2–3 September 2026 · La Libertad, El Salvador

The pier at Puerto de La Libertad is where I properly understood where I'd landed. Yellow rails, rust, a break running onto black volcanic sand below. Look back toward shore and you get the whole postcard at once: the malecón, thatched restaurant roofs, a ferris wheel, the town climbing up into green hills behind it. This stretch of coast is Surf City — the ISA World Junior Championship runs on breaks a few minutes from where I was standing, El Sunzal and La Bocana, both within walking distance of the pier.

Lunch was the number I keep coming back to. Two stops, two people: pupusas at one place, a chicken plate at the next — leg and thigh, rice, salad, a couple of tortillas, two bottles of V8 thrown in. Full meals, not snacks. Eighteen dollars total, tip included, for both stops, both of us. I can't eat at McDonald's for eighteen dollars in Canada on my own, and this was two proper sit-down meals for two people. That's not a marketing line, that's just the receipt.

Beer's an odd one here. Picked up a twelve-can shop at the local supermarket — Stella Artois came out to $1.40 a can on a promotion, and the national lager, Pilsener, was $1.53 a can with no promotion running. The import beat the local beer on price, which isn't what I expected walking in.

Driving is its own education. My read on it after a few days: if you're not going to be assertive, don't get behind the wheel here. The roads themselves are honestly in better shape than a lot of what I drove at home — it's the traffic that's the variable. Motorbikes split lanes from both directions, appear from behind you and between cars, and a gap that looks too small to you is a gap someone will take. Hesitation reads as an invitation to be passed, not as caution. Mirrors and shoulder checks matter more than your speed does. And you share the road with pickup trucks carrying school kids standing up in the bed, in uniform — that's just the school run out here, not a spectacle, and you give a truck like that room, because it doesn't stop like an empty one does.

The lane out from the villa, from the dash camera. Roads in better shape than expected; traffic is the variable.
The lane out from the villa, from the dash camera. Roads in better shape than expected; traffic is the variable.

One thing I didn't expect: along the highway, stretches of old-growth tree canopy haven't been cut back to clear the road. The road goes under the trees instead — pruned to let it pass, not felled to make way for it. Coming from a place where the road always wins and the tree always loses, that's worth noticing.

The highway goes under the canopy. The trees were here first and they still are.
The highway goes under the canopy. The trees were here first and they still are.

Then the storm came in overnight and took the power out for thirteen hours. No generator, no battery backup at the villa, and since Wi-Fi is the only connection out here, no power means no connection to anything at all. First real infrastructure test of the place, and it failed the way rainy-season storms apparently fail here routinely — not a crisis, just how September works on this coast. Worth knowing if you're thinking about a long stay anywhere near here: budget for backup power, because the storms aren't the exception.

Ledger: lunch, two stops, two people, tip included — $18.00. Beer, twelve cans — Stella Artois $1.40/can, Pilsener $1.53/can.