Huanchaco is a small fishing village and beach resort on Peru's northern coast, about 12 km west of Trujillo. It has a different character from the busy regional capital: the pace is slow, the streets are sandy, and the seafront is lined with modest cevicherías rather than hotel towers. Fishermen here still use caballitos de totora — slender reed boats of pre-Columbian design — paddling out through the surf each morning and riding the waves back in, a practice unchanged for at least two thousand years. Watching them is one of the most distinctive things you can do in northern Peru.
The beach itself is long and backed by a weathered colonial church on a hill. The water is cold (this is the Humboldt current) and the waves are consistent, which makes Huanchaco a quiet but genuine surf destination — nothing like the commercial surf scenes further south, but good enough that a small community of surfers has settled here. Boards and wetsuits can be rented along the beachfront.
Huanchaco works well as a base for visiting the great Chimu capital of Chan Chan, the largest pre-Columbian city in South America, whose crumbling adobe walls spread across the desert just a few kilometres away. The Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, impressive Moche pyramids on the southern outskirts of Trujillo, are also within easy reach. Day-trippers from Trujillo arrive on weekends, but on weekdays the village is quiet.