For the last thirty five hundred years, Peruvian fisherman have paddled boats called caballito de totora, the little reed horses, out through the surf to cast their nets offshore.  At the end of the day, they ride the waves back to shore almost like modern surfboards. The fishermen build the boats themselves– growing the reeds, harvesting and drying them, and then bundling the reeds together, in the same way that the boats have been built for the last three millennium.

The little reed horses, however, may be on their way out, as the marshes where the reeds grown are drained by developers and the children of the fishermen look for a better life at universities or by working in construction or in the tourist hotels that now line the beaches in resort town like Huanchaco.

See also: Town’s Floating Symbol Fading Into the Sunset