I visited three cities on the Peruvian coast: Mancora, Huanchaco and Trujillo. Near Trujillo and Huanchaco are some large pre-Incan ruins from the Moche and Chimu civilizations, which I also visited.
Mancora
Mancora is a sunny, dusty beach town in northern Peru known for surfing and partying. It’s claim to fame is that it’s in the part of Peru where you can surf without a wetsuit year round. It’s got a really nice left point with just a couple of take off points. The challenge is, that’s all it has. Once there’s 10-15 surfers in the water it gets crowded quickly since there’s only a couple of take off points in a pretty small area. The one day I surfed, everytime I went to catch a wave there were locals on the outside coming down to my right and I had to pull out. And after that first day, the surf got flat for the rest of my time there, so there were no other opportunities to adjust.
But I still enjoyed myself. I rented a really chewed up board and got in a challenging SUP in the wind one day, and relaxed at the low key beachfront hotel I was at the rest of the time.
Blue Ocean Hotel is run by a Swiss/Peruvian couple who met in Switzerland and then moved back here. She’s the chilled, organized Swiss and he’s the happy go lucky Peruvian who is joyfully sharing joints with the guests. We were showing him Cheech and Chong videos and were all laughing at how much like Cheech he is.
The action the first morning just before I went out.
And then the lack of action the rest of the time I was there as the surf disappeared. I’ve heard it gets more consistent in their summer months.
Away from the shops and hotels the actual neighborhood streets are pretty barren and dusty looking. But that’s part of its charm; it’s just not that built up yet.
Huanchaco
Huanchaco is a beach town of about 70,000 people right next to the larger city of Trujillo. It was considered one of the main ports of the Incas and became the main port of Trujillo until 1870. It’s also supposed to be the birthplace of ceviche. The ceviche was good here, but no better than anyplace else in Peru I’ve tried so far.
In 2012 Huanchaco obtained approval as a World Surfing Reserve by the organization Save The Waves Coalition. This designation is the first awarded to a Latin America town and the fifth in the world. Besides having consistent surf, it’s known for being the birthplace of the caballito de totora boat which is regarded as one of the first known surf crafts. These are reed watercraft used by fishermen in Peru for the past 3000 years. I have pictures below.
When I planned this trip, I knew Huanchaco would be a test for me. It’s the first cold water surfing place I was going to and it would help me determine if surfing was a passion or a hobby for me. It’s definitely just a hobby at this point!
The water was too cold to surf without a wetsuit, everyone I talked to gave me different opinions on where to go and at what tide levels, many times there was no one out and I couldn’t judge how big the waves were or where to set up, and I was a bit under the weather a couple of the days. If the water was warm I probably would have just gone out a few times and played around. Even if I don’t catch much it’s still fun to frolic in a warm ocean on a warm day. But the thought of putting on a wetsuit and not being certain of the conditions made me just want to chill out and stay warm on land. I was told the water is warm enough not to need wetsuits December through March, so that might be a great time to visit.
I had a huge 4 bedroom, 2 bath Airbnb with a nice ocean view from the balcony
Trujillo
Trujillo is the 3rd most populous city in Peru. It’s got a really nice town square, a few blocks of well preserved colonial architecture, some nice, relaxed and very liveable neighborhoods, and then a large area of the charming chaos that typifies large Latin American cities. It’s known as the City of Everlasting Spring for its climate, which in the winter days I was there reminds me of cool winter days in Southern California coastal cities.
From Wikipedia, Trujillo is also the birthplace of Peru’s judiciary, and it was twice designated as the capital of the country. It’s considered the “cradle of liberty and cradle of the judiciary in Peru”.
I had a nice, modern Airbnb apartment in the calm, sedate California neighborhood of the city.
Below are some pictures of the city’s colonial area.
The University of Trujillo has an amazing 1km long mural along the outer walls surrounding the univerty. It was built from 1994 to 2008 and offers up an array of Peruvian themes of history, nature, animals and conquest. Supposedly over 30 million 1cm by 1cm mosaic squares in over 50 colors were used in building this.
Some of the more generic streets encompassing most of the city.
The Moche Ruins
The ancient Moche culture flourished from around 100 AD to 800 AD, and at its height they built a couple of monumental temple structures. Little is known about the Moche as they had no written language, and what is known has been interpreted from their art and ceramics which show scenes from their lives of hunting, fishing, fighting, sacrifice and elaborate ritual ceremonies.
Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna are the two primary Moche temples. Archeologists have been excavating the Huaca de la Luna since 1991. With funding limited, they do not plan on starting excavations on the nearby Huaca del Sol for at least another 10-20 years. Between the two temples is an administrative city estimated to have contained over 20,000 people. They estimate the entire population was up to 100,000 people. All this is less then 4km from downtown Trujillo, near the Moche River.
The latest theory holds that the Moche were not conquered by another culture but succumbed to climatic changes and an internal war for scarce resources. Some also theorize that the Moche culture evolved into the Chimu culture which built the nearby city of Chan Chan (seen in the following section).
The pictures below are of the incredibly well preserved 1,500 year old artwork in the Huaca de la Luna, which was built up into the side of the Cerro Blanco mountain (whose mountain god provided the water that brought life to the valley).
Chan Chan
Chan Chan was the largest city of the pre-Columbian era in South America. It was believed to have been constructed around 850 AD by the Chimú. It was the Chimor empire capital city with an estimated population of over 60,000.
After the Inca conquered the Chimú around 1470 AD, Chan Chan fell into decline. In 1535, Francisco Pizarro founded the Spanish city of Trujillo which pushed Chan Chan further into the shadows. While no longer a teeming capital city, Chan Chan was still well known for its great riches and was consequently looted by the Spaniards. For example, a sixteenth-century list of items looted from one burial tomb in Chan Chan were the equivalent to 80,000 pesos of gold (nearly $5,000,000).
