Six public buses and one pickup to a remote break... but was it worth it?

It was just after nine when we hit the road that should take us to Las Flores, a tiny town in the south eastern corner of El Salvador with another good wave. The only available shuttle was a private one that charged 110$ for the three of us so we tackled the little more than 150 km by public bus, a quest that turned out to be harder than we had thought. We had to take six different buses, each with a waiting period and new strange people and one pick-up truck and my new board didn't make things easier either. It was a very exhausting day and we spent solid eight hours on the road but the sight when we arrived rewarded us for all the trouble. Las Flores was basically a few houses and huts on a beautiful beach which was bordered by two rocky headlands on either side. The beach was quite big because of the low tide but there didn't seem to be a wave breaking at all. The place we decided to stay in was very basic but it was right at the beach, so close actually that the water reaches the lowest wall when the tide comes in. We definitely had the best spot in town to watch the ocean and hopefully soon the waves.
I had planned to get up early because some other surfers had told me that a strong offshore wind starts blowing at around 9 am but our last day had been long and I didn't make it until 7:30 am. After the quick spot check it was less than 5 minutes until I was in the water. I only had to put my shorts and my rash west on, wax my board and run the few meters down to the surf. The waves were a little bit messy and around 3-4 feet but the wave was very fast and a lot of fun. The take off was steep and very close to the rocks but the wave pushed you away as soon as you were riding and one had to be quick to keep up with the first section to get around it. The whole thing took me a while to understand what I had to do but once I had it the wave was great. If you picked the right ones it was possible to get rides over 200 meters which took you all the way to the beach. The water was a lot colder than in El Tunco and a lot browner but I saw an awful lot of stingrays swimming underneath the surface in the lineup and vultures circling the sky.
Bekki and I went for a short walk along the road and found 4 or 5 massive Mango trees that had dropped a lot of their sweet babes, ready to eat. Most of them were over ripe or already eaten by animals but we still found plenty that were good for us. We brought back a bag full which was breakfast and lunch for one day and went a second time the next day. That time we took enough for this day and the next and maybe even a few more... All in all we had more than 50 Mangoes that we ate in 3 days and which were the main part of our diet in Las Flores. The days we stayed there were dominated by surfing and relaxing, a nice walk along the beach at low tide to the nearest town and... Mangoes.
The waves even built up in size a little bit but stayed very choppy due to the strong winds. I had a great time in the surf though and even shared the waves with a really good guy who, I think, was sponsored by "animal" and was boasting airs and taking off on waves that I thought were clear close-outs. Yeah, I just checked and he is "animal" team rider and multiple English champ. No wonder he was better than me... http://www.animal.co.uk/fe/htm/index/index.asp
It was a really relaxed time we had, living right at the beach, literally only a jump away from the waves but my arms only lasted for 4-5 hours of surfing a day and there wasn't anything else to do really so it got a bit boring, especially for the other two. And so we left again after two days of pure surfing with the next destination being Leon in Nicaragua. To get there we had to take several buses and cross two borders so it would be another long, long travel day.

Munching on a Mango while waiting on bus no.2

We hitched a ride on a pickup for the last kilometer 

I had to improvise with my boardbag... The point and our hostel in the background

Mangoes

The babe and the board... haha, hot

Here you go, some of my surfing... It is more about fun than looking good!

Mr. Alan Stokes

And myself...