PUNTA HERMOSA, Peru - It was high tide on a scorching Tuesday, and the choppy beaches around Lima, Peru, were crawling with surfers. There were teenagers in ratty flip-flops carrying short boards patched with duct tape, and bronzed women in wet suits paddling out into the shimmering blue waves. There was even a businessman in his 30s, who climbed out of a black-tinted SUV in nothing but shorts as a muscular chauffeur handed him a freshly waxed board, a bottle of water and a dab of sunscreen.

The only thing missing, it seemed, were tourists.

Despite monster swells on par with those that hit Hawaii's legendary northern shores, Peru isn't known as a surfing destination, except perhaps by a small band of jet-setting surfers for whom no wave is beyond reach, and by the 28 million inhabitants of Peru.

Surfing has hit South America's third-largest country (in area) in a pop cultural frenzy. On the wide boulevards of Lima, billboards are covered with fresh-faced Peruvian surfers endorsing cell phones, beer and soft drinks. Surfing contests are all the rage. And to the south, where the waves are even bigger, physical attributes -- pumped-up lungs, buff shoulders and sun-bleached hair -- seem bred into the local DNA.

And now, as Peru rides a tourism wave propelled by a strong economy and favorable exchange rates for bargain-minded Americans, it is poised to become the new "it" spot on the international surfing circuit.

The country has 1,500 miles of rugged coastline dotted with countless breakers, from pristine beaches tucked around Lima to unexplored pockets up north where some waves are said to last more than a mile. And unlike Malibu, Hawaii's northern shores and other well-known places, many of Peru's best surfing spots are often nearly empty. With so much to explore, surfing has muscled in on soccer and the culinary arts to become an unlikely symbol of national hope.

Much of the current craze can be traced back to Sofia Mulanovich, 24, a Peruvian who won the 2004 World Surfing Championship title in Hawaii -- a contest dominated by Australians and Americans. And if the ranks of teenagers who frolic their spare hours away in the swell have any say, surfing in Peru will only get bigger.

Break points

The epicenter of the neo-surf scene is undoubtedly in Punta Hermosa, a summer beach community about 30 miles south of Lima, where surfing is virtually a religion.

The hourlong drive provides a sobering look at an arid and impoverished landscape: brown hills devoid of vegetation and pocked with sad clusters of wooden shanties. And the town itself doesn't look like much. But the fuss is clear when you arrive at the beach, where curling waves fan like Neptune's block party.

Each break point presents a different challenge. There's Kon Tiki, which offers untamed waves so massive that it takes a strong arm even to paddle out to it; La Isla, where Mulanovich, Gabriel Villaran and other homegrown pros can often be found; and Pico Alto, a brawny break with swells that can range up to 25 feet high.

On a recent Saturday, the Copa Barena Professional Circuit competition was taking place in Punta Rocas, one of the area's most popular beaches. Barena, a Honduran beer being introduced in Peru, had erected giant inflatable bottles that were flapping like Michelin men in the wind. A stoner reggae band drowned out the announcers. And waiters in baseball hats wove through an obstacle course of sun chairs with plates of calamari and cans of Inca Kola, a yellow soda spiked with caffeine-laden guarana fruit.

Mulanovich, known as "la gringa" because of her fair skin and blond-streaked hair, sat with an entourage near the judge's perch as she watched her younger brother, Matias, whiz over the lip and down the face of a meaty charging barrel.

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