Visit Paracas Nature Reserve, Peru

The Paracas National Reserve covers an area of 335,000 hectares and was created in 1975. It is a primary marine reserve with an extremely high concentration of marine birds, some of them very rare.

The seas here are very rich in marine life, and the unique but rather harsh desert environment ('paracas' means raining sand in Quechua) is also a home for many species of migratory birds. As well as the wildlife, there is also a strong human history here, as the Paracas culture thrived here over 9,000 years ago.