After walking nearly a
mile barefoot over a baking, rocky desert, the sensory release — and
relief — coming from my suffering soles is extreme.
Surfers are a hardy bunch and will put up with all kinds of suffering to catch a wave or two. But it's not usually like this.
For most, wipeouts,
sunburn, sharp coral, and even the risk of a hungry shark mistaking them
for a juicy seal, are all taken as given.
Then there's the
paddling. That's how surfers reach the break, lying face down on their
boards, moving through the water front-crawl style.
It's exhausting, slow work. Along
with leaden arms, an aching back and a crick in your neck, you also have
to avoid having your board slammed into your face by walls of seawater
that pack more horsepower than an NFL lineman.
And all that for what
amounts to a few fleeting seconds of the undeniably thrilling sensation
of harnessing the ocean's power and riding a wave. Even at some of the
world's best-known breaks, a ride can last under 10 seconds.
But not at Chicama. This
remote, windswept break off Peru's arid northern shore is thought to be
the world's longest wave. No one's really sure, but the consensus among
surfers is that its mile-long left is the record-holder. Check out what
surfline.com has to say. Or surfertoday.com's take.
That makes Chicama yet
another surfing highlight along Peru's 1,500-mile coast. Here you'll
find breaks for all levels: from newbies just looking to learn to stand
up to elite big wave riders risking life and limb on stories-high waves.
When Chicama's four
distinct sections connect, which requires a 6-foot-high swell, skillful
surfers who have taken the days needed to study it can catch a ride for
three to five minutes — an eternity in surfing.
That takes them from the
point, an isolated rocky outcrop where the wave starts to peel, to a
long industrial pier, jutting from the tiny fishing town of Chicama, on
the barren coast.
Of course, they still
have that 20-minute walk back to the point, and then the quick 60-second
dash of paddling, to catch their next ride. But, given Chicama's
topography, the paddling-to-surfing time ratio here could not be tinier.
Even when the entire wave isn't breaking, they're still longer than most surfers' fantasies.
"Chicama's waves aren't
just long. They are perfectly shaped. They couldn't break for as long as
they do if they weren't," says Gino "Chato" Guillen, my surf-crazed
neighbor in Lima who has agreed to show me around Chicama.
"You don't need to surf
the whole break to appreciate what's special about this place," adds
Guillen, who is a surf instructor, judge on Latin America's pro circuit
and a tourist guide.
Chicama's waves are also
extremely reliable. While many other famous breaks around the world
vary with the seasons, Chicama can be depended on year round to pump out
beautifully formed breaks, like nature's assembly line.
