Surf Trip to Chicama, Peru
After our visit to São Paulo, Brazil, we headed to Peru to surf in Chicama. First, we spent a few days in Lima (which I wrote about in my last post: The Time We Got Stuck in Peru). Then we took a short ~1 hour flight to the tiny airport of Trujilo, followed by a ~30 minute taxi ride to Huanchaco.
We had a night to explore the little beach town and ended up eating yummy Thai food on a secluded rooftop.
In the morning, it was too foggy to surf (at least for us in a brand new place), so I went for a run and saw more of the village. Huanchaco is right on the beach. There was an outdoor gym:
And I saw many of these traditional reed boats that the fishermen still use today. Apparently these might have been some of the first vessels ever used for riding waves:
Later that morning, it was time for our ~40 minute taxi to Chicama. We stayed at the Chicama Boutique Hotel. I don’t think I’m revealing any surf spot secrets—Chicama is very well-known and the closest spots to surf were pretty crowded!
There are definitely cheaper options for places to stay, but the boutique hotel is right on the break and helps with arranging board rentals and boat trips. Plus, this was my first multi-day vacation of the year, and I was ready to relax in luxury!
The hotel was worth the splurge:
And the waves were 1,000% worth the expense for the boards and boat trips. Chicama’s wave is one of the longest in the world, so most people hire zodiac boats to pick them up and bring them out to the break. They picked us up and dropped us off so quickly that there was hardly any time to catch my breath and rest after each wave. Onto the next one!
I had a couple full 60-second rides—the longest of my life! It was a majorly welcome change from winter surfing in New Jersey.
It was like surfing on another planet. Take a look at this beauty:
We usually ate dinner at the hotel, because the drone photographers would show the video footage from earlier in the day. But we were happily surprised to find some other great food in the small town (like Burgers & Brownies, which is pretty self explanatory as to why we liked it!)
Unfortunately, we might have been too adventurous with eating out, because we ended up getting sick after a couple of days. I think the culprit was a ceviche lunch with some passionfruit juice that might have been made with water. We ended up with whatever the Peruvian version of Montezuma’s Revenge is.
My decadent breakfast turned into this:
Luckily, the worst part of the sickness only lasted for about 24 hours. And I had some extra time to explore the colorful town of Puerto Malabrigo while walking to the pharmacy.
Overall, the trip was completely worth it for the quality of waves in a beautiful setting. Some people dream for all of their lives of going to a place like Chicama. Even though I am still pretty new to surfing, I feel extremely grateful for the experience!
**It’s a privilege getting to surf in other countries. I make sure I’m covered with affordable and reliable travel medical insurance in case anything goes wrong. I choose SafetyWing because their Nomad Insurance policy covers activities, including surfing, in 185+ countries. To sign up, visit this link.