Tambo Colorado

Inland from Pisco, where the valley narrows between bare hills, the Inca built a road station and administrative centre in adobe rather than stone, because that is what the coast builds in. It is one of the best preserved Inca sites on the whole coast: a large trapezoidal plaza with ranges of rooms on three sides, walls of trapezoidal niches, doorways and windows in the standard Inca proportions, and, unusually, surviving pigment. Red covers whole walls, with white and yellow picking out the niches, and the name comes from it. Almost nobody stops here, so you generally have the plaza to yourself.

History

The site was most likely built at the end of the 15th century under the Inca ruler Pachacuti, after the merchant kingdom of Chincha had been annexed. Its Quechua names, Puka Tampu, "red resting place", Pukallaqta and Pukawasi, all refer to its red walls (Wikipedia, Tambo Colorado).

Highlights

• The surviving paint - red, white and yellow pigment still on the adobe.
• The trapezoidal plaza - the open square with room ranges on three sides.
• The niched walls - rows of Inca trapezoid niches at two heights.
• The valley setting - bare desert hills with the irrigated Pisco valley below.

When to go

Any time of year; the coastal valley is rainless. Go early, since there is no shade at all on the site and the plaza turns into an oven by late morning. Weekdays are quieter still, though quiet is the baseline here. The caretaker keeps normal daytime hours and there is no ticket office queue to speak of.

Before you go

There is no useful public transport and no facilities of any kind: no cafe, no shop, one basic toilet. A taxi from Pisco will charge for the waiting time, which makes a small site expensive. The 2007 earthquake damaged sections and repairs are visible. Interpretation is a hand-painted board and whatever the caretaker tells you, mostly in Spanish.

Nearby

Pisco, the Paracas peninsula and the Ica vineyards are all within an hour or two.

Key facts