Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
for Arequipa (S8, two hours).
Colectivos
wait outside the terminal to whisk arriving pas-
sengers down to the town's plazas and the beach (S1, 10 minutes) or you can walk.
Combis
(S1.20, 20 minutes) and
colectivos
(S2, 15 minutes) to the beach resort of Me-
jía leave from the corner of Valdivia and Arequipa. Unfortunately, there are no direct
buses onward to Moquegua or Tacna.
Colectivos
and minivans marked 'El Valle' leave
Mollendo from the top end of Mariscal Castilla, by a gas station, and pass through Mejía
and the Río Tambo Valley to reach Cocachacra (S4, 1½ hours). There you can immedi-
ately jump into a
colectivo
heading for El Fiscal (S3, 15 minutes), a flyblown gas station
where crowded buses heading to Moquegua, Tacna, Arequipa and Lima regularly stop.
SANTUARIO NACIONAL LAGUNAS DE MEJÍA
About 6km southeast of Mejía along an unbroken line of beaches this 690-hectare
sanctuary
(Carretera Mol-
lendo, Km 32; admission S5; dawn-dusk)
protects coastal lagoons that are the largest permanent lakes in
1500km of desert coastline. They attract more than 200 species of coastal and migratory birds, best seen in the
very early morning. The visitor center has maps of hiking trails leading through the dunes to
miradors
. From
Mollendo,
colectivos
pass by the visitor center (S3, 30 minutes) frequently during the daytime. Ask the staff to
help you flag down onward transportation, which peters out by the late afternoon.
Moquegua
053 / 56,000 / ELEV 1420M
Clinging to the northern limits of the world's driest desert, Moquegua defies near zero an-
nual rainfall by supporting a thriving wine industry and a valley full of green fields replete
with grazing cows that look like they might have been peeled off the surface of northern
France (it's the rivers, you know). The town itself has a picturesque main square (sup-
posedly designed by Frenchman Gustav Eiffel), but there is little else to detain you from a
fleeting, but by no means unpleasant, overnight stop.
