The curious town where "the longest and most perfect waves in the world" are produced

On Peru's northwest coast , very close to the city of Trujillo, lies one of the world's best surfing spots . The province of Chicama , in the department of La Libertad, has established itself as a mecca for this water sport, with waves considered the longest and most perfect on the planet .

You only have to set foot on its beaches to understand why it deserves that title. Specifically, we have to visit the port town of Malabrigo , also known as Puerto Malabrigo or Puerto Chicama. Here, the waves reach 1.5 meters in length, with an impeccable tubular shape and a constant, orderly rhythm that creates a most unusual picture.

Malabrigo, a key point in the sugar industry

Malabrigo is the capital of the Rázuri district , an area steeped in history. For starters, it was part of the settlement area of ​​the Cupisnique culture , dating back to between 2000 and 200 BC. The Chicama River valley was also the site of the development of the Moche culture (2nd and 7th centuries AD).

As early as 1917, the port of Malabrigo was built by the German engineer Helmuth Bolzmann at the request of the Gildemaister family, who played a key role in the country's sugar industry . Thus, ships loaded with sugar from the area's farms anchored in this port.

The curious "chicamera waves"

The so-called "Chicamera waves" have turned Malabrigo into a paradise for surfers. When conditions are optimal, these tubular waves approach the coast, averaging 1.5 km in length and reaching no more than 2.5 meters in height. Furthermore, the Chicama break was the first in Peru to be added to the list of protected waves under the Breakers Law , which aims to protect these natural spaces from the construction of infrastructure that could damage the waves.

"While some famous waves around the world can be ridden for seconds, Chicama's waves can be ridden for minutes ," NASA details on its website. "According to Andrew Thomas, an oceanographer at the University of Maine and former surfer, swells are generated by storm systems and weather fronts hundreds or thousands of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, and occasionally in the Southern Ocean. As waves propagate across open water, waves with a similar wavelength (and speed) become organized and begin to travel together ," they explain.