El Salvador

El Tunco

November 30 - December 3 | Day 1-3

Day 1

I arrive El Salvador at 7am local time, exhausted out of my mind after a 4.5 hour redeye that I barely slept on. I arrive to my hostel and am trying to shut my eyes while I hear that someone else who arrived right behind me is from LA. And so spawns that he was on the same atrocious flight as em. Our bunkmates all gradually trickle in and meet each other, and so begins a nice little group of 5, all from the same hostel room: myself, Chris, Beatrice, Max, and Sara.

Day 2

Another poor night of sleep and continued exhaustion. We say goodbye to Max and Sara as they depart on the shuttle to Nicaragua in the morning. I loved the cafe we found on day 1, and that it would become my cafe away from home. Frequented it for lunch and again for afternoon pupusa snacks.

And tonight we go out for the first time. With quite the crew too! We had myself, Chris, Beatrice, the SF guy, the Dutch couple, and were joined by the German guy and his American friends. A memorable night on the beach, for the better and for the worse.

Day 3

Exhausted, but we go out again! But first, pupusas at the blue place that we had heard such good things about. It only took an hour of waiting in a very hot building for pupusas and a beer, but it was worth it. At least this once.

We went back, took naps, and pregamed hard with tequila. And had such a fun night out with myself, Beatrice, and Chris. In this moment, I felt such appreciation for just having good friends around.

El Zonte

December 3-8 | Day 4-9

Day 4

First hitchhiking experience complete! Went to the main road to catch a hitchhike to El Zonte. Was feeling slightly apprehensive about it hitchhiking as a solo female, and went to the main road and serendipitously encountered another traveler going the same way. He came along for the hitchhike, getting an adventure out of it, and giving me security.

First day in El Zonte was nice. Swam and sat on the beach with Chris and my new hitchhiking friend. They left as the sun went down, and I go to catch sunset at a nice, quiet spot and there I also find Bastian.

We watch the sunset and talk for a while. We talk about work and life and I appreciated someone who shared so many of the same mindsets as me. We talk about books and learning things and I feel happy to have found someone so smart with similar intellectual curiosity. We eat at Esencia Nativa, and I eat fish and vegetables, the perfect fresh food I had been craving.

Day 5-9

A small group spawned between myself, Beatrice, Kathrin, and James. I arrived to El Zonte a little partied out from El Tunco, and was searching for some routine, yoga, and meditation to regain my peace again. Something about El Zonte didn’t resonate with me though. Something about the vibes were just a bit off, not feeling like home to me. Perhaps it was a combination of feeling largely empty, with all the accommodations only having a handful of people, and the people that were there, not feeling very like home to me. The locals were surfer assholes, the expats were spiritual with a sense of being greater than travelers, and the travelers were few and far between.

I planned to leave early, not having connected very well to the place. And also to be honest, because I felt I had to leave the same place as Bastian, to get it out of my head. But, everyday, the group had nice days together spent doing nothing, reading, sitting at the pool, watching sunset, and each day, we’d extend one more day, and one more day.

In these days, I struggled with my feelings towards Bastian. I really struggled. Every time I saw him, my face would light up and I’d feel excited, and when we hung out, I’d feel so happy to spending time with him, someone whose company I really enjoyed. But, I’d struggle with not being able to have anything more, and felt myself feeling down after each interaction.

Something I personally struggle with is choosing what I want in my heart, and ignoring what I know in my head is best. In my heart, I wanted to be with him, to see him, to spend time with him. In my head, I knew it was hurting myself, that the more time I spent with him without being able to fully have what I wanted and feeling a bit of rejection each time, I knew was amounting to hurting myself more. In the past, I’ve always chosen to do what feels good in the moment even if it might hurt a bit more in the future. But this time, I made the hard decision for myself, to choose the ultimate wellbeing of myself, to make the harder decision of not seeing him in the short-term, for knowing I’d be protecting myself in the longer term.

I told him that I’d been struggling with this and that it was too difficult for me to just be friends. It was maybe one of the first times that I made the hard decision against my heart, but for my brain. But afterwards, I felt better. I felt freer. A bit more liberated, like I could remove that burden from my heart, at least moment to moment.

The days in El Zonte with my little group were wonderful. Days were passed so chill-ly, in pleasant company. I had my first magic mushroom trip then. I’ve been offered to try shrooms a few times in my life, but never felt particularly compelled any given time. I wasn’t opposed to trying it, but only wanted to do it if the right setting called to me, with the right people. And we had just that in El Zonte. It was our last night together as a group there, and we had spent so much time and gotten very comfortable with each other, and it felt like the perfect setting to try it - with a group I trusted, with chill people, in a beautiful setting with sunset on the beach. And a great experience it was. There were moments of pure cracking up, laughing uncontrollably, but there were mostly moments of pure chill. Staring up at the stars dancing, feeling calm and peace.

The last day in El Zonte, I went up to Canegue Cafe, my favorite cafe, for my last breakfast. Bastian had left that day as well, but at 3 in the morning. He was staying at the hostel connected to the cafe, and I walked by and saw his surfboard gone, and felt a sinking feeling. I knew the final ending was coming, but somehow didn’t expect it to hit me so hard. I sat upstairs in the treehouse of the cafe, in this lovely setting, and felt like I wanted to cry. All the feelings from Bastian - feelings of rejection, feelings of making the hard choice not to see him, feelings that I liked him more than I thought I did - they made me all just want to sit there and do nothing but cry.

It was then that I decided to sign up for the 10 day silent meditation retreat that I had been contemplating. I thought to myself, that rejections, or what feel like rejections, have always gotten me down so much. So much more than what I think is “normal”, or more than what I think I “should” feel. And I didn’t know why. But I knew that this felt like a trend. And being one of the bigger trends in my life, a trend I ought to fix. I’ve sat in contemplation a lot. But I figured why not try this 10 day silent meditation retreat, and see if I can make progress towards the answer there. And so I did. Signed up for a 10 day silent meditation retreat over New Years at Lake Atitlan.

Juayua

December 8-10 | Day 10-11

Beatrice and I were both continuing to Juayua, so we traveled together. And it was so nice to have easy and pleasant company going into a new place. Sometimes you have a lot of energy to explore somewhere new solo, and sometimes you’re tired and you just want to be able to chill easily with familiar company. And the latter is how I felt going into Juayua.

We took the chicken bus, which was 30 minutes late, extremely hot, loud, and slow. After 1.5 hours and feeling like we needed to puke, we got off and tried to call an Uber. No Ubers existed around and so we found a hitchhike/Uber.

We arrived Samay Hostel, and you know those types of hostels where you walk in and immediately feel at home? That’s how Samay felt. I really wondered how he did it, the hostel owner. How he created a vibe where somehow you felt just happy, welcome, and relaxed as soon as you walked through the door. I noted it as something I wanted to somehow incorporate or recreate into my own future B&B/hostel.

The couple days in Samay were lovely. A great group formed at the hostel immediately, and we all hiked a memorable waterfall hike together, followed by checking out the food festival, and grabbing a rooftop beer. It was one of those vibes that was just so easy. Where everyone was easy and friendly, and just clicked. And all doing the same thing. And in such a nice, comfortable hostel environment. While Juayua wasn’t necessarily a particularly memorable part of the trip, it was probably one of the places where the group of people most easily formed. And I think back on this now a couple months later, and appreciate it fondly.