Chicama Fever

Although there was not much surf in Huanchaco, we were a little sad to leave. It was a great little Perivian town, where everything was cheap and still kind of old fashion.
Everyday, the local men would paddle out in their boat made of bamboo vines, using half a stick of bamboo for an oar, and pull in netload after netload of little purple crabs. They would pull in about 50kgs at a time and thier families would meet them on the beach to help sort out which ones to keep and sell.



The boats would only last 3-4 months before they were water logged but they still used them to keep the Perivian tradition alive. Huanchaco is the only town in Peru where these boats are stil used and you can see why.. It's a lot of work to paddle those things out to sea and back with a load of crabs! We had the crabs in a dish for dinner one night at a restaraunt. It was call Cebiche, which is seafood cooked in lime juice and is a very traditional dish in Peru. There is no actual cooking involved which is a little scary, but the seafood is actually cooked by the acid in the lime juice. Sounds like a recipe for food poisoning to me but was actually pretty nice.
The next chapter of our trip was Puerto Chicama which boasts the longest left-hand wave in the world. We left Huanchaco with a new addition to the team, Chris - a surfer from Sydney, and headed North for 2 hours on a local bus. When we arrived in town, it was nothing like i expected. It was another tiny, run down Perivian town with tiny roads and not much else. Most of the buildings were falling down and there were stray dogs everywhere.


















We loaded up a couple of tuc-tucs with 4 backpacks and 4 surfboards and headed to the long wave hostel. The strap of Dazzmans backpack got caught in the wheel of the tuc-tuc on the way
and almost flipped it! So we arrived at the hostel with a broken bag and an angry Dazzman and settled into our rooms. The hostel was pretty nice as it was right on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the break. The staff were really friendly and showed us some surf videos of massive days at Chicama which got us pumped!!. Although the surf was small that arvo, we headed to bed, hoping for some huge surf in the morning..
Well morning came and the surf didn't.. A little disappointing but we were still hopeful for some swell the next day, as the report said it was going to build as the week went on. The beds were like concrete and we all woke up stiff so we spent the
day checking out some other hostels nearby. The one next door was heaps cheaper and had good meals, etc so, much to the dismay of the owners at long wave, we moved hostels.
Our new hostel was run by on elderly lady called Dorris, who was a pro in the kitchen. We didn't know her name at the start as she didn't speak much english and as she looked after us so well, she became known to us as mamma.















Happy with our new hostel and mamma, we turned our attention back to the surf, to find it had picked up a bit. The main bay of Chicama was huge and the way the swell comes in from the ocean and the swallowness of the bay, causes a super long wave that breaks perfectly for about 2kms on a good day. As the swell wasn't big enough for that, we paddled out at the bay next to Chicama as it was closer to the ocean and worked on a smaller swell. Even though it wasn't that big, it still broke perfectly the whole way through the bay..

















The first wave I got out here was only about 4 foot, but went for about 150m! I was amped and as the day went on, the rides got longer and longer. It was a left hand break which was my back hand, but we were in Peru afterall and everything is left over here! The waves were so long that after it finished, it was way too far to paddle back to the takeoff point, so you would get out and walk back along the shore to the get the next one.




Nicko was tearing it up too and Dazza was getting some great vids of us from the shore. The water was a little cold and the only place that hired wetsuits was the hostel that we stayed at the first night and shafted by moving to a new hostel the next morning!! That meant that wetsuits were out of the question but we still braved the cold in just boardies..
Although we were getting great waves, we were still hanging for the swell to pick up so we could get that illusive 2km ride in the main bay of Chicama. A wave so long, your legs get sore before the wave dies.. I had to feel it for myself.. So we waited, and waited, and waited... Then finally... we waited some more!! grr, after 6 days at Chicama, the big swell still hadn't come through.. A little disappointing as it would have been good to see it but it wasn't meant to be. We still surfed 2-3 times everyday and got some of the longest waves of our lives.
All up, Chicama was a great place to surf and we wer glad we came. Will def have to get back there again some time, but earlier in the year when the wave is really working..

As the sun set over chicama one last time, we headed into town to get a bus back to Trujillo, and then on to Lima.
It was time to fly to the warmer waters of Costa Rica!!!