Sunday, June 29th, 5:30AM

The initial pre-flight excitement has worn off completely. For the last six hours I’ve been doing my best to get a wink of sleep on the filthy carpet of the Lima airport. Besides the janitors and us, the place is deserted. All that’s left now is my desperate hope that our boards will somehow make the two plane transfers to Town #1. Next time I’m spending the extra cash for a direct flight, this sucks.

The 8-hour flight to Lima wasn’t too bad for me, but it was a little too good for Nick and James. From my seat a couple rows back, I got a great view of their full exploitation of the plane’s free bar. The two tossed back at least 12 beers between them. By the time we exited the plain James was in full ugly-American mode, speaking gibberish/fake Spanish to complete strangers and gawking at the legs of the Peruvian stewardesses. Please God let us get to Chile before we get arrested, and let our boards be there when we get off the plane.

Tuesday, July 1st, 5:00PM

I’m sitting in a bus on my way to Town #2. Catching the bus was an adventure. We all lagged leaving Carol’s apartment and were running late. We arrived at the bus station and quickly unloaded our gear from the racks of Carol’s car. Then we found out the bus had left without us. Crap. Carol asked a worker at the bus station to hold the bus for us at some intersection in the city. There was no time to tie all our gear back on top of the car. We had to squeeze all the board bags, luggage, and five sweaty bodies back inside Carol’s tiny station wagon and haul ass to catch the bus. It was hectic, but after a few wrong turns we caught the bus, loaded our gear, and finally sat down for our 5-hour drive to Town #2.

Time to run down the insane surf we’ve had the first two days. We arrived in Town #1 Sunday evening and were greeted by our generous hosts Carol and Joe, longtime friends of my parents and all around awesome people. Carol and Joe’s apartment overlooks a pretty sick left-hand break they call The Point. We were too late to surf but we could see some major potential. That night Carol made us some delicious campanadas(?) and invited over a couple of local surfers: Jorge and Ardo. We showed them Nick’s video and they were stoked. We made plans to meet the next morning and surf at a spot a few kilometers south of town called The Coop.

The next morning we were greeted by Jorge, Ardo, and this crazy local dude named Alejandro. Alejandro was a character. He gave us his business card and a Chilean surf magazine with a ton of photos of Town #1. "Theez eez my present to you" he told us in broken English. Alejandro dropped us off (and even picked us up) from The Coop free of charge.

The waves were insane. The Coop is a left-hand reef break with a steep drop and a pitching wall that backs off for a second before an insane barreling inside section. We managed to arrive just as a big swell was hitting and scored it double overhead and super fun. The landscape around the wave (and all throughout this area) is amazing. Gigantic hills of dirt and rock dominate the landscape. There is no vegetation to speak of besides that which was planted by man and fed with imported water.

Despite the harsh surroundings, there was a crew of about ten South American bodyboarders camping in front of The Coop who had been there for months. These guys were hardcore. There were no bathrooms or running water and the tents were laid out on bare rock. One dude was form Ecuador, one was from Argentina, and the rest were from different parts of Chile. They had beat up boards and torn wetsuits, but they surfed everyday and didn’t plan on leaving any time soon.

I was pretty sketched on the bomber sets coming through. Within five minutes I realized I hadn’t surfed enough or trained enough for this trip. James, Nick, and I all scored some fun ones and the crowd wasn’t too hectic. James busted a huge ARS and jammed his finger on the landing, giving him a bad case of elephantiasis of the knuckle for the rest of the trip.

We were stoked to have scored on the first day of the trip. Louie arrived at 4 PM so we cruised out to the airport to pick him up. We all had doubts about Louie making all the connecting flights and baggage transfers, but somehow he arrived without a scratch. We decided to race back and score an evening session before dark.
The spot in front of our apartment was blown out but Louie was desperate so we paddled out anyway. It pretty much sucked and soon we were over it. I saw James and Louie climb up some boulders to get out. It looked easy enough so I followed. This is where I kooked it big time.

I was halfway up the rocks when this huge set wave came through. I had no clue the wave was coming but James yelled "Lookout!" at the last second. I had about half a second to ditch my board and grab the rocks before I was completely engulfed in whitewater. I was dragged about 6 feet down the sharp rocks. When the wave subsided, I scrambled back up the rocks to the ledge above. James was cracking up. I was in shock. My arms were sliced up and down. One rock penetrated my wetty and put a 1/4" deep gash in my shin. I was in pain but I could still surf so it wasn’t a big deal, but it did scare the crap out me.

That night we cruised to McDonalds looking for some canary James wanted to pimp, drank the equivalent of a Chilean 40oz., watched Louie nearly die skating a ledge, and went out to an awesome dinner with Carol and Joe before hitting the sack.

The next morning we were off to The Coop again. We found it even bigger and cleaner than the day before. There was a bigger crew out today and one local Chilean named Ratboy was seriously killing it. Air spins, huge barrels, ARSes: this guy was owning it. James busted a big reverse air on his first wave and killed it the entire session. Louie negotiated some serious drops and did some sick drawn out carves. I got a few barrels and a big roll that knocked the wind out of me. Later Nick paddled out and scored some sick barrels and a big ARS. We were stoked that we scored again and decided to head back to town with our new pal Jorge. We grubbed some food and chilled for a bit. Nick, James and Louie paddled out to shoot some water footy but got skunked by bad winds and currents.

As I write, we’re on a six-hour bus ride to Town #2. The swell is supposed to slowly drop throughout the week before getting huge again next weekend. Amped.

Thursday, July 3rd, 10:40PM

We arrived in Town #2 pretty late Tuesday night. We skipped the taxi ride and walked a shitload of blocks to our hotel. The lady at the front desk was mentally incompetent, but luckily we were able to score some rooms. We went for a walk and ended up at easily the ghetto-est strip club man has ever seen. Chilean ghetto booty in full effect. Somehow we got talked into staying. James ended up dancing on the bar with this thick (think Missy, not J-Lo) mamacita. Another chick grabbed Louie’s hand and stuck it somewhere nasty. We decided we’d better leave before this went any further and managed to escape disease-free.

Wednesday morning we went to check the surf. A sick right was looking North Point-ish with no one out. Amped! We moved our shit to a new hotel closer to the breaks, ate, suited up, and hit the beach. Denied. It had gotten super crowded at the right, plus we couldn’t locate the left we were hoping to score.

Feeling dejected and heading back to the hotel, we scoped a little right that looked small but fun right in front of our place. Nick brought out his water housing and the wave ended up being sick. The reef was super-gnarly but we scored a few shots.

Later on we returned to the original right, which we’ll call Second Point. Nick and James paddled out but the wind and tide were jacked and they didn’t really score. We all crashed early after a few liters of Cristal.
Today was smaller. We found the left we were looking for but it wasn’t really working. We moved over to a smaller but heavier left that was super fun. It was shallow, barreling and pretty much a dream wave, even though it was only like 2 or 3 foot. Nick’s water housing kept fogging up, but he still got some good footy.

We’ve been in the hotel drinking mad beers since the morning session. Drawing on our boards has been the main pastime. "Esteem", "Rookies", and "No Friends" are scrawled across all our boogies. Beer is another good time killer. Cristal is our cerveza of choice. It’s super cheap, like a buck for a liter. Nick made some pasta and we’ve had 3 liters of Cristal each.

James won’t stop talking about "chawsky". We’re taking turns listening to Necro on Louie’s discman. It’s 11:00pm and we’re all antsy for some sort of action. More later.

Friday, July 4th, 6:26PM

Fourth of July today. James and Louie are celebrating with a little "mota" they scored from the locals. The shit looks like beef jerky but they’re jonesing so hard it doesn’t matter.

We scored the same left reef today, Swimming Pools. The waves are still pretty small but SP’s picks up just about anything. Short, shallow, intense barrels over 1 foot of water. Pretty damn heavy. I saw James get a couple that looked like head high Chopes.

Nick is having problems figuring out the fog factor in his camera. After an hour or so filming the lens fogs up and filming is impossible. He emailed The Godfather (Stoker) who hooked Nick up with some tips and a gnarly physics lesson. Hopefully fog won’t be a problem anymore.

Despite the warnings of the crew in Town #1, the boys in Town #2 have been well behaved. All they want is free gear. I wish I had brought more stuff to give away, but that’s life.

Tonight we’re finally gonna hit up the big disco. It’s on like Voltron. The Cristals are calling my name.

Sunday, July 6th, 6:51PM

Friday night at the disco was crazy. James pussed out but Nick, Louie and I pounded two liters of Cristal each and headed to Pharaoh’s around 12:30. The instant we got out of the cab we were the center of attention. We were already "shlambacked" but upon entry we got a free stiff drink that faded us pretty good. A group of chicks immediately approached us and we were on the dance floor in minutes.

I don’t know what’s up with Chileans but for some reason they’re all really good dancers. Nick, Louie, and I looked like fools next to all the little Ricky Martins on the dance floor. Luckily we had the American thing going for us which kept the chicks interested. Nick hooked up with a little Chilena on the dance floor and Louie got slapped after trying to touch some chick’s booty. Comedy. We didn’t get home until daylight.

Saturday we slept in until noon and luckily didn’t miss much surf since it’s pretty small right now. Louie and James hit up Second Point with a few aggro locals while Nick and I stuck to Swimming Pools. More intense, shallow, deadly shoulder-high lefts. Sickness.

Currently on a bus ride to Town #3. Swell is still down right now but supposed to pick up Wednesday and Thursday. Today I tried to watershoot Nick and Louie at Second Point. I messed up bad on a sick wave of Louie’s and basically missed it completely. Nick got worked on the right and is all scraped up. James had a recovery day and didn’t even surf. I paddled out at Swimming pools later on and scored a few mini-beastmasters.