Thats Jer on the left, me in the middle, and Mike on the right - in Peru, on our way to Pico Alto.

My friends Jeremy and Mike and I decided to go on a surf trip this year. We first considered Costa Rica or Ecuador. In the end we settled on Peru as it was out of the way and CHEAP. Our trip was from April 20th to the 28th.

We booked our trip through Wave Hunters who were really helpful and friendly. All told, the trip by itself cost just under $1000, which isn't bad considering we got our own room (two bunkbeds), our bathroom and shower and three excellent meals a day. I brought $300 in cash with me, which was plenty for incedentals.

When we arrived at the airport, there was the typical fee for bringing the oversized board bags on the airplane. We flew LanChile and their board charge is $55 per person (or so we thought - more on this later).

If you are flying to Peru or Chile, I really reccomend LanChile. On the way down the food and service was excellent. The plane we were on must have been practically brand new. It had video displays in each seat, there was no cost for headsets to listen to the movies/music, and there were complimentary ADULT beverages :)

When we got to Lima we were a little confused where we were meeting our driver. He was good enough to be ontime and waiting for three white boys with big board bags :)

On to the surf camp. Pico Alto Surf camp is located in Punta Hermosa which is a seaside resort town (for the Peruvians) and about and hour and a half south of Lima. Don't expect too much activity in Punta Hermosa if you go when we did. Its pretty quiet - except for the locals. They can make a lot of noise.
The surf camp itself is great. Pico Alto is owned by Oscar Morante, something of a local legend in the Peruvian surf community. He's even got a break name after him (Oscar's Point). The rest of the staff consist of Pulpo, whose real name is Marco Antonio. He's a crazy guy who's a lot of fun and loves to party (actually they all love to party). Next is

The house staff consist of Vilma, Jennifer and ... All of whom are great in the kitchen and fun to talk to.

Our room was of ample size and clean. There is a good sized room on the first floor with plenty of room for all the guests surfboards

So... About the surf conditions. It truly never went off while we were there. It was consistantly head high and clean though. If you check the pictures page, you can see from the pictures Oscar sent me that it does get really large in Punta Hermosa.

The local breaks of note:

San Bartolo: We didn't surf here, but it looked like it could be fun on a good day. It's a left and a right break from a jutty.

Punta Rocas: The best of the local breaks while we were there. Typically kind of crowded, even early. We found that around lunch was a good time to go. Mostly a right break, with occasion lefts. A really nice wave. There are worldwide surf contests held here every couple years.

Kon Tiki: One of the two big waves breaks. It doesn't go off unless the swell is at least 15 feet high. There really wasn't enough swell for it to go off while we were there. I did see some freak sets come in and break over it though. BIG.

La Isla: Another local favorite. This break is mostly a left. You can get a right, but have to watch out as the waves starts its break near the ilsand its named for.

Pico Alto: The other big wave break and the namesake of the surf camp. Again it doesn't go off unless its a big swell.

Oscar Point: A fun right wave. Not many people surf here, so it can be a nice break from the crowds. Oscar (who is in his 60's btw) surfs here regularly, hence the name.

Senoritas: Another local favorite, Senoritas is a nice rock shelf, left break. It can get kind of crowded at times. The pictures from the water camera are from Senoritas. Unfortunately it wasn't breaking good there that day.

Caballeros: Yet another local favorite, Caballeros is a right breaking wave. We only surfed there once and it wasn't that great. I think we just had bad luck on the day we surfed it.

Pulpos: We didn't surf there or ever even see if for that matter. I just included it because our favorite guide Marco Antonio, get's his nickname from the break. As I said before, he's one crazy guy. Even more so with a Machette (it was his birthday - he was having fun!)

What else of note?
The locals are great. If you get a chance to go out to one of the local clubs, have Pulpos hook you up. Mike and I went and had a blast. We met some really nice girls from Lima.
The water. Don't drink it. The staff got us a nice big container of bottled water which lasted us all week.
The food was excellent. We actully only ate out once as the food at the surf camp was great. If you do go out, head over to Don Angelos and try the Cebiche. It rocks. Sooooo good :)

So after a long week surfing it was time to leave. We stopped at the Inca Marketplace in Lima for some swag before we headed to the airport. Stuff is fairly cheap there. Unfortunately, none of us speaks Spanish so we didn't haggle much.
Once at the airport the only real negative to our whole trip occured. Apparently the local LanChile folks have a different policy regarding the surfboard charge. Remember it was only $55 on the way to Peru? Well, it was $60 for Jer and Mike on the return trip. For some reason they decided to charge me $120 for my boardbag. The two ladies I was dealing with weren't totally pleasant, and it seemed a little lost. They kept switching between two explanations.
1. My board bag was over weight (Uh yeah, no shit. Thats what the $55-60 charge is for) 2. I had two surfboards in my bag. They got me there. I brought a coffin on the trip as I brought a longboard and a shortboard. They didn't seem to understand that both Mike and Jer brought two boards as well, or that it wasn't stated anywhere that taking two boards equals twice the charge. I wasn't happy at this point, but I had no choice but to pay. If I fly with LanChile again, I'm going to speak with a manager from the airlines before I leave the US and get this cleared up.

incedentals. what to bring for boards, bags, clothes, suits