Tambo Colorado in Pisco Peru, The Best Preserved Inca Ruins in Peru

Tambo Colorado is not a well known Inca Ruin, yet it is one of the best preserved Inca ruin. To see it you must take a tour to the Paracas desert from Pisco. It is a perfect shore excursion full of ancient Incan history. Fascinating elements of the internal engineering in their homes, technology far advanced than I gave them credit for can still be seen. So come take a tour with me in some ruins that even the most seasoned traveler can enjoy.

Shore Excursion in Pisco Peru

Just before my Dune Buggy Adventure in the Paracas Desert, we elected to see some of the best preserved Inca Ruins in South America. We arranged our tour with Emotion Tours Peru, and emailed them our suggested tour. They were accommodating to altering their typical tours, and ensured that we would be back at the ship with enough time to browse a shop or two.

They met us on the dock, clipboard in hand and once everyone was assembled (8 of us), we loaded into the small bus and headed into Pisco.

Passing the surrounding desert was like we were inside a land rover machine on Mars. It was so strange to see the ocean right on the other side of a Sand Dune. It was a stark desert, begging to be challenged by the hardiest of travelers - and yet breathtakingly beautiful against the ocean as a contrasting backdrop.

The drive into town took about 30 minutes, and we unloaded at their tour office to be divided into our respective tours we had arranged. You can pay at the office, but we elected to pay via PayPal before we arrived. I just personally like to ensure that the tour operator will be there since the shore excursions tend to be on limited time. It gave us about twenty minutes more for our tour, as the others waited in line to pay waiting for the spotty wifi to run their cards.

We got into our car with a gentleman who spoke really good English, wearing a bright orange shirt with the Emotion Tours logo on it. My friend Bree and I got into the back of the car, and had a fascinating ride with him on the way out to Tambo Colorado.

Getting to Tambo Colorado

If you do not wish to arrange your travels with Emotion Tours, then I would suggest hiring a private car or hailing a taxi once you get into town. I guarantee this will cost you about the same amount of money as it would to hire the tour company as it can take about 40 minutes to get to Tambo Colorado.

The reason I would suggest going through a private tour company rather than through the ship shore excursion office, is because you beat the bus load from the ship to the ruins and have the place virtually to yourself.

The hallways within the complex are quite narrow and if you really want to take your time to appreciate it, you want to do it without 15 other people behind you pressuring you to keep walking.

Tambo Colorado Ruins

When you first begin traveling, ruined castles hold such an appeal - at least it did for me as an American. Likely because our country is still so new compared to the rest of the world. After traveling for 22 years though, ruins tend to lose their appeal. Yet I was intrigued by the story of the Incas in Pisco Peru.

Most of the information on Inca ruins in Peru revolves around Machu Picchu. With the gorgeous views of the ruins amongst the clouds, but that area has now become quite crowded and commercialized. Tambo Colorado provides a much more authentic look into what the Inca lives were like. The ruins here are so well preserved that you can still see the straw in the plaster, with the tiny rivlets where the 1/4 inch of yearly rain fall has carved out the patterns.

You would think that, by looking at the ruins the people in the village just built this place and called it ancient. Except the way that the complex is laid out, how it points to certain points in the land, the smell of aged wood - it is hard to believe it is from the 15th century.

Enginering within their homes

The Inca king Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, or Pachacutec is said to have built this place along an important trade route for the Incas. Looking at this large complex, you see several structures, with a large central trapezoid plaza measuring approximately 492 feet (150m) in length. If you look on either end of the plaza there is a Northern Palace (or grouping of structures), and a Southern Palace.

As you wander around the structure, into the rooms - you will see that the original wood is above the door threshold. The plaster still holds the straw, and much of the paint used to both insulate and protect those inside from the sun. In one room you can also see that they had a form of indoor plumbing, where stones were placed strategically to allow water from a well or the river to flow into the home itself. There is not tap, but just a channel that drops into a depression deep enough for a human to stand in.

The architecture of this building was so well done, that even the massive earthquake that hit Peru in 2007 caused only minimal damage to Tambo Colorado.

Our guide told us that the paint that was used on the plaster is the original paint, and despite scientists coming and taking samples to try and repair much of the graffiti on the ancient walls - were unable to replicate because of the natural elements used that are no longer available.

Before this was a protected site, many kids came to this area to carve their names into the walls so that a part of them would remain here forever. It made me so frustrated by the amount of defacement and damage done to this place, I had to talk myself out of letting it ruin my visit. If you ever visit a site like this, or any other in the world - please, for the love of all that is holy and good - do NOT be that ONE who ruins it for the many. Sometimes the damage it causes is irreparable.

Worship of the Land

Facing towards the river, you will see a raised platform; this is where the shaman lived. It is a ceremonial platform called the Ushnu.

This is where sacrifices to the Gods of the earth were made. Our guide told us that the Incas worshiped all things related to the land. They worshiped the mother in the mountain, they worshiped the sun god, they worshiped the river, and the great harvest every year, they worshiped fertility and many other things that are directly tied to survival in such harsh environments in Peru.

Looking at the Inca calendar this is primarily represented, a shifting circle around the harvest seasons and family. Although in modern times Pisco rotates around the tourists that visit this off the beaten path place; the people in Pisco center much of their lives around produce and the livelihood it creates for them and their families.

Why Visit Pisco Peru?

If you want a strikingly unique landscape to explore, with an authentic Peruvian feel - then go to Pisco. It isn't just Tambo Colorado that you can explore, they are host to so many other activities that will make you feel you are on an adventure of a lifetime in a small corner of the world that not many of the tourists know about yet.

See Flamingos and their babies on the bay, go surfing near the shore, scuba diving right off the beach, dune buggy riding in the Paracas Desert and have a desert under a night sky without light pollution, take a flight over the Nazca lines - ancient symbols drawn into the sands surrounding Pisco - or just make it your backing packing stop on your way down the South American coastline. While many people overlook Pisco for Lima, I personally would skip Lima and head to Pisco for a real adventure and talk a walk in Inca History at Tambo Colorado.

Where To Stay In Pisco Peru

Tours to Tambo Colorado

Emotion Tours - The Company I used to arrange my tour

Tambo Colorado Small Group Tour from San Martin Port- through Viator

Other Tours Available in Paracas and Pisco

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