La Tortuga Verde - Part Two

So many things happened in this week it's hard to keep it condensed...

Returning from Punta Mango Rory showed me a little cut through from the village allowing you to ride onto the beach and the two of us buzzed along on the hard packed sand for about 5km's back to the front of the hostel. No helmet, 60mph, wind in the hair... feels soo good!

New arrivals from California had landed that morning and we got chatting in the afternoon. A group of five lads, two of which were brothers and their sister had come for a quick five day break thanks to a national holiday back home. One of the guys, Charles whose face was adorned with an excellent handlebar moustache had come prepared with an LED frisbee which got me very excited and that evening in the pitch black we had a rather tricky seven person came of frizz-e-bee on the beach. Seeing the frisbee was fine but figuring out where anyone else was and where to throw the thing required lots of whooping and a fair bit of luck. Rain stopped play and we took shelter (and beer) in the bar...

As the night went on the rain turned into an almighty storm, the rain getting heavier and heavier and the thunder following ever quicker after the dazling flashes of lightening. At 11ish people were discussing making a hasty dash for their respective beds when all of a sudden a huge bolt of fork lightening lit up the sky and the loudest thunder clap I have ever heard cracked directly above us making everyone jump and stare wide eyed at the person next to them. After a couple of minutes another bolt of lightening came down and struck the ground just 10m out in front of the bar  scaring the life out of everyone except the barman who just carried on chatting! Another few metres closer and it would have blown the roof off the bar. The guys legged it to their room and the next morning showed me a video of them sitting chatting away in their room when the light above one of their heads exploded covering him in glass. Crazy night!

Morning brought sunshine and light offshore winds so I took myself off to Las Flores and scored an amazing session. Head and a half high sets were rolling in every five minutes or so, jacking up on the submerged rock at the end of the point and reeling for 150m+. Me and a crew of six American guys who were staying at the resort took it in turns rotating round and calling each other into the waves, I had some epic rides and surfed as well as I had done all trip. A couple of the older guys had the spot wired and were taking off super deep just a couple of feet from the rock, I kept edging closer and closer and taking my waves later and later until finally my luck gave out and as I was called on to a bigger set wave I suddenly found myself getting pitched, free falling down the face and getting ragged dolled under water popping up just in front of a patch of welcoming rocks. Kooked it! A great session was had by all, everyone frothing off each others excitement and sharing waves, that's how surfing should be!

Soo Erik... Erik was volanteering at Tortuga Verde and had been there for a couple of months already and sported an extremely French attiutude... there was an air of outspoken arrogance and antagonistic mischief about the way in which he interacted with other people which was extremely amusing and far from offensive but definitely slightly weird. He had been to university in England & spoke very good English but in a strange Franco American accent. Erik had agreed with the owner (Tom) that he would make a chicken coup so they could produce their own 'organic' eggs for the hostel. On my second to last day Erik asked if I could give him a hand holding the walls in place while he attached them to the frame he had already made... I have never seen such a precarious structure in all my life! Everything was salvaged from discarded bits from the hostel, wooden slatted veg boxes balanced on top of  plastic feet from broken beds which supported irregular and very heavy wooden posts that had been nailed to randomly cut cement fibre sheets to form walls and hinged doors all pinned together with a patchwork of flimsy wooden strips all of which gave minimal structural integrity and resulted in a completely unstable and quite large box that could have been toppled by even the smallest chicken. Despite the obvious frailty Erik was extremely proud of his creation and whilst I offered some constructive ideas I refrained from mocking and helped as required... a lot of work had gone into Erik's grandious chicken trap and ignoring it's flaws I was genuinely impressed by the effort he had put in, still there's no way I'd let my chickens anywhere near it!

The Californians were shipping out and in a classicly American show of genrosity they very kindly donated their frisbee to me on the proviso that I taught some of my tricks to folks along the way. As if that wasn't enough they also very kindly prepared several small bags of fine Californian weed and divided them up as gifts for some of us at TV! They had flown into El Salvador with a big bag of Sativa and a big bag of Indica and not wanting to fly back into the 'States' with this contraband they just gave it away and wouldn't take any money. An extremely nice group of people, with luck I will catch up with them when I get up to California. 

Whilst wondering out of the dorm I clocked another biker arriving through the gates of the hostel. Paul was a super friendly Aussie bloke in his late fifties, a man with many stories, we talked bikes and trips etc... late into the evening. Pablo was on a mission to ride around the world on his BMW 1200GS, he planned for roughly three years but had already spent six months in Mexico and was happily moving slowly. The way he had been going it sounded like he was on for picking up a chica from each country on route... randy old bugger was doing well for himself!

Living at TV was not the cheapest, at $30 a day with food and a dorm room I was stretching my budget, I knew I had to get moving but was very reluctant to leave. After much deliberation and with the promise of a new, big swell coming in for the end of the week I decided to ride North to El Sunzal. I packed the bike, oiled the chain, had breakfast, said goodbyes and faffed for a couple of hours and just as I was going to leave I heard shouts coming from the turtle sanctuary area... two of the groups of eggs were hatching and the staff were busily digging through the sand pulling out living (and dead) baby turtles!

I had not had much to do with the owner Tom during my stay but had witnessed his eccentricities a few times from a far and decided distance was fine. An American Expat who had bought TV with inherited money nine years previously, Tom was a very peculiar character. He spoke with a camp, overtly American accent even when speaking Spanish to his staff, was balding, smelled of BO and had a young Salvadorean girlfriend who was half his age. He arrived at the turtle sanctuary to find a group of about ten live baby turtles that had been collected by the staff and deposited in a plastic bowl and about seven or eight dead baby turtles that weren't soo lucky. Dennis and another local staff member had been digging out, by hand the two nests that according to the girl with the calender were ready, I think it was 49 days from the day they were laid for this type of turtle.

Dennis had half dug one nest and declared that there were no more... Tom got on his knees and started digging carefully with his hands, cursing the incompentent locals and digging down a couple of feet to uncover a hessian sack in which they had buried the eggs. A handful more tiny wiggling turtles were pulled up along with a large quantity of wasted and rotten egg shells... they were having problems with roots growing on the bags and popping the eggs and also with maggots who feasted on the eggs. All in all I was not convinced they were being particularly succesful with their so called turtle protection plan. A few days previously one of the dogs had managed to get passed the poorly built protective netting and subsequently dug up and ate a load of eggs... Tom had blamed one of the young staff members who had been promptly sacked. Rory and I had spent a few hours redoing the netting and ensuring the frames kept unwanted visitors out but still the whole operation seemed half baked with Tom saying "There are soo many experts with different theories but we just keep trying different techniques"... their current one didn't seem great.

That said Tom's operation must have been doing some good, aswell as having a night watchman patroling the beach and collecting the eggs as they were laid and bringing them back to safety! He would also use his own funds to buy eggs from the local poachers and put them in the sanctuary too, saving them from the griddle. When hatched the baby turtles were kept for a couple of days in a covered pond and given time to gain strength before being released into the ocean a few days later. It was very cool to see the little fellas wiggling around and to help digging them out, hopefully some will survive!

Finally, after all this excitement I hopped on the bike and rode out of the huge gates of La Tortuga Verde and out onto the dirt road going North. This was the nicest place I had stayed on my trip, the whole setup was like staying at a more expensive resort but with an alternative budget traveller vibe and a regular local crowd to boot. The people I met were all interesting characters and it was great to spend a week getting to know some folk better and having a laugh in such a beautiful place and so close to epic waves. I would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting El Salvador it is incredible!