El Tunco

El Tunco is a village of one sandy street on El Salvador's black-sand Pacific coast, named for a rock shaped like a pig that stands in the surf, and it has become the front porch of Surf City — the stretch of point breaks around La Libertad that the country decided, a few years ago, to make its calling card: El Sunzal's long right for the learners and the longboards, La Bocana's left at the village's own river mouth, and Punta Roca down the coast, a right-hand point good enough to host the world. The sand is volcanic and hot, the sunsets are a nightly event, and the pupusas are the best in the country, which is to say the world.

The traveller surfs at dawn and at the afternoon tide, renting a board and a lesson from the shacks on the beach; walks the black sand to the rock for the sunset ritual; eats pupusas at the comedores and fish at La Libertad's pier, where the boats unload straight into the market; climbs inland to the Tamanique waterfalls for a swim in cold water; and, with a day more, drives up into the Ruta de las Flores for the coffee towns and the weekend food festivals — San Salvador is only forty minutes away, which is the whole trick of the place.

The Guide's honesty: El Salvador is safer today than its reputation, and the coast has always been calmer than the headlines — normal care applies, no more —; the sea here is real Pacific, with current and shore-break, so learners should learn where the instructors say and swimmers should watch the flags; the black sand burns at midday, and the sun is equatorial in strength; the village is loud on weekends and blissful midweek; and the country's welcome, long underrated, is one of the region's genuine surprises.