Peru is not only located high up on the map of western South America – it is high up. Many of the major tourist destinations such as Machu Picchu are located at high altitudes, but more about that later. The country borders Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil to the east, and Bolivia to the south-east. Chile is to the south and the Pacific Ocean is to the west.
There are so many interesting travel destinations in Peru that you are spoilt for choice, but if we had to choose one, here it is:
Machu Picchu is quite literally the high point of any trip to Peru! There are many ways to get there – you can make the fairly strenuous hike or be transported there in comfort on a full-day excursion from Cuzco. However you arrive, the experience is still amazing. A little background info on it.
The Incan Empire was already well-established when the Spanish arrived in South America in the 1500s. The Incas had already built up a huge empire that stretched all the way from Colombia in the north to northern Argentina and Chile in the south.
It was big in every way: the Incan Empire numbered some 15 million Indians. But the arrival of the brutal Spanish conquerors changed all that, as one Inca city after the other fell to their superior military might. Only Machu Picchu was spared, because at 2,430 metres above sea-level, they never even found it! Slowly, however, the city slid into oblivion until an American historian and explorer discovered the abandoned ruins in 1911. Today, what is often referred to as “The Lost City of the Incas” was voted one of the seven “New Wonders of the World” in an internet poll of global travellers, and it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
Peru is one of the major adventure travel destinations in this world with great beauty and an amazing past and cultural influence.
Capital: Lima
Area: 1.285.000 sq. km.
Currency: Nuevo sol
President: Pedro Pablo Kuczynski
Population: 31.38 million
Official languages: Spanish, Aymara
Read about other adventure destinations such as Palawan Island in the Philippines
Palawan Filippinerne
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