6 Best Sights in The Southern Coast, Peru

No less astonishing than Machu Picchu or other Peruvian wonders, this UNESCO World Heritage Site was discovered (or rediscovered) in 1927 by Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe, who stumbled upon them on a walk amid the foothills. Almost invisible from ground level, the lines were made by removing the surface stones and piling them beside the lighter soil underneath. More than 300 geometrical and biomorphic figures, some measuring up to 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, are etched into the desert floor, including a hummingbird, a monkey, a spider, a pelican, a condor, a whale, and an "astronaut," so named because of his goldfish-bowl-shaped head. In 2020, a research team came across a faded feline outline on a hillside. The catlike geoglyph stretches for 37 meters (120 feet) and has been dated to between 200 BC–100 BC, meaning it's part of the Late Paracas period and older than any of the other geoglyphs found in the area. Theories abound as to the purpose of these symbols, from landing strip for aliens to astronomical rituals or travel markers. Since 2000, investigators have discovered hundreds of additional figures, leading many to speculate that science hasn't begun to fathom this most puzzling of Peru's ancient mysteries.

The great Inca Pachacutec himself probably stayed at this, one of Peru's most underrated archaeological sites. The labyrinthine alleyways and trapezoidal plaza of this huge adobe settlement were devised as an outpost for soldiers and visiting dignitaries of the far-flung Andean empire, making it the most important Inca site on the Peruvian coast. Today, Tambo Colorado is incredibly well preserved, owing to its bone-dry setting. When you go, you'll feel some of the same grandeur found in the stones of the Sacred Valley around Cuzco.

Tambo Colorado, or Pucahuasi ("red resting place") in Quechua, derives its name from the bright bands of imperial red, yellow, and white with which it was once blazoned. The site comprises several sections laid out around a large central plaza, and you can see the quarters where the great Inca received his guests. Notice that the plaza's distinctive trapezoid shape is mirrored in many of the tambo's architectural features, such as the trapezoidal windows and portals. Modern engineers have argued these elements are anti-seismic in nature, something that is highly necessary in this volatile region.

Be sure to visit the on-site museum, which houses many finds by the great Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello, the site's excavator.

Like the Incas, the Nazca had an advanced understanding of hydraulics, and this system of puquios (spiral-shaped stone wells) just outside the city limits testifies to their engineering genius. The wells are actually entry points to a complex network of underground aqueducts the Nazca built to funnel the scarce runoff from the Andean foothills; they would then pool this runoff in reservoirs and use it to irrigate their crops. Today some 46 puquios still exist; most are in good working order. Their existence continues to be vital to 900 subsistence-farming families in the region as well as (scandalously) to a few local washerwomen, who've been known to sneak in to do their weekly scrubbing.

Inside a walled, 4-square-km (1½-square-mile) precinct west of the Nazca Lines lies an ancient ceremonial site. In it, five adobe pyramids, the highest of which stands at about 21 meters (69 feet), tower above a network of 40 mounds, with a bevy of rooms and connecting corridors. This is Cahuachi, which archaeologists had previously supposed to be the Nazca capital, but which current studies suggest was actually a pilgrimage destination for inhabitants of Peru's Southern Coast. Built by the early Nazca culture, the site has been called the region's "theocratic capital" and is estimated to have existed for three or four centuries before being abandoned around AD 500. Also visible nearby are grain and water silos, as well as several large cemeteries outside the precinct walls. La Estaquería, with its mummification pillars, is nearby. Tours from Nazca, 18 km (11 miles) to the east, visit both sites for around S/50 with a group and take three hours.

The ruins of this pre-Hispanic fort are minimal, but they conceal a violent history. The Huarco were a tiny seaside kingdom that resisted the incursions of the Inca Empire in the 15th century. After four years of fruitless attempts to subdue them, in 1470 the Inca ruler, Túpac Yupanqui, hit upon a stratagem: feigning a desire for peace, he tricked the unsuspecting Huarco into descending to the sea en masse to solemnize a would-be truce in a water ceremony. Then, in their absence, the wily Inca proceeded to seize the Huarco fortress, which he used as a base to subjugate the ill-fated tribe. Today, you can still pick out a few Inca trapezoidal niches among the ruins' crumbling walls, which overlook a precipitous cliff. There's also a museum in Cerro Azul with artifacts that tell the Huarcos' tragic story.

These wooden pillars west of Nazca, carved of huarango wood and placed on mud-brick platforms, were once thought to have been an astronomical observatory. More recent theories, however, incline toward their use in mummification rituals, perhaps to dry bodies of deceased tribal members. They are usually visited on a tour of Cahuachi.