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This small coastal town might not be on your itinerary initially nevertheless it’s worth a stop. Mainly because it’s a great place to lear how to surf.

 

The beaches there offer over twelve different breaks to suit everyone’s level of surfing. We took lessons with…. and managed to get up on the first wave. The surf school guarantees you’ll be up on that board at least once or they promise to buy you a drink. 

The town itself is not the nicest to look at, it’s a bit rundown. if you go on top of the hill by the church you get a great view of the ocean and the city. 

 

A little travel anecdote… 

During our stay in Huachanco, we encountered probably the craziest man of all our travels in SA, a 70 year old Scottish man called Doogy. One evening whilst we were sitting by the beach road, dodgy Doogy came up in distress: “I lost my dog! Have you seen my dog?’. At first we thought he was a genuine worried man who lost his dog but quickly the conversation wasn’t about the pet anymore… It was about the time he left his french fiancee, he told her he was going out for cigarettes and never came back. He was close to getting married twice but bailed at the last minute each time. He then offered us to come to his house for a drink and a chat. At this point, there’s four of us, two guys, my friend Liz and myself. We thought, why bloody not? The night activities are pretty limited in Huachanco during the week. We follow the weird man home, miraculously the dog meets us half way down the road too! His house was pretty much which you could expect, no water past 8pm, no flooring, crap (not litereally speaking) scattered everywhere. He then tells us more about his life, about how he used to be best buds with the Talking Heads and that he misses David (Bowie) and Freddie (Mercury) too. He told us he paid for the house with his flourishing white powdered business. Eventually he stuck a finger up his entire nostril, probably lost his septum a long time ago. He used to smuggle drugs up his nose, through airports and border controls. He then insisted we give him something to put up his nose, we handed him a tampon, he shoved it all the way up his left nostril then he… framed it! Everything is art he shouted! We ended up spending hours listening to this old lunatic telling us about his life. He shot a junky in the leg because he lost a bet once. Did he die? I asked, my friend Denny looked at me frightened. You don’t ask a loco hombre (crazy man in spanish) if he’s killed someone in his own house? Someone was trying to write a biographical book about his unusual life too. 

At last we ended up writing poems and leaving shortly after pouring our hearts out to this man we met 7 hours earlier. 

We bumped into him the next day as we were running late to catch our bus to Mancora. He took offence to the fact that we didn’t stop and have a chat so he cursed at us and called us C***S! Final last word from the septum free crazy man. Farewell Doogy :) 

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