Huanchaco

Huanchaco is the beach for Trujillo, a long grey-sand curve with a pier and a line of seafood places along the front. What makes it worth the trip is the caballito de totora, a narrow boat built from bundled reeds that fishermen here have used for a very long time and still use daily. They stand upright in rows along the sand between trips, and the fishermen kneel or straddle them and paddle out through the surf with a split length of bamboo. The reeds are grown in walled pits behind the beach. The waves are long and forgiving, which has made the town one of the standard places in Peru to learn to surf.

History

Huanchaco's first people were fishermen who worshipped the moon and a golden fish called Huaca Taska. In the Chimú period, from 800 to 1400, it was the port of Chan Chan, 4 kilometres away; the Spanish founded the town on 1 January 1535, it served as Trujillo's main port until 1870, and later Victor Larco Herrera rebuilt the pier for sugar exports. In 2012 it was named a World Surfing Reserve (Wikipedia, Huanchaco).

The landscape

• Caballitos de totora - reed boats stacked along the sand, taken out by fishermen most mornings.
• The reed pits - the walled hollows behind the beach where the totora is grown and cut.
• The pier - a long wooden jetty over grey water, the standard view back at the town.
• Beginner surf - long slow waves and a row of schools and board rentals along the front.

When to go

December to April is warmest, with the least cloud and the most people. From June to October the coastal fog sits low and the water is cold enough to need a wetsuit, which the schools provide anyway. Fishermen go out early, so the boats are most active soon after dawn and are usually back on the sand by late morning.

What to expect

The sand is grey, the sea is cold for most of the year and the town is workaday rather than picturesque. Some fishermen charge for photographs and for short rides, which is fair enough but not always made clear beforehand. The front is a solid line of restaurants and can feel like a strip. Trujillo traffic makes the last stretch slow at weekends.

Nearby

Chan Chan sits between here and Trujillo, and the Moche pyramids are south of the city.