Testing the Waters in Huanchaco – Peru, South America

I was thirty yards past the end of the Huanchaco Pier, sitting alone on a surfboard in the cold green water. The fog was fairly heavy along the coast, so that the sky and ocean looked like the hazy canvas of an old Dutch landscape painting. The only items that stood out in stark relief were algae covered two-liter plastic bottles bobbing nearby at the end of slimy ropes – floats used by the local fisherman to mark their traps.

Then a line of dark shadows grew on the horizon. From the looks of things, this was going to be a fairly sizeable set. I let the first two waves go by and then paddled hard for the takeoff spot on the third. I gulped when I saw the drop, but was able to hop into position and make a shaky turn at the bottom, standing up to face a wave that was a good two feet above my head.

I turned to pick up some speed, but the section in front of me began to close out. So I turned back up into the wave, barely making it up and over the crashing lip. As I fell back into the water, the wave grabbed my board and I was violently yanked sideways underwater by the leash attached to my ankle. Then, suddenly, I was set free.

On the first wave of the day, my leash had snapped. Now all I could do was watch my board bounce and flip all the way into shore, 150 yards away. Time to swim.

Huanchaco is a weathered seaside village about 25 minutes outside of Trujillo, straddling a wide curve in the desert plain that lines the north coast of Peru. The town is best known for two things. One is the ancient tortora reed caballito boats used by the local fisherman. The other is the surfing. According to our guidebook, Huanchaco has one of the most consistent left breaks in all of South America. I haven't surfed much in the past few years, but it didn't matter. I HAD to go.

My girlfriend and I had arrived by taxi the previous afternoon. After dropping our bags, we headed over to the pier to take in the scene. Two dozen or so of the famed reed boats were lined up against the seawall to dry, and a group of surfers were working the small beach break off the pier. Along with the families who'd come down to watch the sunset, the scene was so charming that I decided right then I wanted to be in the water. So I walked across the street to a totally friendly surf shop where I rented a fine longboard and a wetsuit that fit me nearly perfectly. I walked out on the pebbly beach and jumped in.

I didn't get out until the sun was down.

For a seaside resort, Huanchaco is rather quiet and worn in the heels. Most people make their living from fishing and tourism, but the town is still poor enough that all the street signs are sponsored by Trujillo beer. It's not dirty by any means, but walking around you see a lot of cracked walls, peeling paint, rusty iron and weathered boards. Longhaired gringos walk barefoot to the beach with surfboards under their arm, while locals cruise the sidewalks on old bicycles. Some of the neighborhoods reminded me of nothing so much as the surfer compounds I used to see on the U.S. east coast back in the day when groups of surfers would live semi-communally in crumbling seaside hotels.

Our hostel fit right in. The old lady who ran the place was plenty kind, but there were hairs in the bed, and when you ran the sink most of water came right out of the pipe and onto the floor. When I told her about the problem, she simply cut off all the running water. After a rough night, we switched to a beachfront hotel up the street where we got a huge oceanfront room for just under $20.00. These are the kind of splurges I like.

That morning I surfed from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m., and then again from 5:00 p.m. until sunset, interrupted only by a pleasant meal out on the balcony at Don Pepe's, a seaside restaurant overlooking the spot on the beach where the fisherman take out their boats. The caballitos, little horses, are a type of canoe constructed from long bundles of reeds that are tied together in successive bands, making a coiled torpedo that the fisherman straddle like a pony.

I'd been watching the pescadores, fisherman, as I surfed, and was quite impressed with how quickly they were able to move around in the boat using nothing but a split bamboo cane for a paddle. In fact, besides the surfing, that was my favorite part of the day – watching the boats come and go as I bobbed in the water between sets. At one point, a whole group of fishermen came in about 100 feet off to my right, and I watched them in profile as they lined up for position to ride a wave into shore. This isn't something they do for tourists. It's a way of life a thousand years old.

That night we headed out for a late dinner of crab and corvina, and didn't leave the table until nearly 11:00 p.m. As we headed back up Avenida Larco to our hotel, teenagers were playing soccer in a basketball court next to the beach, their bare feet crunching and sliding on sandy grit. When we finally returned to our room, a brass and string band began practicing at a gazebo next to the beach. They kept it up until after midnight, the sound of trumpets and singing drifting in our window along with the sound of the surf.

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