Las Palmeras de Yaranche's Coppers

Another place to be one else with Nature - the water too.

 

By Marco Flores, Marco Paulini and Nelson Peñaherrera
All photographs by Marco Flores and Marco Paulini.

 

    

     TAMBOGRANDE, Peru - One of the Nature's sounds with a soothing power on the mind, even not seeing where it comes from, is the water falling in cascades and opening its way up in its own course.

 

In Las Palmeras de Yaranche, San Francisco Creek has created a place where  the sound of the water falling down little steps is not enough, so it has built a natural amphitheater allowing to watch and hear it from  the high as well as front row. If you sit down in the rim and get focused in the sound, you will enjoy a stereophony that you will hardly find at the movies. If we add the birds tweeting, living, and flying among the carobs, you will have the best surround sound experience, that should be uncomparable to the best sound engineer.

If you open up your eyes, within the blue sky (when it is clear), the ocher sand at the highest part, the erratic degrade of the rock from gray to yellow, the green vegetation, and the transparent water where it gets to rest after falling to continue down the creek, you will have an eternal last generation high-definition experience. And we have to add the chromatic changes according to the Sun moving, raising, or setting down.

    Geomorphology For Beginners
Las Palmeras de Yaranche's Coppers is one of the touristic places that was made naturally for enjoying focused on the power of the water, as a landscape modifier in the beginning, but as an outdoors element with artistic and architectonic intuition hard to be imitated, in the most subliminal perspective

The coppers set is joined by little cascades those went creating stepped ponds until the lowest level, where it has carved a kind of pool that could be until 40 meters or 130 feet diameter and 2 meters or 6 feet  in the deepest point, and ever the water flow is regular.

The whole is worked  in sedimentarian rock at the middle and igneus rock  at the sides. According to  geological surveys made during the last 40 years across Tambogrande District, the most logical explanation of this place is some incandescent mass emerging up the surface where it  cooled, perhaps 100 to 66 million years ago at least, during the Upper Cretaceus, the last period of Mesozoic Age, formerly known as Secoundary Age. This fact has to be locally proven by some geological survey.

    The rest was made by San Francisco Creek, a Piura River's tributary, fracturing the rock as it was going down during millions of years. Currently, the water course is used by San Lorenzo Dam (Las Lomas) as a natural spillway, so the flow will depend on how much liquid is sent from there out.

The coppers are located just where the creekdetours its North-South course taking a Norwest-Southwest trace, 1 km or 0,6 miles  to the South of Las Palmeras de Yaranche Village, Tejedores Sector, located 25 km or 16 miles to the Northeast of Tambogrande City. There is any geodesical survey neither, but it is probable the set altitude  is 90-100 meters or 295-328

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    Access & Managing
You can get it from Sullana or Piura cities, taking Tambogrande City as a stop, or going directly to Cruceta Town, through the Andean way of North Pan-American Highway. You take the road to Tejedores right there, turning right, paying attention to signs those inform where to turn left again, and going straight ahead until the welcome sign. The road from Cruceta is compact dust.

From Chulucanas City, you take the road to Tambogrande, cross San Francisco Creek until getting Cruce de Vega (te route is asphalted). Turn to Palominos, take the road to 23-5, pass aside Pueblo Nuevo de Tejedores, get to the detour sign, then turn right until the welcome sign (the road is compact dust). Although there are autos and mototaxis to be taken, we suggest having your own transportation to avoid waiting much time until catching any vehicle.

    As a big part of the Tambogrande District's non-irrigated zone, the touristic place is surrounded, actually embbeded at the Equatorial Dry Forest ecosystem. Many of the specimens are carobs those are conserved by the organized locals now. "The people come here to take a bath 50 years ago,"  Las Palmeras de Yaranche's local governor Flor Sánchez tells. "And we decided to organize in a committee for managing it more than 10 years ago."

The first they did was fencing 4 hectares or 10 acres around the ponds, that now is known as Los Peroles de Las Palmeras de Yaranche Touristic Area. As the years have passed through, they were specifying recreation zones, accesses with stairs, WC, dressing lockers, and even a balcony. The works were funded by Tambogrande District Municipality.

"We began about 11 locals and now we are more than 30 who distribute responsibilities like cleaning, caring the place, and watching  the visitors to be safe," committee's vice-president Gilberto Juárez Nima explains.

    The place is open everyday from 8:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the afternoon. The access per person costs 2 soles or US$ 0,60 (actual conversion). With the collaboration of Farmers' Patrol and the weekly watchdog by the National Police of Peru,  it is possible to carry on your own transportation and leaving it parked  without thefts risk.

    Potential To Work
"In the beginning when we were not organized, the people came in and there were many robberies and assaults; but now we have taken control of the place,  we have any of these problems," Juárez assures.

Inclusive, the frequency of drowning accidents is very rare, even not having a lifeguards service. In fact, it still remains to implement a service chain that increases the self-sustainability of the place as well as the village, because it could create a low-difficulty trekking circuit with the closer Yaranche Hill, and even tejedores Sector, where there are other interest places as Las Lisas Bridge or Carrizalillo's Ancient Carob.

It is possible to camp at the coppers and the safety is guaranteed, prior arrangement with the committee and the Farmers' Patrol. Typical lunch is offered just at the place's entrance, with cheaper prices than restaurants in Tambogrande, Piura or Sullana, but care in preparation  and a flavor that can compete quietly to them.

Although we have to point out that due to the coppers are relatively far from the population, much wild life uses it to feed or drink water. We have detected a wild duck, a kingfisher, and a snake locally known as macanche (Boa constrictor ortonii), so be aware for not having accidents with those specimens.

By the way, for the city's people there is no more intriguing show than seeing the farmers' goats going out to graze around confident since the morning and return to their farmyards at the sunset. Nobody pastors them, but every local knows where to find the lost one in the flock if it does not hit to get back - wherever nobody thinks, there is somebody who ever is watching.

    Additional tip: Plastic artists have here too many inspiration items. The same to the ones who love photography, sound engineering, or cinematography.

So in the value-chain level, there are many things the community can do for the tourist's experience upgrades from amazing and relaxing to highly satisfactory, and attracting not only to  who wants to refresh into the water but  the ones who want to do some adventure sports (rock climbing, rowing, trekking), or pure ecotourism, or  even meditation sessions with the natural environment and the water sound as the star.

And this spiritual connection is really fortifying. After feeling one else with the Nature, the dreaming patterns seem to regulate, the problems seem to be lighter, and the human dimension enriches with many humility and gratitude. Too many benefits for one place alone. It will depend on yourself to find that fulfills you better.

ALSO VISIT: scaring ghosts

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