Randell Lee appreciated and understood the true value of 'wasting time' and doing absolutely 'Nothing!' in the beach town of Huanchaco.
Statue of a fisherman riding the waves on a reed-boat. It’s near the water and welcomes visitors to Huanchaco.
Get away from it all, forget your problems, release all your tensions, sit back and relax and reflect on life in Huanchaco. Where peace and quiet and surf awaits you, just fifteen minutes north of Trujillo, right near the ancient ruins of Chan-Chan.
Visited by tourists, backpackers, surfers searching for the perfect wave, free-loaders, and ‘burnt-out’ business people, Huanchaco’s townspeople are easy-going and down-to-earth and want you to feel at ease. The town is hardly over-commercialized and still retains much of it’s natural, back-water flavor as an old fishing village with an ancient past. Time is plentiful in Huanchaco. This is a laid-back place. Here, there seems no rush to do anything. If you can’t finish it today, there’s plenty of time tomorrow.
Places to stay start at your typical side-street hostel for budget minded backpackers and down-on-their-luck entrepreneurs at five soles ($1.75) a day, to very comfortable and clean hotels on the beach for around fifty soles. Are you an incurable insomniac? Well then, a room on the beach is just the remedy to let the sound of the rhythm of the gently falling waves massage and melt all your tensions away and put you soundly to sleep.
Even in the summer months, the heat never overwhelms you and the fresh, invigorating salt air is only equaled by the smell of hot cancha (fried corn) drifting from one of the many places to eat. And don’t worry if you had too much to drink the night before…good cebiche (raw fish marinated in seasoned lemon juice) is plentiful here, very modestly priced, and is the perfect antidote to snap you out of your hangover quickly. Fresh seafood, caught locally by the reed boat fishermen is, of course, the specialty here. Even the tasty seaweed used in their seafood cuisine is harvested right from the rocks that lie off the beaches of Huanchaco.
Take a long walk on the fishing pier jutting out into the Pacific Ocean waves. Explore the narrow, cobble-stoned streets that seem to have a hole-in-the-wall snack bar or store on every corner. Visit the open-air flea market on the beach that offers plenty of locally made handicrafts. But do it nice and easy. You see, in Huanchaco you don’t waste time, you savor it, for here time is to be released slowly and enjoyed.
A row of reed-boats on the beach. They are always stored in this position when not in use. It helps them to dry out.
Huanchaco’s one-man seahorse reed boats (Caballito de Totora) have a long three thousand year old tradition and can be seen only in a few places on the north Pacific ocean, Huanchaco being one of them. The little seahorse boats are made of long, flexible reeds that grow in marshy areas around lakes and canals. The reeds are cut and tied with cords by an experienced ‘weaver’. They say it takes about a day to make a good one and, when finished, weighs about 100 kilos.
It takes some experience to ride the rolling waves in one, as witnessed by the European tourist who attempted his skills at maneuvering in one…only to end up on the beach far down from where he started, exhausted, his pride tarnished, but at least still in one piece. But don’t fret. If you yourself want to experience the thrill of galloping like a horse on the waves, a skilled “horseman” will be happy to oblige you for a few soles.
If you’re looking for “historic sights” to see or “lost treasures” to be found, Huanchaco has them all. Meditation, escaping the rat race, reflecting on life, re-thinking your prerogatives, re-charging your “batteries”…these are Huanchaco’s treasures.
When I got back to Lima, a friend of mine asked me, “What did you do in Huanchaco?” And, I said, “Nothing!”
He replied, with a look of puzzlement, “Nothing?” And I said once again, with a slight pleasurable grin, “Absolutely Nothing.”
For I was content in the knowledge that only a Buddhist monk or someone who’s been to Huanchaco can appreciate and understand the true value of “wasting time” and doing absolutely “Nothing!”