El Tunco

El Tunco is on El Salvador's Pacific coast, about forty minutes from San Salvador, a small beach of black sand and boulders with a rock formation offshore that is said to resemble a pig — *tunco* in Salvadoran Spanish — which gives the village its name.

It is a surf town and little else. El Salvador's Pacific coast has a series of right-hand point breaks that work with remarkable consistency, and Punta Roca at nearby La Libertad is regarded as one of the best in Central America. The country has built policy around this: a surf tourism programme, international competitions, and a coastal road project marketed as Surf City. Whether that programme benefits the coastal communities it runs through is contested locally and worth knowing about.

The beach itself is dark volcanic sand and rounded boulders, steep in places, with a strong shore break and rip currents. It is not a swimming beach in the ordinary sense; people go in at the sheltered end and surfers use the point. There are no lifeguards on most days. The coast either side — Sunzal to the west with its long right-hander, El Zonte further on — is one continuous surf zone, and the black sand runs the length of it because the volcanic chain sits a few kilometres inland.

The village is a few streets of hostels, restaurants and surf shops, busy and young, with the Río Grande estuary at one end. El Salvador's security situation has changed substantially in recent years and the coast is now visited far more than it was; conditions and advice change, and checking current guidance is sensible rather than alarmist.

Black volcanic sand, a rock formation shaped like a pig, and one of the most consistent point breaks in Central America. El Salvador has built a tourism strategy on these waves and the strategy is working. Rips are strong, cover is limited, and the sand gets too hot to cross barefoot by eleven.