Marie and Pacasmayo's Lefts

Hi People,

Back to lower grounds after our trip in the mountains. No monster swell around so we didnt get to surf the mythical waves of chicama...I did have a "ceviche" there which was totally mythical though (peruvian dish made of raw fished with lemon and chili..amazing !!!)

Anyway, we headed further north towards Pacasmayo, more exposed and consistent. The waves there are guess what....long lefthanders! We stayed a few days getting to know the wave and hurting our arms paddling back against the currents (there was also some more ceviches involved but that's another story).
As I was getting close to being surfed out, I took a few pictures of Marie tuning her carving game on the pacasmayo's lefts.Check it out !!

Kuelap, the Chachapoyas Fortress

After checking out all the weird stuff of the shaman's market in Chiclayo we headed out northeast to the small town of Chachapoyas in the northern Andes.

"Chachapoyas" which means People of the Clouds was also the name of an ancient civilization that used to live in the area. They were conquered by the more famous Incas sometime before the Spanish showed up in Perù.

Our mission was to visit their massive fortress that is hidden in the mountains at +3000 m overlooking the Utcubamba Valley. After a dodgy combi ride at dawn at 100 km/h in narrow gravel roads on the edges of the cliffs (I wish I had slept all the way like Marie, I would have been less tense !!) we got to the small pueblo Maria. A couple of hours walk and we got to Kuelap !

The size of the whole structure is impressive and it is hard to imagine the amount of work and time required to get all that up. It was pretty amazing to walk though the ruins on top of the mountains...it seemed to be a pretty well organized community. Plus they have the nicest views of the mountains so that was probably a sweet life up there !

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the next update will be Marie ripping the long walls of Pacasmayo !

Go to the Witches' Market and They 'll fix you!

Los niños de Perù

Peru so far...

Hi people,

After our 8 days in Lobitos, we decided to go a bit further south and catch some waves around Chicama and Pacasmayo (8 hours North of Lima). But, first, we wanted to spend one good night with a hot shower, so we made a stop in Trujillo. I (Marie) was still trying to recover from a food intoxication I had with a fish dish two days ago, so I was really anticipating a bumpy bus ride, but all was fine, although I ended up on a white rice and coca-cola diet for the following 3 days… Anyway, Trujillo is a nice city; we did the basic walking around (Plaza de Armas, Mercado central…). It is the city where the Spanish and Pizzaro first arrived to in Peru, so it has a lot of colonial Spanish style buildings, all with different bright colors. From Trujillo we took another bus to Chicama, where we stayed only one day and one night: the swell was too small for Chicama to be pumping, but we got a taste of what it could be like! Simon ate the best ceviche hehad so far in Peru, while I watched him, furious, with my rice and coca-cola… The next day, we took another bus to Pacasmayo this time, a fishing town a little bit further north than Chicama, it is said to be more consistent. Once there the swell was also very small, we took a keep cool approach to the day, walking around town, lots of internet, and decided it was the best time to go explore the mountains of Peru. We decided that we were not going to go to Cuzco and the Machu-Pichu because it takes a lot of time and money, instead we went to Kuelap, the ancient village of the Chachapoyas people (the people of the clouds), and it was amazing, but more on this in our next update.

We hope you enjoy the blog and our trip so far!

Suerte to all of you as we say in Peru!

Marie

Pizarro Av., Trujillo

Plaza de Armas, Trujillo

Chicama

Chicama

Chicama

Evening Surf @ Lobitos - Peru

© Marie

One Wave @ El Hueco

Untitled from simonweppe on Vimeo.

Lobitos Wave Machine

Good Morning !

Good Night !

Park 'n Go !!

Hi people, some news from Lobitos ! 

The 20 hours+ of bus brought us to the fishing town of Talara. After a 30 minutes ride in a dodgy combi where we almost lost the boards that were on the roof, we arrived in the small pueblo of Lobitos right in the middle of the desert, safe and sound although “sligthtly” exhausted.

This place is close to a natural wonder for surfers. A wide “croissant”-shaped bay bounded by 2 rocky headlands that has a perfect orientation for southerly swells that consistently hit Peru. The place used to be a military base and so not open to public until 2000, then massive rainfalls due to the 2005 El Nino filled the bay with sand.  Add few years of south swell to shape all that sand and you end up with an amazing wave machine !!  

Locals say to make the most of it because that place might not last forever, so this is what we are doing…..testing the limits of how much surfing our bodys can take… and I think we are getting close to the limits now !!

PS: Side notes for our friends kitesurfers and windsurfers, by noon the cross-offshore wind picks up to 15-20 knots  !!!

We are going south on Thursday and the next update will be from Chicama/Pacasmayo !! 

Punta Hermosa - Peru

Hi guys,

So after our stopover in Santiago, we took a flight to Lima and then a taxi to the small town of Punta Hermosa, 45 minutes South of Lima. We spent 4 days there, at Bravo Surfcamp. We surfed Cabarellos, Senoritas and Punta Rocas. These are all point breaks, and Cabarellos and Senoritas are in the same bay, a right at one end and a left at the other = crazy set up! 

We tried our first Peruvian ceviche (raw fish cooked in lime juice): amazing! You can eat for pretty cheap in Peru, the set menu starts at 6 soles ($2) for a three courses meal.

On our last day, we spent the morning at the ruins of Pachacamac, one of the most ancient religious site of the South, where the Ychmu, Lima and Inca people lived. The tour of the ruins finishes with a panoramic view over the ocean and the Lurin valley, the contrast here, with the desert scenery of the Andes, the deep blue of the ocean and the bright green of the valley is simply breath-taking…

It is from Punta Hermosa that we prepared our departure to the North of Peru, but first we spent two days in Lima, the capital of Peru. 

Next update with photos from Lima and where we are currently getting awesome waves; Lobitos!!

Cheers,

Marie