So we hopped onto our tourist minibus at 8am, we were joined by only 3 others, which makes a difference from the first "chicken bus" we got, which had close to 30 rammed in. In that journey there was a wee Guatemalan guys sitting beside Laura for an hour who I hadn't even noticed! Our American travel companion gave us some intense surfing tips and gave us rundown on the 9/11 conspiracy theory, it seems George Bush ordered the tragedy. News to me, but an interesting idea! The driver was an extremely cheery chap and even stopped to allow the occasional photo of the volcanoes that we drove past. The majority of the roads in this section were good so we got to the border in a couple of hours. We didn't need to pay an entrance fee which was good and off we went into the poorest country in Central America, unsure of what to expect.

We picked up some American Dollars at a gas station and got dropped off at El Zonte, a surf spot on the Pacific coast. To say this place was chilled would be an understatement. The main attraction here is the waves, and when we arrived they were big. Too big! We spotted the odd surfer out there tackling them, but even our American pro friend didn't get his feet wet. When I asked the owner in our accommodation where were all the surfers, he told me they were all asleep. So we got an early night, after Laura whipped me at table tennis.

The next morning we found a smaller break and hired some boards for a few hours. Laura and Katie got some lessons and were both standing pretty quickly. We headed down the coast for the next 3 nights to El Tunco, which was much livelier. We got a double room for $15 and hit the black sand beach. It's definitely the kinda place where you could get stuck and you quickly get to know everyone, as it's pretty small.

Our first night we wondered around looking for a lively bar and found nothing, but fortunately someone in our hostel told us about a bar with a "ladies night", so off we went. It also had a "hula" show which was pretty fun to watch, as the local guys tried to compete with the instructor. Then a crazy drunk Canadian stormed the dance floor with a set on nunchucks (used for martial arts, 2 wooden batons connected with a chain). I have never seen a dance floor and the surrounding area cleared so fast! He proceeded to do his own show, and you could hear the batons smacking off his body and head, even over the Rasta music in the background. It was bizarre. It turned out later that batons were made of plastic, pretty funny.

I did some surfing here and the girls lounged on the beach. You can see the sunsets from this spot are spectacular.

Our last night here we went to yet another ladies night and then got collected at 3am and joined a 19hr bus to Costa Rica. That was a long bus journey, through 3 borders!