Around Tumbes
Cabeza de Vaca Archeological Remains
Located 5 km / 3 miles from city of Tumbes (10 minutes by car) in the district of Corrales.
This adobe and stone archeological site was occupied before the Incas during the reign of the Chimu but also during the Inca Empire. The investigators have found pieces of pottery, bones, stone instruments, and a workshop in which artisans used to create items using shells such as spondylous and other bivalve mollusks. Likewise, an 8 km pathway (5 miles) constructed from small rounded stones has been found that connects the archeological site with the shore, an irrigation ditch, and a truncated pyramid or adobe huaca called. “Cabeza de Vaca” (cow head) that is 250 meters long (820 feet), 100 meters wide (328 feet), and 15 meters high (49 feet).
Rural Community El Bendito
El Bendito is a rural community located on the southwest boundary of the Mangrove of Tumbes National Sactuary, where the inhabitants live from gathering black scallops and catching prawns. Visitors can participate in the gathering of black scallops, take rowboat rides, or relax on the white sandy beach.
Caleta La Cruz
Located 16 km / 10 miles southwest of the city of Tumbes, and is the historical place where he landed the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and his forces in 1532 to begin the conquest of Peru. In its beaches placed a cross as a symbol of Christianity, which gave the name of the current Caleta La Cruz. The true cross is now housed in the National Museum of Anthropology Archaeology and History in Lima. Caleta La Cruz is a tranquil spa and clean waters ideal for some water sports, horseback riding enter many others, has all the services, lodging, restaurants Internet, a fishing port and is one of the most visited beaches during the summer by the locals, especially so-called kilometer 19.
Located 40 km / 25 miles from city of Tumbes (45 minutes by car). South of Zorritos, the water bubbles through a layer of fine clay where it forms a mixture much like the pure liquid clay used by potters, with elements of iodine, chlorine, and iron which is supposed to have medicinal properties. The concentration of mineral substances in the solution gives it the aspect of a volcano of mud or some type of boiling liquid.
District of Zarumilla, located 30 km / 18.8 miles northeast of the city of Tumbes on the border with Ecuador, linked with Ecuadorian town of Huaquillas through a bridge border post with customs and immigration services. Town of 13,000 inhabitants with border trade. It is the starting point of the North Pan American Highway entering from Ecuador.