The Take - Off Spot

The past few years, Ive travelled the world in search of stunning beaches, beauty, adventure, and incredible waves. This year, I told myself that I would also plan my trip with a conscious effort to improve my performance on the wave, to visit a spot that would allow me to practice my surfing every single day. The requirements were simple: warm water, and consistent, quality waves, and an interesting new country to discover.

- Maria Andresl

SUP surfing is a difficult sport, and without the opportunity to spend enough hours in the water day-in-day-out over the span of a few weeks at a time, it is nearly impossible to improve. After a few hours of research, Tom and I stumbled upon El Salvador as a destination that would allow me to improve my level in the water, while exploring a new country and culture that I was not familiar with.

Volcanic Landscapes

Nestled between Guatemala and Nicaragua, on the Pacific coast of Central America, El Salvador’s coastline is a thing of beauty for a surfer. Offering plenty of southern exposure, its volcanic geology has created a bounty of world-class righthand point breaks that dot its 300km of coastline.

I must admit, prior to booking my trip I hadn’t really heard much of El Salvador, and wouldn’t have been able to pin it on a map. Little did I know, I have been dreaming about these lands since I was a child, as its stunning landscape and volcanoes were the inspiration for the Prince´s planet in Saint-Exupéry’s classic “The Little Prince”.

The country’s geological activity was apparent throughout the entire trip. Views of beautiful volcanoes abound, and are constantly visible from every vantage point. It was possible to see smoke escaping from some of the still active volcanoes, a few of which even acted as lighthouses and were used for naval navigation in years past. I highly recommend visiting some of the natural hot springs bubbling up out of the volcanoes as well, to relax the muscles after a week of SUPing. We were also taking advantage of this geologic activity on an everyday basis, as much of the country’s power is generated by geothermal activity.