A South American Surf Adventure

So it was I arrived solo in Lima, armed with a map of Latin America with the best surf months scribbled on each country and a slight sense of trepidation.

David Lawes surfing in Peru. Courtesy David Lawes

Sitting on a palm-lined beach in Bocas del Toro in the 30 °C tropical sun, sipping on a cold cerveza and speaking in semi-coherent Spanish to a couple from Argentina, it occurred to me how far I had come in the last eight months. Not just in distance, but personally.

I could communicate to a certain extent in a new language and I had a rudimentary understanding of a completely different culture, of a place somehow disconnected from the consumerism and logic of the West: a land of mangrove swamps, rugged Andean peaks and colonial mansions that still belong to a different time.