Surfing in Peru by Noa



Noa catches a wave

Les Longboarding

We went to a surf hotel in San Bartolo, Peru called “Hotel Surf Penescal” (it is about 75km south of  the Lima airport). We landed in the airport late at night, so it was nice when a guy named Archie had a sign saying “The Hopper” waiting for us because we were tired and had no idea where to go. It was quite hot the next morning, so we decided to go surfing.  It had a great beach break right in front of the hotel. When Antonio (the owner of the hotel) was helping get all our surfboards out and wetsuits on, then his son came out to meet us. His name was Sabastian, and he had decided to come surfing with us.  He was about nine years old and going to compete in a surf competition on Sunday. So I said, “I’ll follow you” and we paddled out to his hometown break by the jetty. Brrr…the water was a cold 55 degrees; colder than in San Diego, but not too bad once I got used to it. The waves were about 3 feet, but Sebastian said they are normally 12-15 feet, so it was pretty small. I didn’t catch many waves on my shortboard, so I traded with my mom and tried the 8ft. egg board she was on. It was about 50 years old and weighed 30 pounds, but it caught the little waves better. If I rode the waves all the way to the jetty, it was only two feet deep. So if you fell, your feet would scrape the bottom. So I had to be careful of the rocks and the little spiney purple sea urchins stuck to them. So I tried to fall flat every time. My dad caught a bunch of waves on his super longboard. I rode one wave in and almost crashed into the jetty! The locals knew how to avoid it better than me. But it was totally fun to go surfing, especially surfing in another country!  All that cold water and paddling made me hungry. Antonio’s wife is the cook for us.  Right before dinner, I whispered to my dad, “it would be nice to have mashed potatoes and fried chicken…” and guess what? We had mashed potatoes and baked chicken! Then I whispered again, “it would be great to have chocolate cake for dessert…” and we did! It was like they could read my mind! I like this place in Peru! The end.

Noa & buddy Sebastiaan

ADDENDUM BY DAD- If Quito was a huge town, Lima was elephantine in comparison.   There are 13 Million people in Lima and the town goes on forever and ever.   We landed late at night on our transfer from the Galapagos to Lima and once again we walked out into the multitudes to find a small man holding up a sign “Suzy Hopper.”  Our driver was named “Archie,” spoke no English, and did not utter a word during the whole drive out to the surf hotel-despite our less than admirable efforts at Spanish.  From time to time he did gesticulate wildly if I stuck my arm out the window to take a photo of the mass of humanity.  He grunted something about burglars and mimed someone grabbing the camera out of my hand as well as stripping my watch clean off my arm, apparently all while I sat dumbfounded.    After an hour of turns down one road or another, each overloaded with honking, smoking vehicles and loads of pedestrians despite the hour, we finally turned on a dark street with a vista of the ocean.  Noa and Susie had already fallen asleep, and I breathed a sigh of relief that we had not been taken out into the county side to become victims of a “burglary” or worse.   But wait!   No sooner had I sniffed the salt water then we turned inland away from the lights and water!   No lights, no more traffic= bad news.  For what must have been the tenth time I asked Archie “quantos minutos?”  Each time he replied “Media.”   Hmmmmm, we were always at the half way point.    But after some time we swerved west again and soon passed some signs for a surf contest.  75 KM through Lima takes a long time indeed.    We pulled into a small beach community, passed through an entry gate, and were greeted with a smile by the proprietor, Antonio, who had risen from his sleep to welcome us to our surf adventure.

The next few days were wonderful, and it reminded us of our past travels to baja.  There was a fellow traveler from the US named Whitney (also fluent in Spanish thank God) who was taking lessons for 10 days, and all of the locals were extremely friendly.  Out in the surf break I met a retired man who said he used to work at the San Diego Sherriff’s department.  Not a bad place to retire!