Going left, anyone? Peru’s Chicama has quite the history. Image: Klopf
Peru is one of a handful of nations that consistently competes in the ISA World Surfing Games. Along with Australia, USA, NZ and South Africa, Peru is a surfing nation.
Visiting this country of contrasts as a surfer it doesn’t take long to realize that whatever else it may be, Peru is a country blessed not only with great surf, but also a surf culture that goes way back.
Of course, the essentials are there. Its long coastline receives swell year round from the roaring forties in the winter and the northern Pacific storms in summer. Soft sedimentary rocks line the coast and supply the ubiquitous beaches with sand, so it’s not surprising Peru has some amazing set ups. Long swell lines wrap around points to give waves like Chicama, touted as the world’s longest left, and Lobitos, location of many a surf movie due to the cartoon perfection of the left hand barrels.
But aside from the natural elements, Peru has a surf scene dating back millennia. Cabillitos de tortora are canoes made of grass reeds initially employed by fishermen who harvest the plentiful fish stocks off the coast. Exact dates of these canoes are uncertain, but recent archaeological studies suggest they were used as long ago as 150 BC. Not surfboards as such, the caballitos are something between SUP boards and canoes. The craft were clearly designed to work in and around the surf. After hauling in the day’s catch fishermen would ride their caballito back to shore, their faces deadpan – it was simply a means to get back to shore, not an act of leisure. Whether or not this counts as surfing is open to debate.
These craft were made in just five locations on the Peruvian coast. Nowadays, there is only a single place where the tradition continues. Huanchaco, about 500km north of Lima, has become a backpacker’s haunt, with hostels and souvenir sellers aplenty. Here, like many places on the coast, fishermen go about their business from the crack of dawn until last light. But here they carry out their work in the original caballitos. After use they are lined up along the beach to dry out; one canoe only lasts about six months before becoming waterlogged. The fishermen continue a tradition that has been unchanged for millennia.
Just north of Huanchaco is the famous Chicama. Ask anyone with even the most casual association with surfing, and they’ll tell you about Chicama, the long left point. So arriving along a dusty road in the middle of August, it’s sort of surprising to find only a handful of tourists surfing what is not only a world class left, but also a pretty easy wave to ride. The swells are pretty consistent to boot, but here, there’s no Bali surf culture. No massive surf camps (just one exquisite boutique hotel); a few basic hostels, closed in the off-season, and lodgings put up travelers who are all surfers. Other places in Peru have spawned some pretty hot surfers, so I was curious why Chicama, with a stupidly long left that breaks most days of the year, doesn’t have many locals.
Junior is a boatman at the surf camp in Chicama, ferrying lazy tourists like me back to the take off spot after another uber-long ride. He’s also a Chicama (or Malabrigo to give the village its local name) local.
Here, he tells me, is where surfing originally started. An Inca warrior left on a caballito from Chicama, carried away on the Humboldt current that sweeps up the coast, and into the north Pacific. He landed in what is now Hawaii, left a few Caballitos de tortura with the Polynesians, and returned to Peru, again only using the ocean currents. An epic journey, by any standards. Not only did this single trip arguably plant the seed of surfing in the Polynesian Islands but it also perpetuated a strong surfing custom in the village of Chicama.
Kids in the village are free to surf. Some do, and they get good. But at 13, they must carry out an ancient rite of passage.
“It’s changed a lot,” Junior continues, “but we still hold the custom to this day.” During their 13th year, prospective surfers must paddle out under the watch of the entire plethora of local surfers (that currently numbers about fifteen). On their first wave at the hollowest section of the wave, called El Hombre, they must enter a tube and successfully come out.
If they don’t make it, they can never surf again. Ever. Sure, they can move to another town, and no one would be the wiser. But, as Junior recounts, surfing here is more than a sport. It’s a tradition, and a spiritual one, so the shame of not passing it would make most too ashamed to ever take to the water again.
In days gone by the punishment was even more harsh. Initiates would face drugging and flogging by the village to within an inch of death: Enough to put anyone off.
To a western surfer this sounds over the top. For us, surfing is a sport – a recreational activity to be enjoyed by all. But clearly, in our sport’s history, it was something more than that.
Even us recreational practitioners have our rituals. Surfing pilgrimages are our bread and butter: Hawaii’s North Shore; So Cal; Australia. All are on our have-to-visit list. Peru isn’t always on this list, but it should be. This country is a surfer’s dream and will probably produce some top competitive surfers in the coming years due to the high standard of locals and burgeoning scene. After all, they’ve had about 2000 years of practice.
