On the cover photo: Well placed in a Salvadoran cylinder. It features: Chivipizza

Luis Lacalle Pou, a surfer since the 1980s who has traveled to Indonesia, Hawaii, Nicaragua, Brazil and El Salvador, among other destinations, has just been confirmed as the president-elect of Uruguay after a long second ballot that took place following the tight runoff last Sunday.

The votes counted today showed that there is no way for his rival, Daniel Martínez, to catch up with him with the votes that remain to be reviewed.

It is not known for certain whether he is the first president of a nation who actually surfs; it is known that Obama has practiced bodysurfing, for example, but there is no record of another president of another country being, as Lacalle Pou is, a wave-cracked person who spent a good part of his life in salt water.

Son of the president of Uruguay between 1990 and 1995, Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, and belonging to a family with deep political roots, the newly elected president began surfing in the mid-80s on a trip he made to Florianópolis, Brazil.

According to DUKE, he continued to go into the water regularly at the summer house his father bought in La Barra de Maldonado and fell in love with the sport. He usually surfed at La Martínez beach.

There he also became friends with a gang that skated and shared their life between the water and the few rinks that there were in the area.

According to sources close to him, the influence of Brazilian surfers was strong at that time, as they brought better equipment and demonstrated more advanced surfing. Lacalle Pou shared the water with the outstanding surfer of the time, Christian Hunt, and those who later became national champions, Josepe Pereira and Matías Temesio.

As an adult, he traveled the world with his board under his arm. When he graduated as a lawyer in March 98, he went on a trip to Hawaii, California and Costa Rica to celebrate. In Mecca, he told the Todo Pasa program, he surfed the most dangerous waves of his life.

"I grabbed the tail of El Niño and I was alone (…) More than blows (hits) I was scared (tight) in the water, I was big, alone, there is a lot of localism, you can't make a mistake where you are located, there is coral below," he told the aforementioned program.

He traveled to Indonesia, Hawaii, Nicaragua, Brazil, El Salvador, California, Mexico, Panama and when asked where else he wanted to go, he said: “Everything, I want to live three more lives.”

Regarding his surfing sessions in Uruguay, it is not common to see him in the water in the places most chosen by everyone, other sources indicated that he always chooses to go to the water where there is no one or almost no one. Of his three children, the only one who accompanied him with his passion was the only girl, Violeta.

He was also asked on the aforementioned programme what he would do with surfing when he is president, and he replied: “If you are president of the republic you are in trouble (a Uruguayan expression for saying you are screwed).”

The journalist asked him: “And what are you going to do?”, and Lacalle Pou exclaimed: “And nothing, dream!”