*Editor's note: Despite the fact that both local and travelling surfers have been mining Peru's arid, dusty coastline for decades, as the following photos show, there may still be one or two hidden gems tucked away for those patient and lucky enough to hear the desert's secrets. Peruvian photographer Gonzalo Barandiaran has been making exploratory trips to Up North for a while now, and has graciously offered up the fruits of a recent trip beyond Cabo Blanco, without any directions, of course -- there are some places in the world that are best left unmapped. Enjoy.

Ernest Hemingway knew all about Cabo Blanco in Northern Peru. It was a famous fishing village in the '50s and '60s -- tourists and trophy hunters came from around the world in search of big marlins and fishing records. Hemingway caught a couple 700-pound marlins himself, and was inspired to write his famous novel The Old Man and the Sea.

But the wave of Cabo -- now considered the Peruvian Pipeline -- wasn't discovered until 1979, when Sergio "Gordo" Barreda, one of Peru's best surfers, stopped by one day to check the surf around this village. He wasn't particularly inspired to write a novel or anything, but the wave was moving. Like fast-moving.

Until early '90s, the only surf forecast for Cabo was a phone call to Hawaii to check how the surf was there -- 5 or so days later, the same swell would reach Peru. Soul surfers would just camp there for a month, eating fish and swatting flies, just waiting for the perfect swell. But today, surf sessions at Cabo with just you and your friends are history. Now with the internet, any average surfer with a computer and a solid mouse click can have a good surf forecast for Cabo and plan accordingly. Although there are only about 15 or 20 surfers that live nearby the Cabo Blanco area, big crowds come from Lima -- 700 miles south -- hungry for perfect waves and warmer water. Cabo's wave is so perfect that the take off zone is about 15 square feet in size -- so maybe there's "only" 20 surfers out, but packed in a takeoff area smaller than a Peruvian taxi.

Cabo is the only peak in Peru that gets really crowded, and it's the only one that generates a kind of religious fanatism among surfers, who'll leave their family and jobs without hesitation to meet Cabo waves and crowds. Although there are several other perfect waves nearby, none of 'em generate such an illogical reaction on surfers.

But there is more perfection than Cabo Blanco in the north area. In fact, some of the waves are even better. Out of necessity, locals have searched for and discovered other alternatives, keeping the secret away from hungry crowds.

Spot X (pictured here) is one such wave. It was surfed for the first time in the late '80s by a couple of locals, who kept the secret very well. This year, it was epic -- perfect G-Land shaped cylinders were breaking almost every day over the sand-bottomed bay. It was so good for so long that it was almost impossible for locals to keep their mouth shut, at least to their best friends. Suffice to say there were some very happy friends around.

We can't tell you where it is located, but rest assured, there are probably more secret/undiscovered surf spots in the north of Peru than surf spots currently surfed. Swell direction, tides, accesibility and winds will determine where the perfect wave will be breaking, but there's a good chance it's . . . right around the corner.

For those who want to improve their ability to catch waves in the most aggressive crowds, Cabo Blanco is the place. But for the rest of us who don't mind a little searching and a bit of dust, the north of Peru still has enough empty waves to inspire another novel or two. -- Gonzalo Barandiaran