Tuesday, 10 November 2009 00:00
By Jessi Miley-Dyerbig.jpg)
Sofia chaired up the beach while Steph catches a wave in.
Peru is a bit of a strange place. On one hand there are some of most amazing left hand points you'll ever see, and on the other there is dust. Literally, just dust. Lobitos, the contest venue for this year, is an epic left hand point that you drive off the road and into the desert to get to. I’m not talking about a crappy little half-desert either, but a proper dust, dirt roads, sand dunes and mirages. I wish there were Llamas, but they don’t live here up north. It would be cool to have Llamas in the desert instead of camels, but I guess it’s just not meant to be.
Sofia raising the flag at home.
Perhaps the best thing about Peru, apart from the waves and Macchu Picchu, is Pisco. Pisco is the Australian equivalent of VB- everyone seems to drink it. In cocktail form, it’s amazing and lethal. Every night at dinner we would go and get Pisco Sours, made from Pisco, fresh Lemon juice and egg whites. After a long day down the contest and suffering from mild dehydration due to being in one of the driest areas of the world, it probably wasn’t the best idea, but they are just too good to pass up. Everyone was staying in Mancora, home of amazing tuna steaks, so we would sit there and eat tuna steaks and drink pisco sours (except for the rookies, who seemed to be not as excited about pisco as we were) every night at dinner. I felt a bit like I was on vacation, and not at a contest.
The only bad thing about staying in Mancora is, its pretty far away from Lobitos. We were getting up every morning at five am to pile into the vans for the drive in, and it was a bit of a punish. None of the vans had proper shocks or suspension, so every tiny bump in the road, the entire contents of the van went flying. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the road to Lobitos wasn’t riddled with potholes. Some of our drivers also seemed to think that it was funny to drive straight through them.
Steph came out second best in the lefts, but still on top of the ratings.
In fact, pretty much the only thing on the road to Lobitos is a giant billboard of Sofia (Mulanovich). Apart from Sof, the only thing that you can see for miles is dust, dirt, and small mountains of dust and dirt mixed together. Sponsored by Movistar, the giant Telco who also sponsored the contest, you can wave to Sofia while she’s on the phone like all the Peruvians. Here, Sofia is massive, and the only other people that I have seen get mobbed like Sofia are; Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and U2. Seriously, to get to her heats she was driving down to the singlet marshall in a car to collect her rash vest, sprinting to put it on, sprinting back to the car and then driving down to the waters edge. Watching the final between her and Steph, I was pretty sure that if Sofia didn’t win that we would have a riot. Coco Ho threw her singlet into the crowd for someone to souvenir after the presentation, and people almost collapsed the barricades trying to grab it. The security guards were pushing against the crowd on the barriers to stop them from falling, it was insane. Highlights included a woman wrestling Coco for her towel and winning. Coco had a bit of a tug of war with her, and in the end just gave up. I guess that the lady really, really wanted her towel.
