Visitor Information Pisco

The Municipality of Pisco office at the Plaza de Armas might be able to provide some rudimentary tourist information; a better bet is one of the travel agencies offering tours to Paracas and other places in the region. Fast Facts — Banco de Credito, Perez Figuerola 162, has a Visa-compatible ATM. You’ll also find cambistas, or money exchangers, hovering around the Plaza de Armas.

If you need medical attention, go to San Juan de Dios, Av. San Juan de Dios 350 . In an emergency, you can reach the police at the Plaza de Armas on Calle San Francisco .The post office at Calle Bolognesi 173 is open Monday through Saturday from 8am to 6pm. There’s a Telefonica del Peru office at Calle Bolognesi 298; it’s open daily from 9am to 6pm.

Getting Around in Pisco

The best way to get around Pisco itself is on foot because anything of interest — hotels, restaurants, the cathedral — is only minutes from the Plaza de Armas. Taxis are readily available and cheap for any trip within the city (S/3-S/4 or about USD 1).

For transport to the Paracas National Reserve and other areas of interest, you can hire a taxi (less than S/17 or USD 5) or travel by bus. The most efficient way to see the highlights of the area is with a tour company, especially because there is no public transportation on the peninsula or within the reserve.

By Bus – Combis to the Ballestas Islands and Paracas National Reserve (marked EL CHACO-PARACAS) depart from the Pisco market on Fermin Tangus.

By Boat – Boat tours of the Paracas Bay and Ballestas Islands are available right on the El Chaco waterfront (S/35 or USD 10 per person) or by arranging an organized tour.

By Organized Tour — The following companies all offer packages to the Ballestas Islands and Paracas National Reserve (as well as tours to Tambo Colorado and Nasca): Zarcillo Connections, San Francisco 111 ; Ballestas Travel Service, San Francisco 249 ; and, near Ica, Huacachina Tours, Av. La Angostura 355, L-47, in front of the Hotel Las Dunas .

History of Pisco

The city of Pisco is the capital of the province homonima in the Ica. Region extends in the coastal district homonimo. Pisco is to 290 km to the south of Lima, capital of Peru. The city includes/understands so much the town, well-known as “Pisco town” like the port and the levee, known like “Pisco beach”.

At the moment it counts on desmotadora industrial activity of cotton. In 1820, Jose of San Martin disembarked in a near beach (District of Paracas) to the port of Pisco. In the city it emphasizes the house where the liberator created the first flag of Peru.

Pisco is a place that was within territory of the Hispanic cultures Paracas and Nazca, even towards the 10,000 a.C., took place the first sedentary establishment due to the enormous marine wealth that old the Peruvians gathered.

In that sense, their cultural and historical vestiges are ample. With the establishment of the Virreinato of Peru, the port of Pisco served as starting point of mercury of Huancavelica and the Pisco that producìa in near valleys. At the moment, as much their port as their agriculture and its vitivinicola industry and of the pisco emphasizes from the first years of the colonial period.

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.

Getting in Pisco

If you come into Pisco from Lima, Nazca, Arequipa, Ica, Santiago in Chile or Buenos Aires on one of the frequent buses run by Ormeno, you’ll arrive at San Francisco 259 (tel 034/532764), one block east of the Plaza de Armas. Comite colectivos #3 or #4 from Lima arrive near the Plaza de Armas, while the Peru Bus terminal for Lima and Ica services is at Avenida Ernesto Diez Canseco 41, and if you arrive from Ica by Servitur colectivos, you’ll come in at Calle Callao 191. Coming from Huancavelica or Ayacucho on an Oropesa bus, you’ll arrive on Calle Commercio.

Getting around Pisco is easy - it’s small enough to walk around the main places of interest, and a taxi anywhere in the central area should cost less than USD 1. If you’re heading for the Paracas National Reserve or the Ballestas Islands , the cheapest way is to catch a bus from Pisco market, on the corner of calles Beatita de Humay and Fermin Tanguis.

Most of the buses from here only go as far as the waterfront at San Andres , but there are usually at least two buses an hour on to the Playa El Chaco wharf in El Balneario, where you can get a boat to the Ballestas Islands. If you only want to go as far as the San Andres waterfront, you can also take a bus from Calle Pedemonte, two blocks from Plaza de Armas. Most travellers, however, tend to use one of the tour companies in town to get the most out of their time in and around Pisco.

Attractions in Pisco

Ballestas Island:
These islands are Peru’s own version of the Galapagos. The Paracas Peninsula and the nearby Ballestas Islands make up the most important wildlife sanctuary on the Peruvian Coast. You will have the chance to see Candelabro (or Candelabra), a giant figure in the style of the Nazca drawings etched into the coastal hills. Enjoy the many different kinds of marine birds; the most frequently seen birds are the Guanay cormorant, Peruvian booby, and Peruvian pelican. You may even catch a glimpse of the Humboldt penguins and Chilean flamingos.

Nazca Markings and Regional Museum of Ica:
The Nazca Lines are still one of the world’s most impressive ancient mysteries. Approximately 200 miles south of Lima and stretching for more than 30 miles along a flat, arid desert plateau, the Nazca lines consist of a series of enormous and intricate drawings of birds, animals, and geometric figures. The figures were scratched into the desert crust about two millennia ago.

Regional Museum of Ica:
This building holds and guards a vast collection of Paracas, Nasca, and Inca cultural artifacts: mummies, ceramics, textiles, trepanned skulls, counting strings (quipus) and clothes made from feathers.

Huacachina Lagoon:
An attractive oasis with its palm-fringed lake amid amazing sand dunes.

Tambo Colorado:
This well-preserved adobe and stone structure, was built probably over an ancient fortress of the pre-Inca culture of Chincha, was adapted and transformed by the Inca Pachacutec in the 15th century, as a deposit of grains and as an administrative and military center. This continues to be the most interesting testimony of the Inca culture on the Peruvian coast. There is evidence that the site was used to worship the sun and to study astronomy and everything related to agriculture.

Hacienda San Jose:
A well-preserved 17th-century ranch house. Enjoy the folklore show, the beautiful

chapel and visit the catacombs. There is still a labyrinth of tunnels believed to link up with other ranches in order to facilitate the contraband trade in black slaves from Africa. From here return to Pisco.

Introducation of Pisco

Pisco is a city in Peru. It is located in the Ica Region and is the capital of the Pisco Province. The city is only 28 feet above sea level. Pisco originally prospered because of its nearby vineyards, and is the namesake of the Peruvian grape liquor, pisco.

The area is normally visited because of the concentration of marine animals and birds at the Paracas National Reserve, or the Peruvian Galapagos. At the reserve there are the Ballestas Islands, which are off limits to people, but boat tours can get close. The Chincha Islands are also near its coast. On the islands there are tons of birds, including pelicans, flamingos, penguins, cormorants, red boobies and terns. There are also sea lions, turtles, dolphins, and whales.

This wildlife is definitely something to boast about, but Pisco origins are from one of the major ancient civilizations in Peru, the Paracas culture. Due to its ease of access, and its crossroads to the Andes the Spanish considered making Pisco the capital, before they decided on Lima.

In the city is the Plaza de Armas, where people hang out and buy tejas, small sweets made from pecans and assorted dried fruits. Many different building that surround the Plaza are the statue of Jose de San Martin, the mansion he lived in, and the Municipal Palace. Other building in the city is the heavy Baroque Iglesia de la Compania, begun in 1689, boasts a superb carved pulpit and gold-leaf altarpiece. (more…)