We went to several different beaches but we definitely have A LOT more coastline to explore! Here are four beaches we went to and what we thought of them:
Atami
Our first beach was right at the hotel we were staying at called Atami Escape Resort. The beaches here are black and extremely rocky. If you are looking for a sand beach to lay out on, you won't find it here! The waves are constantly crashing into shore and there isn't a whole lot to explore. You are surrounded by cliffs so the views are quite beautiful but you won't find much to do if you are looking for food or shopping. Atami does have a great restaurant and there are some tiny food stands along the beach but overall this area is undeveloped aside from Atami Escape Resort.
My favorite part of the beach here was the natural salt pools! They keep you protected from getting thrashed by the ocean waves yet you can still enjoy them. Roberto played closer to the waves while I stayed on the other side floating in calmer waters. Choose your own experience in these pools!
El Cangrejera
Well, this beach is actually where we will be living and hosting retreats from! This is definitely a tiny little town, if you can call it that. It is a long dirt road to get here but it is only a 20 minute drive from the airport. Our house is on a private dirt road at the end of that dirt road!
We actually didn't explore this area at all because we were more obsessed with the house and scoping out the property but I took this video from the backyard. Not a single person in sight aside from Roberto. In El Salvador the spring and summer is the best surfing while the water is calm in the fall and winter. This may dictate what season you want to visit in as the weather is fairly the same year round with more rain showers in the summer season.
El Tunco
We stopped here a couple times and saw the scene both morning and night. El tunco translates to pig - and the rock in the middle of the ocean here resembles an upside down pig! Do you see it?!
This is another very rocky beach and the current is quite strong. Most of the surfers are pretty far away from the shoreline because it requires a lot of power, strength, and endurance to get through the initial current.
I had a delicious banana smoothie here while Roberto had pupusas and black conch for breakfast one morning. We came back again the next day for a sunset dinner to a different restaurant. I fell in love with a family of dogs that had a puppy and watched them play along the shoreline most of dinner. It was fun to watch the surfers too!
This town has quite a few little shops and restaurants to explore. Roberto never got his luggage during our trip so his new clothes came from here with a hefty price tag of $5 for t-shirts and flip flops, $10 for shorts. There were no other options in regards to prices!
El Zonte
This is now also known as Bitcoin Beach. Bitcoin can now be used throughout El Salvador but they are still setting up the infrastructure. You will find a Bitcoin ATM in El Zonte for deposits and withdrawls. The streets in El Zonte are currently being completely redone so it wasn't the easiest area to get around in. It is quite small though so once we parked it was easy to walk around.
We ate an amazing restaurant at sunset in between the ocean and a beautiful eco lodge. This was probably the best meal we had on our trip! It was also our most expensive meal too. We will share more about the food in a future blog post. Let us know any questions you have about the foods of El Salvador!
That's it for the beaches...for now! We will have a lot more to share after this next two week trip - we were only there for four days on this last adventure. I do have all of these beaches factored into the retreat program. We are staying at El Cangrejera and it is about an hour drive to get to El Tunco, Atami, and El Zonte. Each of those beaches are about a 15-minute drive from each other. You will get to see and experience so much when you Travel to Find Your Self!
