Sights in Pisco

Paracas National Reserve
A beautiful peninsula of even greater wildlife interest than the Ballestas Islands, the Paracas National Reserve , a few kilometres south of El Balneario, was established in 1975. Its bleak 335,000 hectares of pampa are frequently lashed by strong winds and sandstorms ( paracas means “raining sand” in Quechua).

Home to some of the world’s richest seas, an abundance of marine plankton give nourishment to a vast array of fish and marine species, who in turn have their attendant predators. It’s also a staging point for a host of migratory birds and acts as a sanctuary for many endangered species. Schools of dolphins play in the waves offshore, condors scour the peninsula for food, small desert foxes come down to the beaches looking for birds and dead sealions, and lizards scrabble across the hot sands. Humankind has also been active here - predecessors of the pre-Inca Paracas culture arrived here some 9000 years ago, reaching their peak between 2000 and 500 BC.

Plan to stay for a few days, and take food, water and a sun hat - facilities are almost non-existent. It’s a twenty-one-kilometre bus journey from Pisco (local buses leave Pisco market every 20min; USD 0.8 each way), or take an organized tour from one of the tour operators). The reserve’s natural attractions include plenty of superb, deserted beaches where you can camp for days without seeing anything except the lizards and bird-life, and maybe a couple of fishing boats. Cycling is permitted and encouraged in the reserve, though there are no rental facilities and, if you do enter on a bike, keep on the main tracks because the tyre marks will damage the surface of the desert.

San Andres, El Balneario and the Ballestas Islands
One of the best trips out from Pisco takes in San Andres, El Balneario and the stunning Ballestas Islands. Local tour operators, run combined bus and boat tours leaving Pisco early in the morning and returning towards midday. Tickets are best bought the day before and cost USD 8-10: you’ll be picked up around 7am, from the plaza in front of the Hotel Pisco, your hotel or the tour company office.

The tour buses - and local buses which leave from Pisco market - run south along the shore past the old port of San Andres , where you can watch the fishermen bringing in their catch. The tour buses usually stop here on the way back, so that you can buy fresh ceviche or turtle steaks, despite a national ban on eating turtles due to the threat of extinction. Known as the meat with seven flavours because some parts of the creature taste of fish, others of chicken, others of beef, and so on, turtle is still a favourite local food and warm turtle blood is occasionally drunk here, reputedly as a cure for bronchial problems. The plankton in the sea here frequently attracts whales and in 1988 a new, small species - the Mesoplodon Peruvianus, which can be up to 4m long - was discovered after being caught accidentally in fishermen’s nets.

South from Pisco
South from Pisco, the Panamerican Highway sweeps some 70km inland to reach the fertile wine-producing Ica Valley, a virtual oasis in this stretch of bleak desert. Pozo Santo , the only real landmark en route, is distinguished by a small towered and whitewashed chapel, built on the site of an underground well. Legend has it that when Padre Guatemala, the friar Ramon Rojas, died on this spot, water miraculously began to flow from the sands.

Now there’s a restaurant here where colectivo drivers sometimes stop for a snack, but little else. Beyond Pozo Santo, the Panamerican Highway crosses the Pampa de Villacuri. At the Km 280 marker, there’s a track leading north; after about an hour’s hike, you’ll reach the ruins of an adobe fortress complex, where you can see dwellings, a plaza, a forty-metre-long outer wall, and ancient man-made wells, which are still used by local peasants to irrigate their cornfields. Seashells and brightly coloured plumes from the tropical forest found in the graves here suggest that there was an important trade link between the inhabitants of the southern coast and the tribes from the eastern jungles on the other side of the formidable Andean mountain range.

Tambo Colorado
Some 48km northeast of Pisco, the ruins at TAMBO COLORADO were originally a fortified administrative centre, probably built by the Chincha before being adapted and used as an Inca coastal outpost. Its position at the base of steep foothills in the Pisco river valley was perfect for controlling the flow of people and produce along the ancient road down from the Andes. You can still see dwellings, offices, storehouses and row upon row of barracks and outer walls, some of them even retaining traces of coloured paints.

The rains have taken their toll, but even so this is considered one of the best-preserved adobe ruins in Peru - roofless, but otherwise virtually intact. Though in an odd way reminiscent of a fort from some low-budget Western, it is nonetheless a classic example of a pre-planned adobe complex, everything in its place and nothing out of order - autocratic by intention, oppressive in function, and rather stiff in style.

The easiest way to get to Tambo Colorado is on a guided tour from Pisco, which costs less than USD 15 per person, provided there are at least ten people. You can also travel there independently: take the Ormeno bus from Jiron San Francisco or the Oropesa bus from Calle Comercio (both leave most mornings, but check first with the bus company as departure times and frequencies vary from day to day). The bus takes the surfaced Ayacucho road, which runs straight through the site, and the ruins are around twenty minutes beyond the village of Humay.