Visit Balconés Point!

This is the last place in South America to enjoy a sunset.

 

 

 

Photographs by Ethniko Negritos.

 

LA BREA, Peru – The most occidental mainland in South America is in Piura Department. It’s easy to see in a map, but the sensation is other on the field. It’s a great natural landscape system with a view to the enormous Pacific Ocean.

 

If you get to this place, as much as you get to the edge, you’ll be the one among the other people across south America who gets more into the sea… not needing to get into the water, not needing to get out the continent, or going to an island, aboarding a ship either.

 

The point was named Balconés in Spanish because the promontory seems to be a set of shelves or balconies viewing to the sea. Only that in this case, the architect was Nature. Even the full promontory is called La Mesa Mount (Cerro La Mesa), that highlights of the rest of the beach and the own coastal plateau, that is aactually the continental platform submitted to a slow geologic raising process. Balconés Point (Punta Balconés) is part of this natural formation.

 

How to get to?

It’s 16 km or 10 mi away to the northwest of Talara Airport (TIL), it’s possible to see when the plane approaches to land. By private transportation, the trip takes around half an hour, but by public transportation, the time is the double.

 

Getting out of TIL, or any bus station, you have to get to one of both stops to Negritos. The car’s one is in Talara Baja near a supermarket. The VAN’s one is next to the MINSA local office. In the first place, the trip costs around a dollar and a half. In the second one, about 75 cents (U.S. dollar). Contact here to know the updated price.

 

Both services arrive to Grau Square (Plaza Grau) in Negritos, capital city of La Brea District. We can go from here to Balconés Point by mototaxi. The trip costs around a dollar and a half. Contact here to know the updated price.

 

You can realize you are going through the right way when you get first to Las Bombas Beach (Playa Las Bombas), then you go rimming La Mesa Mount until climbing to a rocky formation. The trip finishes in two natural oriels.

 

The most occidental circuit in South America

This place is twice interesting. First, the biodiversity. Second, the shells and other fossils of molusks. This means that La Mesa Mount and Balconés Point were drowned in the sea maybe 2.6 million years ago when the Pleistocene began.

 

The top of La Mesa Mount has a milestone marking the landspot (the exact coordinates are, if you bring a GPS device, 4°40'13" South latitude, 81°19'38" west longitude). This is the best place to look at the full landscape that combines land and sea. Lovers of fishing and hiking have a spot here to show their skills.

 

There is a cave in the base of Balconés Point, accessible when the tide is low. The rocks are filled by fossils while the sea lions (Arctophoca australis ssp.) use it like a shelter.

 

There are four cliffs or rocky islets in front of Balconés Poin, already in the sea, slopes in straight vertical, that sea lions use like a place of meeting and shelter. The Peruvian bobbies (Sula variegata) and the guanayes (Leucocarbo bougainvillii) are abundant here too.

 

FACTORTIERRA: The marine shelter of Piura and Tumbés.

 

The most occidental beach in south America

Punta Balconés Beach is extended between La Mesa Mount and Pariñas Point, forming a little cove. About this feature, be pretty careful that even Wikipedia and some touristic guides confuse Balconés Point like Pariñas Point. They are actually two different places, so Pariñas is is most to the south than Balconés – lightly more eastern too.

 

The water in Punta Balconés Beach is mostly temperate due to the confluence of Currents of Humboldt and el Niño, almost at the northern border of temperate-Tropical Pacific Area. The temperatures use to fall from May to November, although you can check out here the actual weather conditions. The beach is ideal to do surfing and windsurfing.

 

When the tide gets down, little ponds form at the rockies where you can see the marine flora and fauna. If your plan is staying more than one day, there are two good hotels in the zone where you can rest. For more information, contact this local touristic operator, say it: “I’ve seen on FACTORTIERRA!”

 

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