A Week in Lima with Legaña

July 9, 2023

Photos by Francisco Chavez

Words and additional photos by Marcus Waldron and Noah Halpern-McManus

In early January we got an email from Renzo Falla of Legaña Skateboards asking “are you guys are interested in joining us on a skate trip to South America?” within ten minutes we replied “We are definitely down.” He told us his brother, Danny Falla, would be coming down along with Legaña NYC rider Marcus Eagel to link with the Peruvian homies in Lima. Next thing we knew it was midnight and we were walking out of arrivals at the airport into a crowd of honking cars and taxis, and people yelling in Spanish behind a fence. We hear a “Yerr” cut through all the noise and spot Danny through the crowd, we link and get a ride back to his place in Pueblo Libre, where we stay at the house he grew up in. The first morning we got up, ate some fresh picked figs from the backyard, had some coffee, then hit Legaña skateshop to link with some of Danny’s homies who would be our crew for the week. There’s a local filmer, Josué Navarro who was down to meet up with us every single day. He’s a super rad filmer and knew all the spots for skating and food. Danny also had his homie and OG Peru photographer Francisco Chavez come crash at the house and shoot with us while we were there. We would link at the shop and go hitting spots in two cars for the first couple of days.

The first real spot we hit was an out rail that needed some patch work done on the run up. Luckily, the homie Remo brought a bunch of bondo, and everybody got to work. We learned the word ¡Amasillaro! which roughly transates to “bondo it”, but the crew, especially Renato, were using it for everything from “Get it!” to “Yoooo” to literally, “We need to bondo the spot”. Not everybody got it but that didn’t stop us from yelling it all week. We went to plaza Larcomar the first night and then many times more. It’s the best skate/chill plaza in the city, and full of activity at all times. The plaza has been skated for years and appears in all the classics Lima videos. It overlooks the beach and cliffside, has spots, benches, grass, nearby stores, everything you can ask for in a plaza. After Larcomar, we hit Remo and Patan’s apartment, which doubled as a tattoo shop. Also somewhere we would return repeatedly. We celebrated Patan’s birthday, met a ton of locals, and made a hundred plans for the next six days while chatting in broken English and shattered Spanish till late.

We didn’t know before getting to Lima, but that Saturday was the official opening of the Legaña shop. We linked there in the morning to meet up with the homies and lurk while Danny did an interview for a big youtube channel out there, then we all went out to hitting spots again.

While we were in town Danny hooked it up and arranged for Juan Miguel, a local who used to skate with the OG Legaña crew, to drive us around for a few days. Juan was hyped to show us around, chill until the next spot, and skate flat. Gracias causa!

We had to check out the beach while in Peru so we made plans to hit one outside of the city and on the way hit this dope tunnel/ditch spot with wallrides on both sides. We handled some business at the ditch then made our way to an amazing restaurant where we were served beer and fresh seafood platters twenty feet from the ocean with our feet in the sand. The rest of the afternoon was spent jumping into the craziest waves and having a team bonding experience for the ages.

Aside from the beach we also had to hit center city while in Lima, which we saved for one of the last days. Lima has been going through a tumultuous political time and just before our trip center city was hosting near daily clashes between indigenous protesters and activist groups against the city’s police force. The amount of riot cops with rifles and shields was disconcerting, but it didn’t stop Renato from shutting down the triple set while running in between the cops getting off their buses. Shortly after Renato got his trick they shut the park down preemptively, guarding all entrances and exits with loaded rifles.

We got back in the van and skated a dope bump spot for over an hour before realizing there was a skatepark right next to it. There were actually a decent amount of skate parks, but we didn’t need to hit any. There were even more spots, and everyone was hungry to skate the streets. Over the trip, we had a decent amount of run-ins with security, but Danny and the crew were able to reason with them and get ten more minutes most of the time.

One morning Danny took us on the roof to show us where to hang dry our laundry and pointed out some old tags made by him and his friends growing up. There were scribbles of dream sponsors, Bart Simpson, and old Legaña tags. It was pretty incredible to see that lineage, history, and manifestation all at once. You can tell from speaking with people out there that the scene in Lima is truly proud of Danny and it’s really special to see someone come back home and put on for the next generation of skaters from Lima.