One of the things that I have come to realize about many of the cities in South America is that their reputation precedes them. Wherever you source your articles (lonely planet, Internet forums, onboard flight magazines) it is almost impossible to avoid stories of pickpocketing, snatching, thieving or worse - armed hold ups. As such we arrive in these new places with fiercely suspicious attitudes avoiding any possible contact with locals until our belongings are safely locked up somewhere safe at our new found accommodation. It's probably a good thing I suppose but it really distorts the experience. Most often, if you stick around in one of these places long enough to let your guard down, it becomes an enjoyable relaxed experience which makes holding out worthwhile.
Lima was one of these places and had one of the worst reputations of all the cities we had been so far. Yet we still pushed on towards the cheaper buses outside the airport rather than take the easily available safe taxis lined up at the terminal. This is a trait that has become a little too common on our venture and I must say that for the sake of saving of a couple dollars, I'm not always sure it's worth the hassle. In any case, we did it and soon found ourselves crammed into a mini bus with the locals swerving through the Lima traffic. We headed out to Miraflores which is one of the nicer beach suburbs of Lima. We didn't have much of a game plan other than to organize bus tickets up to a small town called Pacasmayo approximately 10 hours north an then kill time for the rest of the day until departure later that evening. Miraflores was pretty funky and colourful and once organized, the hours quickly slipped away as we enjoyed a couple beers in the sun with some local fish ceviche. Later that night we taxied out to the bus terminal and after the usual kerfufle we eventually boarded the bus and left a little later than planned.
When we woke up in our reclined leather seats the next morning and peering out of the safety of our comfortable bus the landscape was truly something to behold. I had taken us to Mars! Or at least to the end of the world it would seem... Towering rocky mountains sprouted out of their flat sandy surrounding as we ventured further on across the deserted landscape. Every now and then a small township would pop up revealing a small conglomeration of unusually high mud brick walls, colourful billboards, a tangle of tv antennas and handfull of dusty locals before we were once more out in the open. Later that morning, we would pull up in a similar township which we were told was our destination.
Our hostel was better than the image I had portrayed in my imagination... but I had in all honesty kept my expectations pretty low in anticipation.
An iron gate along a sandy street lined with the now familiar high walls capped with barb wire surrounded a small overgrown garden and a run of basic rooms.
The waves were just out of town at the point known as "El Faro". I would every morning jump in a local mototaxi, a converted trike, that would jump and bump its way out over the gravel roads out to the point. The waves were overhead all but the last day at Pacasmayo, when I took the moto a little further to a neighbouring town of Puemape. I can honestly say that over the four days we spent in the desert I surfed the longest waves of my life. We hadn't headed to Chicama, 50kms further south, known as "the" longest wave in the world as the swell hadn't been big enough, but Pacasmayo which is a steeper wave provided plenty of leg aching rides and unfortunately the flipside - painfully long paddles back up the point! Still I would never complain of such a thing, it just meant that a surf would comprise of no more than a handful of lengthy rides beforehand my shoulders turned to jelly.
By the time it came to leave we had familiarised ourselves sufficiently with the small shanty town that it had become somewhat endearing. Still we were now ready to get out and make our way back south to Lima and on to our next destination. The bus ride south was once more a confusion. Our ucomfy seats had been taken by locals and no one was particularly willing to help. We crammed into the uncomfy seats we were given and tried to get some sleep before the madness of Lima in the morning and our transfer to Mexico!
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