El Salvador trip I am going to el zonte, el salv next week and I wanted to see if anyone has been there recently and rented a car. Looking for pricing and suggestions of car type for a week long rental. Also if anyone has advice about anything else surfing related in el salv, please chime ....
Nice! If you are staying at the surf camp at Zonte they should be able to provide you with some numbers or maybe even send someone to pick you up for a fee. When I was there several years ago, El Salvador was still fairly sketchy place outside of the shopping district in the capital (go to the flea market and haggle with the locals). KNOW SPANISH. Costa Rica it is not! But you are looking for adventure right? I don\'t necessarily think you need local knowledge to score on the west coast... la liberdad, sunzal, and Zonte are easy enough to find but there are some other good if not better ones on private land near by (the kind where you pay the people who collect rain water in drums and crap in the backyard to NOT break into your car) like K59, K61, & Mizata ...all sick points in the awesome to epic range. Now its been a few years but... 4x4 is a must. Liberdad & Sunzal are 45 mins or less from the airport and Zonte is another 30 to 45 or so beyond those. Few if any surfshops... take everything you might need surf wise and replacements. Some nasty water at some of these spots... bring peroxide to clean the ears out. Easy to shred and relatively soft waves even when BIG but seen even small Zonte snap boards when the tide starts to go down. If your looking for surf on the east coast you DO need local knowledge call 503-7890-4751. If he\'s still around, dude\'s name is Ricardo Basil... good surfer great guy that will get you hooked up on the east coast and into some killer setups.
Thanks big guy. I am actually not staying at the surf camp but close to it. I am aware of the problems with the water and sketchy folks. I have been told not to hang around La Libertad after dark and to travel with a group (common sense really). I was kind of wondering if you or anyone knew What the deal is with car rentals in central. I've heard there is a deposit you have to put on your cc and that the prices you book online can be totally different than what you are quoted when you get the car... If anyone has any info or suggestions on that I would appreciate it
They try to screw you when you get to the counter. If ur quote is 200 they 'll tack on 100. They also try to screw u wen u leave and say u damaged the car, best way to get around this is give the guy $10 and he ll forget about it. We rented a truck and they tried to give us a compact, so bottom line is that ur not sure what ur gonna get. There are only a few places u need 4 wheel drive to get to so if ur stayin around La Libertad get a car. Be ready for a hassle, hopefully u do better than I did
Who did you rent through? I know budget, thrifty, hertz and alamo show up as being located there but I have also heard good things from some of the local rental agencies like unico and a few others......
