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Published: December 1st 2011
From Lima, we are heading up the coast north towards Ecuador and our first stop was Huanchaco, a small fishing village turned surfer paradise. We boarded a "semi cama" nightbus in Lima to go to Trujillo and arrived in the early morning and caught a bus to Huancaco which is 12km away. The word "bus" is maybe a bit of an overstatement, the vehicle looked a little welted together, was shaking and ratteling during the ride and hardly stopped on the way, the passengers mostly got on and off at half-speed.
Huanchaco is quite small and life definately takes place at the promenade along the beach. Fishermen paddle out with funky looking reed boats and fish for crabs, locals sell touristy souvenirs, ice cream and snacks, everyone watches the surfers and couples take a stroll on the pier to take a sunset picture.
We were super lucky with our hostel Naylamp, a very cute place right at the beach with bananatrees, hammocks on the patio and two turtles as pets. At breakfast, we were overlooking the ocean. It was pretty cool.
On our first day in town, we went to one of the many surf shops and booked
a lesson, our very first time on the board. After a quick theoretical run-through, our teacher Luis put us in wetsuits, gave us boards and leashes and off we went. As we were told, surfing consists of two steps: 1. lay on the board, hands resting next to the ribs, one leg stretched out, the other bent sideways, 2. when the wave comes, you pull yourself up, the strechted out leg moves to the middle of the board, you bend the knees and ride the wave.
Worked well in theory at the surfschool, work not that well in the water, at least for me. I fell every time I tried to jump up. Grim on the other hand was a natural talent and stood at the first try, riding the wave all the way to the beach. The hardest part was the paddling though, we always had to paddle back to where Luis was waiting for us in the water and it happened that we got stuck behind a couple of waves, swallowing salt water, being flipped off the board, it was hard and it resulted in us having sore muscles for the next days, i could hardly lift
my arms. It was still fun though.
The rest of our time in Huanchaco, we spent hanging out at the beach and in the hammocks at the hostel. We took a trip back to Trujillo to check out the town but it was rather boring, so we slacked with a good conscience for a couple days.
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Markito, aka your mom
non-member comment
Grim, you go girl!
Dear kids, You could not get me to go on that changachoochoo cama bus or whatever the heck it's called! I get motion sickness on moving vehicles (cars, buses, wheelchairs, etc.) and if I didn't have a Sprite soda-pop beforehand, I would have said "OH HELL NO!" like the strong black woman that I am. Surfing sounds easy! But it's so hard! Sophie-nice try with the surfing. Grim- you're a natural! You go girl! Salt water in the mouth sucks. You're so lucky with the warm weather! Here it is 0ยบ and I'm wearing my thermal underpants and freezing my face off! I'm going to the Mediterranean next week where I can shed these winter clothes and run around in my sexy swimsuit! Yeah son! Have fun out there but stay aware from those ghetto school buses! Toot toot! Hey! Beep beep!