Newsletter May 2008

This month the New York Times featured Peru as “the new ‘it’ spot on the international surfing circuit”. The article unearths the many beaches and surfer towns along the 1,500 mile coastline as well as the turbulent history surrounding the trendy sport.

Peruvian surfing towns range from the small northern town of Chicama, which is famous for its super-long waves, to the bustling center of Lima, where the sometimes polluted waters are filled with surfers from morning until night. However, the main surf scene is located about 30 miles south of Lima, in Punta Hermosa, a summer beach community where surfing has virtually become a religion.

The best thing about many of Peru’s top surfing spots is that they are rarely crowded. The beaches are diverse and in some places waves are said to be over a mile long. “Peru is the best preParatyon for a pro surfer because there are so many different varieties of breaks and conditions…it’s much less crowded than in Hawaii and California, and even on the smallest day of the year it’s never flat” says local surfing champion Sofía Mulanovich.

The 1940’s initiated the Peruvian surfing craze when Hawaiian surfing legend, Duke Kahanamoku, presented Peruvian playboy and socialite, Carlos Dogny, with a brand new wooden board on one of his many surfing trips to Hawaii. Dogny brought the board and the sport back to Peru when he and eight others founded the elite Waikiki Surf Club in Miraflores. The club has received international recognition within the surfing community and has even hosted the World Surfing Championships won by Felipe Pomar of Peru in the 1960’s.

Peruvian surfing hit a lull in the 1970’s when the sport became synonymous with dropouts and druggies. Economic and political turmoil was another factor for the dwindling interest in surfing as the country became terrorized by the Shining Path, a Maoist rebel group that caused havoc and complete devastation in the country in the 80’s and early 90’s. However, Peru has dramatically improved in recent years. The country has politically stabilized and the economy continues to grow steadily, providing surfers a boost in morale and a reason to get back into the water. The current surfing enthusiasm is also partly due to 24-year-old Sofía Mulanovich, the new Peruvian surfing legend, who won the World Surfing Championship title in Hawaii in 2004 and once again put Peru on the map.

Signs of the current surfing craze are ever present throughout the country as billboards are adorned with Peruvian surfers endorsing things from cell phones to beer and soft drinks and surfing contests are an everyday occurrence. According to the New York Times, in Peru “surfing has muscled in on soccer and the culinary arts to become an unlikely symbol of national hope”.

Source: NY Times

PAST NEWSLETTERS:

• Newsletter April 2008
• Newsletter February 2008
• Newsletter January 2008