June 29, 2006

mark chills out in el salvador!

Here I am in between waves while surfing at Punta Roca - like the hat I made?

Welcome to my CosmoGIRL.com blog! Glad to have you along to read about what's going on in my world!

The greatest thing about working on TV is the flexible schedule and, of course, the fact that somebody actually pays me to act! These two factors in my life equate to travel opportunities - traveling being my greatest interest at this point in my life (and probably for as long as I live).

At the end of April, I was fortunate enough to head down to El Salvador to surf with one of my best friends (Brett) and to meet up with one of my other best friends - Adrian Bellani! ("Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald"). Adrian is from El Salvador. The first five days were spent surfing big, beautiful waves in 85-degree water while we stayed at a really great, low key surf camp right on the beach - complete with a guard tower and accompanying armed guard (bandit problems down there!).

El Salvador is rugged and beautiful and the native people reflect much of the same qualities, working hard from sun up to sundown. We were of course on the same schedule, getting up at approximately 5 a.m. each morning to jump in the 4 x 4 with our guide Emilio to search for the best waves. It was already light by 5 a.m. and the temperature was already reaching well into the 90's. The surf sessions were somewhat surreal with the expansive exotic vistas from the tropical water of palm trees and mountains stretching as far as the eye could see - with clear blue skies adding the finishing touch.

After surfing until we were physically exhausted we would head back to the camp where Jimmy (the proprietor and ripping surfer) and his wife would cook us up a huge El Salvadorian breakfast while we strummed the guitar and talked about the amazing waves and conditions we had just surfed.

We would spend the rest of the day playing music, talking with the locals, reading and napping - this stretched on perfectly for the first few days until the day before Adrian was planning to pick us up. That morning after surfing a well-known local point break for 3 hours we decided to reward ourselves with a "liquado mango" (like a mango smoothie) from a small surf shack on the beach. Mine was delicious, but my friend Brett's was apparently made with the local river water (which is not good! Bad bacteria!). Only took about an hour after that for Brett to realize that he had Montezuma's revenge, a horrible bacterial sickness! Poor Brett was confined to our room for about 24 hours when Adrian showed up with a awesome 4 x 4 and an agenda to show us how to really experience El Salvador! We managed to chalk Brett up long enough to stick him in the truck for the hour-long trip to San Salvador, the capital city where Adrian's family lives.