As mentioned, Northern Chile has perfect setups for both bodyboarding and surfing. Unfortunately, Chile (80% cases in Santiago) has been hit hard by covid. As a result, surfing has been banned for months in major cities and even in national surf capital Pichilemu. The reason is that the authorities want to keep all the Santiago people and surfers from traveling outside the metropolitan region to surf. I've been taking trips down there almost every year since '98, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be going back during the holidays this year. I lived in Iquique in '04 and always spent time here in the best fall months of April, May, and June after it started to get cold and rainy in Central Chile. I rented out a two bedroom furnished apartment for $350 a month a block from Punta 1 and Cavancha with my Chilean girlfriend who would become my wife. I taught English at a local language academy in the afternoons/evenings and surfed every morning. I did border runs to Tacna, Peru every 90 days and always made a stop in Arica to surf Gringo or El Buey. Almost all the waves in the 1st and 2nd Regions of Chile are reefs and slabs with a few random beach breaks and points if you have a vehicle and know where to look. There are a lot of positives to spending time in this region: great local seafood/cuisine, cheap oceanfront accommodations, non-stop pumping swell from May to October, uncrowded surf, good weather with no rain, and always glassy mornings with the exception of September. Another good thing is that you can walk to all the best waves in both Iqq and Arica. The local spongers charged waves like Punta 2 on high tide and Intendencia on low tide. These two spots are the heaviest slabs in Iquique and most surfers want nothing to do with these waves. I tried to surf these waves, but was too heavy for me. Although I haven’t been up that way in years, I have so many great memories of my time in this area. My years surfing this area definitely helped me learn to surf reef/slab type waves so much better. I don’t mind giving info about this part of Chile as almost all the best waves are easily located in major coastal desert cities and are heavy reefs/slabs/bombies that mother nature keeps uncrowded.
