22–26 September 2026 · Playa Toluca, La Libertad and Bahía de Jiquilisco, El Salvador
Tuesday the 22nd was the first grey day of the whole stay, three weeks in: cooler, and raining at Toluca in the morning. I took the hint and drove east.
The coast road runs to Usulután, then down to Puerto El Triunfo on the Bahía de Jiquilisco, which I reached by one. By three I was at the Arcos del Espino, at the west end of Playa El Espino. The phone gives up entirely on that sandbar. No signal at all. The sky out there was blue, with cumulus, and the grey had stayed behind. All the way east it was cattle pasture and stick fences, with the Jucuarán hills standing up behind them. It was a scouting run for a longer trip east.
Back on the black sand, under the patio stools, a small striped lizard with a tail two and a half times the length of its body was hunting on the wet ground. A young basilisk, the one they call the Jesus Christ lizard, because it runs on water.
Wednesday I went back to Grandma's for lunch. The grandmother and her granddaughter sat with me for a photograph, though not before the granddaughter ran off to clean up and brush her hair. The almendro in the villa yard is dropping ripe fruit now, orange-red and about the size of a small mango, and the kernel inside tastes like almond. That afternoon I drove the granddaughter, her mother and her brother into La Libertad for groceries: up past La Tecleña on the hillside road, chicken buses lined up by the Premium Center, then the Super Selectos lot.
Thursday started with fish ceviche and a limeade in El Tunco, sixteen dollars plus a dollar tip. In the evening I brought a few flavoured Smirnoff coolers to Grandma's and sat with the grandmother, her daughter and her son-in-law. Dinner later was at a Mexican roadside place: burritos and a Coke, seventeen dollars with the tip, and good.
Saturday the 26th, after a night of heavy rain, a bright-green iguana was climbing the yard tree by the wall. Four photographs and an eight-second clip. That makes a roof iguana nightly, a garrobo on the wall, a yearling green one by the palm, and now this one. The yard has had more visitors than I have.
Ledger: ceviche and limeade in El Tunco $16 plus $1 tip. Burritos at the roadside Mexican place $17 with tip. A few coolers for the table. Basilisk, free.