Peru

Peru sits on the Pacific coast of western South America, bordered by Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. Covering 1,285,216 square kilometres, it is the third-largest country on the continent and home to roughly 33.4 million people. The capital and biggest city is Lima, where about 10 million people live. Spanish is the main language, and Quechua and Aymara are official too in the areas where they prevail.

The Andes split the country into three very different worlds: a narrow desert coast in the west, a highland spine that tops out at 6,768 metres on Huascarán, and the Amazon rainforest in the east, which covers close to 60 percent of the land. On the Bolivian border, Lake Titicaca lies at 3,812 metres and is often called the highest navigable lake on Earth.

For most travellers, Peru means the Incas. Cusco was the capital of their empire, and its colonial houses still rest on Inca stone walls. About 80 kilometres away, Machu Picchu clings to a mountain saddle above the Urubamba River. It was built around 1450 and joined the World Heritage List in 1983. Between the two lies the Sacred Valley, with its farming terraces and the salt pans of Maras.

Yet the country reaches well beyond the Incas. In the south, Arequipa is a white city built of volcanic sillar stone and the gateway to the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest on the planet, where condors glide past the cliffs. On the desert coast, the Nazca Lines were scraped into the ground between 500 BC and AD 500, and nearby the Paracas reserve and the Ballestas Islands teem with seabirds and sea lions. North of Lima stands Caral, the oldest known city in the Americas.

Peru has 13 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among them the historic centre of Lima, Huascarán National Park in the Andes and Manú National Park in the Amazon. Its food has become a reason to visit in its own right: ceviche, raw fish cured in lime juice, is the national dish, while lomo saltado shows how local cooking blended with Chinese influences.

The best time for the highlands and Machu Picchu is the dry season from May to September; in the Andes the rains run from October to April. The currency is the Peruvian sol, the overall price level is about 51 percent of the United States, and the main airports are in Lima and Cusco.[1,2,7,22,9,8,13,16,25,28,29,30,32,33,43,4,41,37,38,6,46,47,18,44,45]Source1. Peru · Wikipedia2. Geography of Peru · Wikipedia7. Huascarán · Wikipedia22. Lake Titicaca · Wikipedia9. Cusco · Wikipedia8. Machu Picchu · Wikipedia13. Sacred Valley · Wikipedia16. Maras, Peru · Wikipedia25. Arequipa · Wikipedia28. Colca Canyon · Wikipedia29. Andean condor · Wikipedia30. Nazca Lines · Wikipedia32. Paracas National Reserve · Wikipedia33. Ballestas Islands · Wikipedia43. Caral · Wikipedia4. Peru — World Heritage properties · UNESCO World Heritage Centre41. Manú National Park · Wikipedia37. Ceviche · Wikipedia38. Lomo saltado · Wikipedia6. Peruvian sol · Wikipedia46. PPP conversion factor, GDP (LCU per international $) — Peru · World Bank47. Official exchange rate (LCU per US$, period average) — Peru · World Bank18. Lima · Wikipedia44. Jorge Chávez International Airport · Wikipedia45. Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport · Wikipedia