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<\/a>\u2018Here\u2019s the thing,\u2019\u00a0 the surfer told me.\u00a0 He was changing out of his wetsuit as we looked offshore at the monstrous wave of Pico Alto<\/strong>, as it came towards us.\u00a0 \u2018That wave gets to 12 metres high [40 feet]. But it\u2019s not just the height. It\u2019s the depth of water behind it.\u00a0 It\u2019s triangular<\/em>.\u00a0 So if that thing comes down on you, you feel like a brick house is coming down. And you\u2019re underneath it.\u2019<\/p>\nWe are just 40 kms south of Lima in the resort town of Punta Hermosa<\/strong>, where the new mania for surfing in Peru has precipitated a building boom.\u00a0 Rows of brand-new white apartment blocks gleam in the sun on the cliffs above a whole series of fabulous waves:\u00a0 Caballeros, \u2018for Gentlemen\u2019, a right hander, is matched chivalrously by Senoritas, \u2018for Ladies\u2019, a left hander that is equally impressive;\u00a0 and further out is that daunting sight of Pico Alto, which means \u2018High Summit\u2019 and is such a towering monster that it is on the world big wave circuit along with its cousins in Hawaii and\u00a0 Indonesia .<\/p>\n \u2018If you don\u2019t surf here, there\u2019s nothing else to do,\u2019 Erika Hamann<\/strong> told me. Erika, like many of Peru\u2019s most talented young surfers, was brought up on a board from an early age.\u00a0 \u2018I learned when I was eight.\u00a0 My father surfed.\u00a0 My grandmother was famous for surfing tandem with Carlos Dogny, who brought surfing to Peru in 1938.\u00a0 So I was always comfortable in the water.\u2019<\/p>\n She lives about as close as possible to the ocean as you can without getting your carpet wet.\u00a0 Together with her surfer boyfriend, Carlos Presa<\/strong>, they have enough boards to fill a small garage.\u00a0 \u2018But I want another one, dude,\u2019 Carlos told me.\u00a0 (Spanish surfers use \u2018dude\u2019 almost as much as American ones).\u00a0 \u2018For when Pico Alto gets big. A board that has got my name on.\u00a0 And is strong enough not to crack if I get barrelled.\u2019<\/p>\n Erika was picked to train for the Peruvian selection team, mentored by one of the most charismatic figures in Peruvian surfing \u2013 Sof\u00eda Mul\u00e1novich<\/strong>, who won the\u00a0 world title in 2004.\u00a0 Sofia grew up just down the road from Erika in Punta Hermosa and encouraged Erika and other young women to compete themselves.\u00a0 When Surfer<\/em> magazine ran a piece a few years ago on the most influential figures in world surfing, Sof\u00eda Mul\u00e1novich was the only woman who made the cover. \u00a0Now Sofia tours the world to places like Australia and Indonesia, flying the flag for Peruvian surfing .<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019re still kind of a secret in world surfing \u2013 even though the 1963 World Championships were held here,\u2019 Erika said.\u00a0 \u2018The Brazilians know about us, and come over a lot – but when the rest of the world thinks of Peru as a tourist destination, they think of Machu Picchu and the mountains, not the beaches.\u00a0 Although that is beginning to change.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018And one thing we have got in Peru is more than enough waves to go round.\u00a0 In some parts of the world, locals get angry if visitors come and drop in on their precious waves.\u00a0 But we\u2019re more chilled.\u2019<\/p>\n The rest of Peru lives in dread of the coming of an el Ni\u00ad\u00f1o, with the floods and climate disruption that inevitably come in its wake.\u00a0 Not the surfers.\u00a0 \u2018It always brings good waves,\u2019 says Carlos callously.\u00a0 \u2018It\u2019s when I\u2019ve seen Pico Alto reach twelve metres. Pumping.\u2019<\/p>\n Punta Hermosa<\/strong> has become so much Peru\u2019s Surf Central that even the park benches around town are shaped like surf-boards.\u00a0 At a big competition hosted by an American surf company, I saw some of the local talent show off their moves.<\/p>\n A big guy in a surfing T-shirt saw me taking photos.\u00a0 \u2018The Hawaiians say they invented surfing.\u00a0 And certainly, Duke Kahanamoku helped bring it to Peru.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve always lived a lot in the ocean.\u00a0 For thousands of years our fishermen have shaped their straw \u2018caballitos de toro<\/em>\u2019 so they can ride the waves.\u2019<\/p>\n Local surfer girl and Panamerican champion Anal\u00ed \u2018La Negra\u2019 G\u00f3mez<\/strong> certainly proves the fishing connection.\u00a0 Her father was a fisherman who used to throw his eleven kids into the ocean to\u00a0 teach them to swim.\u00a0 Anal\u00ed, the youngest, grew up messing around on cheap bodyboards and once, when she started to surf, got caught in a fishing net and almost drowned.\u00a0 Now 29 and a powerful, aggressive presence in surfing competitions, Anali exemplifies the way that surfing, once a rich playboy\u2019s sport in Peru, has reached out to the whole population.<\/p>\n Back in the 1950s, the all-male Waikiki club in Lima ruled the roost, made up of a stylish if privileged group of Lima families presided over by the glamorous playboy Carlos Dogny<\/strong>, always photographed with an enormous surfboard and petite blonde.\u00a0 The surfboards were so long you could have held a dinner party on them \u2013 which, being the Waikiki club, would probably have been a black-tie affair.<\/p>\n As elsewhere in the world, that all changed with the arrival of short, cheaper boards, easily transportable by car, and Lycra wetsuits.\u00a0 And because the beaches are so accessible to Lima\u2019s population of\u00a0 10 million, it took off faster than a surfer dropping down onto that 40 foot Pico Alto wave.<\/p>\n There are surf spots right up Peru\u2019s long Pacific coastline as far as the resort town of Mancora, almost on the Ecuadorian border \u2013 the place to go if you want some clubbing with your surfing.\u00a0 But for hard-core enthusiasts, one name has become legendary:\u00a0 Chicama<\/strong>, which, as the town proudly proclaims on a sign as you enter, has \u2018the longest and most perfect left-handed wave in the world\u2019.<\/p>\n The cliffs above are full of onlookers checking out whether it\u2019s a quiet day on the world\u2019s longest left-handed wave or, as one Californian surfer put to me, \u2018so crowded it\u2019s like being in a zoo, dude.\u2019<\/p>\n Young Peruvian surfer Crist\u00f3bal de Col<\/strong> once managed famously to do no less than 34 \u2018manoeuvres\u2019 , i.e. twists and turns, on the same Chicama wave – a feat immortalised on YouTube.\u00a0 But then he was Junior World Champion a few years ago.<\/p>\n I managed to track Crist\u00f3bal down at his home where he must have something like fifty different surfboards for every occasion.\u00a0 Curly-haired and just 22 years old, he has the attractive, wide-eyed gaze of someone who spends a lot of time on the ocean.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/IMG_0947-new-generation-Peruvian-surfers-Carlos-Presa-and-Erika-Hamann-in-Punta-Hermosa-by-Hugh-Thomson-300x200.jpg\")
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\nThe Chicama wave<\/strong> is so long that if you surf its entire length, you need a shore-taxi or water-boat to ferry back you back to the beginning. Moreover, as one local told me as I stood in awe watching it, \u2018it\u2019s like a Disneyland wave – it just rolls out from the end of the point again and again and again.\u00a0 It\u2019s so reliable.\u2019<\/p>\n
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