Exploring Peru

Followers 2

Entry posted by korver · June 25, 2021

678 Views

true earth

After taking a trip through one of Peru's most impressive natural wonders in the previous update - today, we'll be exploring even more of the country's most unique and amazing sights. Peru is truly a land of of many wonders - and we'll be traveling the coasts, forests, and mountains in search of some of the country's best scenes.

Spoiler

Let's begin with a look over the country's most important port city - Callao. Situated on the country's arid Pacific coast, it's turned into a bustling metropolis over the years and has a well-preserved colonial center that you'll want to make sure that you check out.

Peru is a country full of amazing ruins and historical sites - and the famed Incan empire once called La Centinela on the country's southern Pacific coast home. Today, its reduced to rubble and ruin amongst farms and scrubland - but in ancient times, it was one of the region's greatest cities.

We get back on the Pan-American highway and take it a few hundred miles north until we reach the home of another one of Peru's greatest ancient civilizations, the Chimu.
They once lived in the vast adobe complex of Chan Chan - lasting from AD 850 to 1470, it was once one Peru's most powerful cities and today is a cultural symbol of the country.

One of Peru's most unique cities can be found deep in the Peruvian Amazon - Iquitos. The largest city in the world unreachable by road, this inland port on the Amazon river is partly located on land and on stilts in the city's Belen District. The rain continues to pour down during the duration of our stay here, even breaking out into a violent thunderstorm at times - the weather here can be unforgiving at times.

We travel even further inland, and reach the heart of the Peru where some of the country's most famous and beautiful sights can be found. The Urubamba River has carved deep into the landscape over the millennia, and small farming villages like Taray sit along it's banks.

Here we see a view of the Urubamba as it continues to wind it's way toward the Amazon River - one more river that feeds the world's largest watershed.

Sitting high above the Urubamba is none other than the iconic Incan citadel of Machu Picchu. Built in the 15th century and later abandoned, it’s renowned for its sophisticated dry-stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar, intriguing buildings that play on astronomical alignments and panoramic views. Its exact former use remains a mystery.

Other remnants of Incan life can be found all across the country - and the salt pools at Maras have been in use since ancient times and are now a popular tourist destination in the region.

While the massive peaks that tower over the interior of the country can be quite beautiful - they also present a grave danger to those that live in this part of the world. In 1970, the small village of Yungay was completely engulfed by a mud flow from nearby Nevado Huascaran, which had a huge slab of rock crumble off it's summit - and nearly 18,000 perished in the tragedy. Here we see a time lapse of the town - before and after the horrible disaster.

And finally, a look at Nevado Huascaran itself - standing 22,205 feet tall, it's the country's highest point and one of the continent's most imposing and impressive peaks from above.