Chris Macdonald – Paddling in Peru
Chris Macdonald
Suppose I should introduce myself first.
My name is Chris Macdonald. I’m a super enthusiastic stand-up paddler from the UK, but I’ve had plenty of international adventures, some of which John has invited me to share with you in this blog.
As you guessed by the title, I’m sharing my experience of paddling in Peru, specifically Lima and working with a charity called ALTO PERU. This charity takes young people from Lima's impoverished and sometimes dangerous areas, specifically the neighbourhood of Chorrillos. It provides them with surf lessons, other sports and community projects—anything to keep them out of trouble and help build a positive future.
It all started when I saw the documentary “Into the Storm” on BBC. It was about a surfer, Johnny Guerrero, and how ALTO PERU changed his life; he is now a competitive international surf athlete.
I contacted the charity and decided to fundraise for them by travelling on a stand-up paddle board for 55 miles (around 90km) from Mallorca to help Ibiza!
I managed to raise around £800, which goes a long way in Lima, so I was super happy with that. You will be pleased to hear I successfully completed the crossing in just over 15 hours. After that successful mission, I started to plan a trip to visit them, help out in all the activities they do and teach them a bit of SUP!
Lima is a very cool place for paddling; it’s on the coast, there’s some fun surf to play with, and a few sheltered bays, and I even managed to do some downwind type paddling riding bumps of a medium size swell! I even had a chat with the Peruvian navy, who were on a training exercise which was very exciting!
I was only there for 10 days, so I did stay in Lima, focusing on helping the charity. Still, it would have been awesome to explore other parts of the country and potentially some other paddling locations in the future! I know a lot of other coastal areas of the country that are good for surfing too! Peru is also home to Chicama, the longest surfable wave in the world!
The thing I loved the most was teaching the young people how to SUP, as well as a few of the adults that worked for the charity. Because they came from a surfing background, they picked it up pretty quickly and even surfed on my race board within 30 minutes or so! It was an extremely rewarding experience, my first time in South America, and I even learnt some prone surfing too, but I might stick to the stand-up paddle surfing. I wasn’t very good at popping up, but I might try it again at some point!
I have now moved to Saudi Arabia, working as a SUP coach here. There might be some content about that coming in the future.
If you want to follow more of my adventures, my paddling social media account is @chrismacpaddle on Instagram or @Chris Macdonald Paddlesports Coach on Facebook!
