Huanchaco is a friendly beach town popular during the summer months with the people of Trujillo and known as a excellent surf spot. It is also a popular spot to eat ceviche.
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1250km of Northern Coast: The usual and the little-known
Let’s start in Tumbes, the smallest region in Peru and the one with proportionally the most protected areas: 50% of the territory is covered by mangroves, dry forest and tropical forest. The Usual: From Puerto Pizarro boats can be hired to get to the Isla de Amor where you can enjoy a beer and bathe in the clear sea. The Little-Known: Entering the mangrove sanctuary by taking a boat from Puerto 25, be guided by locals involved in the conservation and protection of this resource, visit the protected area and later dedicate many hours to a refreshing dip in the Zarumilla canal where also, if lucky, you might see a wild crocodile.
Continuing south… The Usual: Stopping off at Zorritos beach, or going straight on to Punta Sal or to Máncora resort towns. The Little-Known: To stay in Caleta Grau at kilometre 1,242, at the edge of Tumbes and Piura. It boasts a large beach lined with simple houses where you can find a good room with bathroom for just 25 soles a night and eat fresh lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Did the Incas explore the Pacific?
There has long been evidence, most of it barely investigated, that Andean peoples and Polynesian peoples have had contact various times in their pre-Columbian pasts. It has even been suggested that people arrived in South America from Polynesia – evidence of human activity in Chile from a time before humans were supposed to have crossed the Bearing Straits has been found.
Northern Peru
Tumbes Tumbes is known for its beautiful beaches, eco-systems of mangroves and its forests. More than 30% of the department is made up of protected areas. Tumbes is also known for having one of two main crossing points into neighboring Ecuador. My Blog Tumbes city…
Pimentel
A ten minute bus ride from Chiclayo, at about 11km, is the most popular beach in Lambayeque where visitors can enjoy a good climate most of the year. A fishing town part of the year in which locals still uses the millennia-old Caballitos de Totora, it becomes a crowded get-away spot in the warmer months.
The Chimú and the Kingdom of Chimor
In the aftermath of the collapse of the the Moche civilisation in the late 700s A.D. a new civilisation was born. In the late 800s until the early 1000s the Chimú culture began to establish itself, reaching it’s peak in the 1200s and lasting until the 1490s when they were conquered by the Incas.
The Moche
The Moche (or Mochica) were a civilisation who occupied the northern Peruvian coast between modern-day Lambayeque and Virú and influenced an area that ranged from Huarmey to Piura in the north. They were a collection of peoples with a similar culture and had no central political authority on a grand scale, i.e. they never formed an empire. Primarily farmers and fishers they built irrigation systems to create fertile areas in the desert and created rafts known as the Caballitos de Totora to fish from. But by far their most important legacy was one of art.
Colonial Trujillo
Trujillo is the capital of the region of La Libertad on the northern coast, and is the third largest city in Peru after Lima and Arequipa. This is where the Moche and Chimú civilizations developed between 200B.C. and 700A.D. Its year-round pleasant climate has earned it the title of “Capital of the Eternal Spring”. It has wonderful beaches, including the famous Huanchaco, which are sometimes venues for international surfing competitions. Fishermen still use reed canoes called “Caballitos de Tortora”, made the same way for thousands of years.
Uros: The Floating Islands
The Uros people have lived for centuries on man-made floating islands on Lake Titicaca. The Uros fled into the lake to escape the attacks of the Colla and Inca cultures. These huge islands are made by hand from totora reeds that grow on the banks and shallower waters of the lake. Today there are more than 40 of these large islands with as many as 8 families living on each one. The islands contain homes, post offices and souvenir shops. Before the 1960’s these people had little contact with the outside world, but since then have grown dependent on tourism.