Reserva Nacional de Paracas near Pisco

By bus me and my Touring Peru group travelled from Lima downsouth in direction of Pisco which is a gorgeous part of Peru and world famous for its wildlife and dramatic landscapes.

To get from Lima to Pisco we followed the 1S Highway passing places like Chilca, Mala, San Vincente de Canata and Chinca Alta.

Tours Pisco

Pisco is located in the Ica Region of Peru and is the capital city of the Pisco Provence.

Most tourists head to Pisco for the interesting concentration of marine life that can be found in the Ica Region. Especially the Reserva Nacional de Paracas and the Ballestas Islands are major touristic drawcards for Pisco as the landscapes are stunning.

We did two tours in the Reserva Nacional de Paracas, onetrekking along the coastline of the parc and another boat trip to the Ballestas Islands since this area can only reached by boat and no people are allowed on the islands.

You could definitely compare the Reserva Nacional de Paracas to the Galapagos and some even call it the Peruvian version of it. Wildlife is amazing and the boat trip enabled us to get really close to the rocks and take pictures of the sunbathing sea lions and birdlife.

Tours Pisco

On our way to the Ballestas Islands we passed the Candelabra which is a sort of figure created by lines in the desert and which looks just like the Nazca lines which I visited later on in my travels.

From the boat we spotted a lot of birdlife on the Ballestas like penguins, pelicans and Peruvian boobies. Because of the time of year, October, we were also lucky enough to see some baby sea lions with their mothers.

At the time we visited Pisco the city was still recovering from the 2007 earthquake which struck Peru in August of that year. Unfortunately a lot of work still had to be done and there was a bit of a sad feel about Pisco which isn't strange as this was one of the cities that was struck the hardest and almost 80% of Pisco had been destroyed.

We would have loved to visit the San Clemente Cathedral of Pisco but also this church had vanished after the earhquake. Today Pisco is without a doubt still worth visiting as the people are so friendly eventhough they had lost so much and tourism is the only thing that might help them get their lives back on track.