Pampas Galeras Reserve

Pampas Galeras was established in 1967, when the vicuña - the wild camelid whose fleece is the finest natural fibre in the world, and which had been hunted to perhaps five thousand animals nationally - needed somewhere protected enough to recover. It worked: numbers across Peru now run into the hundreds of thousands, and the reserve on the high puna at around 4,000 metres above Lucanas is where much of that started. Vicuña graze in sight of the Nazca to Puquio road and are easy to see. Each June the chaccu is held here, a practice with Inca precedent in which communities form a human chain kilometres long, drive the animals into a stone funnel, shear them alive and release them, and the fibre is sold under a certification scheme that returns income to the communities. Poaching for fleece remains a problem outside protected areas.

What you actually see

• The vicuña - grazing herds visible from the road across open puna.
• The 1967 reserve - the site where recovery from near-extinction began.
• The chaccu - the June round-up, shearing and release, with Inca precedent.
• The interpretation centre - the small museum at the reserve headquarters.

When to go

May to September for weather. The chaccu takes place in June and is the reason many people time a visit. Two to three hours as a stop on the Nazca to Cusco road.

Honest expectations

At 4,000 metres, arriving from Nazca at sea level in a few hours causes real altitude symptoms. Cold and very windy. Vicuña keep their distance - binoculars help. Facilities are minimal outside the chaccu.

Nearby

Lucanas is close; Puquio is east and Nazca west on the same road.