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LIST OF PROJECTS IN PERU

PERU

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BIENVENIDO! - and Welcome to Peru!
The land of the Amazon, the Incas, the Andes and Lake Titicaca.

A trip to Peru is a journey into a magical dimension! See the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu. With its air of mystery and awesome grandeur, It's the best known and most spectacular archaeological site in South America. And, of course, the amazing Amazon Rainforest is definitely one of the Top 10 things to do in your lifetime.

More about Peru...

Once you pass through the shabby modern part of town near the airport, Cusco (or Qosqo, its official Quechua spelling) is a magical little island of colonial architecture, almost completely unspoiled by modern intrusions. More than that, many of the colonial buildings are built on, over and around Inca walls, arches and doorways, and many of the narrow streets in the centre of the town are lined with original Inca stonework, with its typical inward slope and perfect mortar-less joins, now serving as the foundations for more modern dwellings or churches (Cusco was once the capital of the vast Inca empire - one of the world's greatest planned societies - from the 11th Century to its death in the early 16th Century).

Surrounding the city and its red roofs, rise stark, beige-coloured hills and mountains. Its inhabitants are mostly Quechua Indians, directly descended from the Incas, many dressed in the colourful traditional dress of the area.

This colorful, picturesque town has almost 300,000 residents and remains an important city. Although Qosqo was heavily damaged by the Spaniards (whose architectural legacy is obvious), the Inca city is still very much in evidence. Walls, doorways, foundations, arches, and even decorative stonework are found throughout the city, incorporated into newer structures like fragments of a broken mosaic.

Cusco also contains some more extensive Inca ruins, including the Temples of the Sun and the Moon.

The city is also the acclimatization point for the celebrated high altitude trek along the trail of the Incas. Getting acclimatized is a very necessary step before attempting the trek, but most people thoroughly enjoy the time they spend here and the fascinating exploration of the region that you can do from Cusco.

The main square, the Plaza de Armas, is quite beautiful, despite the major repair and maintenance work going on in its centre and around the edges. It is dominated by the early 17th Century baroque Cathedral, and the equally ornate Jesuit church on one of its other sides. The other sides are lined with stores, tour agents and houses, fronted by colonnaded walkways, many having ornately-carved wooden balconies at first floor level.

From the square radiate narrow streets and alleyways, many cobbled, leading to other smaller, more peaceful, squares, and to numerous other colonial churches. There is very little modern development to spoil the overall effect.

This 3-5 day journey is widely considered to be the most spectacular trekking experience on the continent. Its route passes through a 13,000-foot Andean pass beyond which lie some of the most astounding artifacts of the Inca civilization. Most of these attractions, unlike the majority of large pre- Columbian structures, lay completely undisturbed for hundreds of years, and much of the trek's fascination is imparted by the sensation of trekking into a region sealed off from time. Starting with the sentry post of Runkuraqay, hikers pass through increasingly splendid ruins, surrounded all the while by ice- capped mountains and forests.

The trail ends at the astonishingly well-preserved sacred city of Machu Picchu, having retraced the route by which the Incas themselves ascended to this ceremonial centre.

Machu Picchu is probably the best-known and most spectacular archeological site on the continent. Apart from a few locals, no-one knew of the existence of the "Lost City of the Incas" until Hiram Bingham stumbled on it almost by accident in 1911, and then returned to clear the thick forest which had overgrown the ruins. It was certainly a complete city, perched on a saddle connecting two high mountains, with residential and agricultural sections and terracing around the edges.

Gazing across the ruins, with its perfectly set stairways, dwellings, fountains and still functional aqueducts, is a haunting experience; so intact is the city that at times it seems its residents have only recently walked away. How Machu Picchu's legecy ended is a great mystery. It was once filled with priests, artisans, and the mamacunas, a group of select virgins who dedicated their lives to the sun god. The Spanish have no records of the city, and when it was rediscovered in 1911, its walls overrun by the nearby jungle, only 173 skeletons were found on the site.

Visitors generally ramble among the stone staircases, terraces, temples, palaces, towers and houses. There are several different styles of stonework exhibited, although all beautifully executed and all without the aid of mortar. Everyone eventually finds at the vantage point from where most of the photos of the ruins are taken, with the backdrop of the dramatic peak of Huayna Picchu (apparently not too difficult to climb). The ruins - impressive though they are - almost pale into insignificance against the spectacular mountain setting.

Peru is the source of the Amazon Basin, which originates in the highlands of the east, an area mostly inaccessible to humans. The region possesses unmatched biological diversity. It is the turf of rare, magnificent, and reclusive creatures such as the jaguar, Andean spectacled bear, giant otter, and tapir. The bird population of the Amazon Basin, and of Peru for that matter, is on a completely different level than the rest of the world. With 1,700 species of birds, the country is an unparalleled destination for ornithologists and bird enthusiasts.

Peru has two distinct regions of Amazonian rain forest, one in the north and one in the south. Iquitos, situated at the Amazon headwaters the north, is the ideal point of entry for northern Amazon, while the southern regions are best accessed from either Cuzco or Puerto Maldonado.

Both the north and the south are famously wealthy in rivers, cloud forests, wildlife, and indigenous peoples, and for those seeking adventure in the Peruvian jungle, visits to each would be ideal. In either place, bring a pair of binoculars to view the extraordinary creatures of the rain forest.

COLCA CANYON
To this day, there is no agreement as to whether Colca Canyon is the deepest terrestrial chasm in the world, but no one challenges the fact that it is one of nature's most awe-inspiring sights. Standing on the canyon's edge, the great expanse of space overwhelms the senses, commanding respect for nature's creative forces. Carved over eons by the Colca River, it stretches about 60 kilometers from its eastern extremity at the town of Chivay to Cabanaconde, in the west. By the time the river reaches Cabanaconde, it has fallen about 1,300 meters in elevation.

Though the canyon received surprisingly little attention from western explorers until this century, it was well-known even before the Incas. In some places, stone-supported terraces built by the Incas and their predecessors trickle down the canyon slopes, many of them still functional. Small towns and villages sit atop the canyon banks on both sides, beginning with Chivay, which is known for its hot springs and as the main portal for exploring the chasm.

Moving west on the canyon's southern edge, travellers encounter the villages of Achoma and Maca, where local women wear intricate and colourful mountain dresses identical to those of their ancestors. At the nearby Mirador ruz del Condor, visitors are often blessed with visions of rare, giant Andean condors as they ride the morning thermals rising from the canyon floor.

Trekking in the Colca Canyon
The nine villages lining the edges of the canyon provide trekkers with a host of connect-the-dots routes, allowing for a great deal of improvisation in one's itinerary. There are numerous points of descent into the canyon, though their accessibility often depends upon the amount of rainfall. When travel ing in the canyon, it is essential that trekkers bring plenty of water, as dehydration can occur rapidly here.

THE ATACAMA DESERT
This tapered area of lowland runs along the coast and hosts the three major cities of Lima, Trujillo, and Chiclayo. The land is bone dry and the curious desert landscape is made more evocative by the hovering thick fog resulting from the impact of the freezing waters with the rise of the heated sands of the Atacama.

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