Pichilemu (WARNING surf content......)

These photos are of Pichilemu, a Chilean beach town which, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, is Chile´s version of Australia's Surfers Paradise. I headed in that direction figuring it had to be more interesting than that, and also because of some vague memory from some old surf magazine that there were some extremely long surf breaks near there.

On arrival my suspicions were confirmed. This place is a long, long way from Surfers! Complete with black sand beaches, original Spanish beachside architecture, colourful Chilean holidaymakers and llama rides on the beach for the kiddies, Pichilemu is definitely a world away from anywhere I´d been before. Pichilemu is clearly a authentic Chilean holiday town - I was the only Gringo in town, and found almost no English speakers or foreign tourists there, which made a nice change.

The whole place made me feel like I´d stepped back in time, or maybe more like Id walked into the set of some funky remake of ´Happy Days´. Where we would have Video game arcades, Pichilemu has all-original pinball parlours and homemade versions of table soccer (That's La Mesa de Futbol here!) . Where we have bumper car circuits, they have these little dirt tracks and 50cc peewee four wheeler motorbikes for the kids to race around in. Crazy stuff.

Oh, and it does have one incredibly long surfable wave breaking in front of the town - actually, the wave is longer than the town! Apparently it produces rides of about 900m when it gets to its best (though hasn't broken that good for a few years). While I was there, there was a long line of about 8 or 9 100m long slightly fattish lefthanders, with some short punchy rights in between. Can´t complain! It was a bit bizarre though, despite the great surf line up, there were only about 5 or 6 guys in the water, but something like 5,000 Chileans on the beach making sand castles and riding horses, donkeys and llamas around.

I didn´t actually surf there though, I found a slightly better spot near town, called Punta los Lobos, which was about the same size but with a much less punishing paddle. Though with water temperatures straight from Antarctica, it was still a challenge for me - my shoulders seemed to fuse up after a few minutes - or maybe that was the 5mm wetsuit freezing solid? Anyhoot it was a memorable surf experience, I cant claim i got any 10 second barrels - though they were there to be taken.