glass exit doors outside of San Salvador airport.
I had been looking for a new surf spot that is easily accessible for a short trip, and a subscriber had recently mentioned El Salvador to me as an emerging destination.
After some quick internet research, I was reading good things and saw that the flight from Houston was cheap and quick. I found a perfect little getaway destination in the town of El Tunco and began making my reservations to head down last weekend.
Gorilla was the driver for Balancé Surf & Yoga Retreat, a wellness-themed hotel steps from the beach in El Tunco, where I chose to stay. He said the small town only has about 3,000 locals, and each one of them gets a nickname. His was Gorilla, which was fitting for his stature and amusing considering his friendliness.
After picking me up at the airport, we made the short 45-minute drive to El Salvador’s “Surf City”. I arrived at Balancé to find a tranquil hotel on a riverside that led to the beach. The design and décor were tropical and had a Southeast Asia vibe, including the prototypical Buddha statue by the delightful little pool area. This was the perfect setup for the relaxing trip I had envisioned.
Over my short four-day trip, I surfed, hiked, and swam under magnificent waterfalls. I enjoyed the local seafood and spent a lot of time relaxing next to the pool. But the highlight of the trip was the conversations I had, with locals and with other visitors, all with interesting insights about El Salvador and its recent history.
El Salvador has a reputation for danger. But that danger has changed dramatically over the last couple of years.
Gorilla, in his 30s, told me that for most of his life in El Tunco, there were gangs policing the streets in his neighborhood, carrying machine guns and pressuring locals for payouts. El Salvador’s new President has changed all of that. According to what I was told, he created super prisons and rounded up the gang members. This was made easy by their identifying tattoos, which has raised civil rights questions, but ones that are answered when you consider how vastly the civil rights of the rest of the population have improved without the gangs controlling the neighborhoods.
I felt safe throughout my trip. The people were welcoming and there were friendly police and security guards around the town. The tourists and foreigners I met were emphatic that El Salvador is the next hot spot for those seeking tropical beach destinations. In fact, I met a couple of folks who had spent much time in Costa Rica, and citing the recent rise in crime in that country, told me they don’t plan to go back now that they know about El Salvador.
The hotel owner’s mom was visiting for the week on a Pilates retreat with several of her friends. She has been coming down to El Salvador for twenty years and had much to say about how it has developed. She told me she has never had any issues in her travel to El Salvador, and the only concern of note was a story about how she used to know a local TV celebrity who kept a bodyguard to protect his family, but those times seemed to have changed.
The staff at the hotel was phenomenal. As it attracts folks interested in wellness, everyone was cheerful and went out of their way to chit-chat and make sure I had everything I needed. An American who was working at the hotel told me how she fell in love with El Tunco, and how it is the friendliest place she’s ever been. People say hello to her everywhere, and will even ask her what she’s reading when she’s lying out on the beach.
There are lots of reasons to consider a trip to El Salvador. It has many of the same appeals as its more visited neighbors, such as beaches, volcanoes, surfing, waterfalls, and delicious food.
One of the highlights of my visit was a visit to the Tamanique Waterfalls.
Gorilla’s cousin, Shark, took me on the trek, which was a short drive away from El Tunco before embarking on a 30-minute hike. The hike ends by descending into a gorge that houses a cluster of four waterfalls, helpfully named 1, 2, 3, and 4. Once we arrived, we were surrounded by locals and other Central American tourists swimming, having beers, and taking a cool dip on a hot, sunny January day.
But there may be business reasons to consider checking it out as well.
A surfer from California that I met owns his own technology company, and after a bad experience hiring in Mexico, he has been contracting El Salvadorans to help with his IT work. He told me some very talented computer engineers in San Salvador can’t advance in the foreign-owned companies they work for but are eager for new opportunities. One night I ran into him out at a restaurant having drinks with his El Salvadoran team.
My trip was short, but it showed me what I needed to make El Salvador a regular choice in my surf travel rotation.
On my way out of town, Gorilla told me how excited he is to vote in the elections taking place in the next two weeks. My biggest takeaway from my visit was how proud the locals are of the change in their country, and that they are eager for people to come and see how wonderful El Salvador is.