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It was then on to Chicama, the longest wave in the world. It's a point that stretches for kilometres out into the ocean, but unlike most Peruian points, it needs a lot of swell to wrap around. We surfed it at 6ft, and were lucky to get it that good. It's very fickle. It is a kilometre long machine that always breaks exactly the same, from 1ft to 8ft. You surf non stop for hours, probably only getting 10 waves. Each wave takes you such a distance that it's a 20 minute walk back out to the jump off spot, along the point. It was the most crowded place we surfed, with about 10 guys in the water. But you never saw anyone else in the same spot, even your mates. There'd be a few guys spaced on the long walk out, a couple in the lineup, and a few more on different sections of the wave. Steve got the longest waves at Chicama, surfing it to the end, waxheads.com xheads.com A couple of hundred kms up the road is the powerhouse wave Pacasmayo (El Faro - The fire). It picks up all swells, and can get big and heavy. Luckily for us it was a comfortable 6ft, but the occasional 8 footer had the juice to make me nervous. It was also a bit frustrating, only breaking well every 3rd or 4th wave, but we got a good taste of how insane this wave is. It has a huge rep over there. One of our favourite spots on the trip was a semi secret spot called Lobidos. The last El Nino had dumped millions of tons of sand along this kilometre long point. So it was now a sand bottom, sand point, which broke for 300metres. You'd jump into an easy 40metere paddle, and be in the line up. It was a surreal place, with this rugged desert landscape, locals cruising in carts with donkeys, and offshore oil wells. The nearby village was a disused army base that had a really nice left. We had to get army permission to surf it. There was a 14 year old Peruvian boy there, from a village near the base, surfing the icey water in boardies, on an old beat up board. So I gave him my radiator wetty. He was stoked. It was the first wetty he'd ever put on, let alone owned. It turned out his old board was one Luis had made years ago, so Luis sponsored him, and made him a couple of new ones. We've since heard off Luis that he won the North Peru Junior title. It was important to learn a bit of Spanish over there. Steve could say one thing fluently. "Uno grande cerveca portforbot, et pronto." Simply translated means "A large bottle of beer please, asap." Being his favourite Spanish line he used it a lot. Because
of the cold Humbold current, we surfed these tropical latitudes in a
steamer. The water was only16 or 17 degrees, but it was really comfortable. Peru
was an excellent trip. It is expensive to fly to, but as cheap as
Indonesia once you're there. The local surfers are great people,
happy to share their waves with gringos who have the right attitude.
For a bit of local knowledge you can find Luis at Focus surf, on wannasurf.com.
Also check wavehunters.com |
