El Salvador Retreat: October 1-8

Hi yoga friends!

I’m one week away from heading back to El Salvador for a surf and yoga retreat with my friend Pixie and her company, Surf Sweat Serve, from October 1st-8th, 2023. I’ll be teaching yoga classes every morning, and there will be plenty of time for surfing, swimming, adventuring, and relaxing by the pool. We still have a few spots open, and flights from both JFK and LAX are looking pretty good! If you’re a last-minute planner and still want to join, you can register here.

This will be my fourth Surf Sweat Serve trip because it’s just THAT good! It’s an experience that will change your life for the better. I was a little intimidated going to El Salvador at first (that was about four years ago), and it’s really truly a gem of a country that far exceeds its reputation. I can’t wait to be back.

This trip is a little different than previous years, because there will be more of a focus on the surf camp side of the trip. But don’t worry– all levels and all ages are welcome. If you’re new to surfing, it’s a perfect experience to try while feeling totally safe and supported. If you’re experienced, it’s an excellent way to deepen your skillset at any level. And if you don’t love surfing, there are plenty of other activities to make the trip your own.

When you sign up for this Surf Sweat Serve retreat, you’ll get:

• Airport shuttles to/from San Salvador airport

• Wifi

• 7 breakfasts

• 7 lunches or dinners (your choice)

• 7 wellness drinks (smoothies, juices, coconut waters)

• 14 non-alcoholic drinks

• Unlimited coffee!

• Morning yoga classes with me and Pixie

• Optional additional yoga classes with Puro Surf staff

• Breathwork and bootcamp classes with Pixie

• Journaling and processing playgrounds

• 6 professional surf lessons (including board, instruction, and equipment)

• 1 group surf trip

• 6 days of surf videos and photos

• Waterfall hike

• Beach cleanup

• 1 therapeutic massage

• Access to fitness center and lap pool

• Welcome kit and swag bag

• Ice bath experience

Choose your own adventure and join us by registering at this link.

Back to El Salvador

Another thing that feels far away and inappropriate to talk about now is how we went to El Salvador in the first week of March. I joined Pixie and Surf Sweat Serve for the second year in a row as yoga teacher, Spanish translator, and event coordinator extraordinaire. If there is a better job on this earth, please tell me and I will apply.

We stayed at Puro Surf again since we’ve become so close with the best staff members and the BEST surf coaching team.

Much to my own shock and disbelief, I rode my first unbroken wave this time around.

We hosted a group of twelve women in this incredible country, and I’m so glad Pixie chose the week that she did. It was our last international hurrah before borders started closing and we all got sequestered indoors. I’m thankful for the pictures that are helping me relive it.

This trip was a little bit different from the last one because we got off the hotel property, walked around town and visited nearby bars and restaurants. El Salvador gets a bad rap, mostly because of gang violence among locals, but I’ve never felt safer in a Central or South American country. The locals are very friendly and welcoming to people from the US, and they’re always willing to chat or help you out.

Especially now that I’m tucked away at my dad’s house in Upstate NY, I feel so lucky to have gotten to see so much of the world and to have had these experiences. I’ll be sharing more about our retreat week while I’m here in hibernation. I hope the stories will inspire you to grab life by the horns (once we can go outside and start living it again).

And if you’d already like to start planning for next year’s trip, you can do that here.

Playas and Pupusas

I’m back home in LA and missing our sweet retreat apartment—complete with bunkbed slumber parties and epic patio views— so much! Our last couple days in El Salvador were when we finally had a chance to kick back and relax. We had really front loaded the trip, because some retreaters were only able to stay for three days or five days, so a few people left on Wednesday after ziplining. Our end of the week was spent hanging by the pool, ordering massages, surfing, and doing yoga some more. I was a little tired for the fourth and final surf lesson, because we had just taken one of Pixie’s Buti Yoga classes. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s this new, tribal dance style of yoga that is really popular among women, especially in the middle of the US. I LOVE it! It’s spreading its way out to the coasts, so if you’re looking to try something wild and new, see if there’s a class near you.

On our last night, we went back into the town of El Tunco to dance at the bar and eat pupusas. If you need one reason above all others to visit El Salvador, this would be it! Pupusas are these little corn tortilla pockets filled with whatever you like—beans, meet, veggies, cheese, etc.—and topped with a yummy tomato salsa and spicy cabbage slaw. Think quesadilla, but even better! They’re about 75 cents a piece in the town, so we had no trouble filling our bellies. 11/10 would recommend!

Braving the Sea

I have to admit, of all the activities on the trip, surfing was the one I was looking forward to the least. Growing up, I always wanted to be a surfer chick, back when I was shopping at Pacific Sunwear and wearing puka shell necklaces. Then I got older and actually tried a lesson. Turns out, surfing was way harder than it looked on TV! It wasn’t as easy as snowboarding, which I’d picked up in about a day or two. Surfing hurt. The first lesson I took was on a real fiberglass board, so I ended up with a lot of scratches and bumps from getting tumbled around underwater. Oh well, I’d just have to choose another life path besides surfing.

Another issue: when I was younger, I liked swimming in the ocean. I’d body surf and boogie board without any concerns for safety, but somewhere along the way, I lost that fearlessness and began to prefer staying closer the shore. Sometimes I’ll swim out farther, but I’m usually very cautious to go underneath the waves and, when it’s time to come in, I’ll swim or walk quickly to shore without letting any of them interfere.

I left for El Salvador feeling excited about the yoga and the waterfall jumping but pretty half-hearted about the prospect of catching waves. I thought might be able to stand up once or twice, but I probably wasn’t going to enjoy it. I was teaching on the retreat, though, so of course I would still join in and set a good example.

Two days later, we were lined up on the beach getting our first lesson from Marcelo, the founder of Puro Surf and the head instructor of their Academy Program. He led us in a breathing and stretching warmup that felt a lot like yoga. He broke down each of the steps in a simple way that we could repeat every time.

Something about his instruction must have stuck with us, because we all stood up in the water on the first day, and the next, and the next. The ocean was crazy warm, and the waves were small but powerful—perfectly manageable for beginners, which the majority of us were. By day three, I was really getting the hang of it. I noticed that when I was out in the water, I didn’t think about anything else besides reading the wave, feeling it push me, and following the steps to get up onto the board. My mind felt completely clear for the first time in a while. Surfing was a lot like yoga.

If the weather was sketchy or the waves too big, we would have our instruction in the hotel gym, just to make sure we were prepared for what we would see on the beach. One day, we even learned how to turn by riding skateboards outside the gym. I certainly never expected that at 31 years old I’d be rolling around a skatepark in El Salvador, but I guess there’s a time and a place for everything.

By the end of the trip, I had fallen in love with surfing. I wasn’t getting tumbled as often as the first two days, but I liked Marcelo’s main message. We were all going to get tumbled by the ocean at some point, so we had two choices. Choice number one: freak out! Choice number two: relax, stay calm, enjoy a little massage, and keep surfing. You can guess which option we all chose.