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Peru  
   
 
     
Capital: Lima
Area: 1,285,215 sq km
Population: 28.2 million
Currency: Nuevo Sol
Official Languages:
Spanish, Quechua and Aymara
President: Ollanta Humala
Religion: Catholic (81%)
Ethnic Groups:
Amerindians (45%), Mestizo (37%), European (15%), African (3%), Asian
Highest Point: Mount Huascaran 6768m
   
Peru, South America’s third largest country after Brazil and Argentina, offers visitors an impressively wide range of activities and sights, including a plethora of fascinating ancient cultures, diverse and spectacular landscapes, abundant wildlife, and glorious native cuisine.

Whether you are climbing to a 6000m summit, trekking along an ancient Inca path, gazing at the pristine turquoise waters of a glacial lake, wandering through gorgeous alpine valleys, astonished by the precision of Inca stonework, mountain biking through delightful secluded villages, admiring the locals’ hats and colourful traditional clothes, watching a condor gliding gracefully high, or discovering a ‘lost’ city in the Andes;

Whether you are stunned by the sheer beauty and quantity of gold found in long forgotten tombs, discovering the world’s largest pyramids, marveling at the quality Moche ceramics, catching waves along beautiful tropical beaches, strolling through streets of lavish colonial architecture, or amazed and confused by the extraordinary pre-Inca sites dotted along the desert North Coast;

Whether you are flying over mysterious and enigmatic lines etched in the desert pampa, sliding down a giant sand dune, coming face to face with mummies, seeing more marine birds than you thought possible, sampling delicious wine and the famous Pisco sour, or admiring elaborately woven funeral cloths on the South Coast;

Whether you are thrilled by monkey encounters, spooked by a hairy tarantula, dazzled by hundreds of colourful and noisy macaws, scared of being bitten by a bullet ant, surrounded by hundreds of smelly peccaries, amused by the peculiar dancing of the cock-of-the-rock, watching pink dolphins leaping around your canoe, hallucinating during a shaman ceremony, or swinging in a hammock on a riverboat in the Amazon;

Whether you are savouring a mouth-watering ceviche, learning about more civilisations that you knew existed in some world-class museums, jumping off a clifftop while paragliding, staring at the skulls of some of Latin America’s most celebrated saints, or panicking while taking a colectivo ride through the chaotic streets of Lima;

Whatever you are doing, there is no doubt that you are having the time of your life in Peru, a nation whose welcoming population is predominantly of indigenous decent, a beautiful country once the heartland of the great Inca empire that is one of the most ecologically and culturally diverse in the world. Peru is the most varied and exciting country of all the South American nations.

     
   TOP 10 MUSEUMS

1. Museum of the Royal Tombs of Sipan (Lambayeque)
2. Museo Larco (Lima)
3. Museo de Arte Precolombino (Cusco)
4. Museo de Aequeologia (Trujillo)
5. Museo Nacional Sican (Ferreñafe)
6. Museo Nacional Chavin (Chavin)
7. Museo Andres del Castillo (Lima)
8. Museo Regional de Ica (ica)
9. Museo Santury (Arequipa)
10. Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologia e Historia del Peru (Lima)

 
     
              TOP 10 PRE-INCA     ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

1. Kuelap (Chachapoyas)
2. Huaca del Sol (Trujillo)
3. Chan Chan (Trujillo)
4. Chavin de Huantar (Ancash)
5. Sechin (Ancash)
6. Caral (Lima)
7. Tucume (Lambayeque)
8. Karajia (Chachapoyas)
9. Piruro (Huanuco)
10. Huaca el Brujo (La Libertad)
 
     
     
                   TOP 10 INCA       ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

1. Machu Picchu (Sacred Valley)
2. Choquequirau (Vilcabamba)
3. Ollantaytambo (Sacred Valley)
4. Sacsayhuaman (Cusco)
5. Pisac (Sacred Valley)
6. Winay Wayna (Inca Trail)
7. Intipata (Inca Trail)
8. Huanuco Viejo (Huanuco)
9. Tipon (Sacred Valley)
10. Qorikancha (Cusco)
 
     
     
                  TOP 10 TREKS

1. Huayhuash (Ancash)
2. Cedros-Alpamayo-Santa Cruz (Ancash)
3. Inca Trail (Cusco)
4. Salcantay (Cusco)
5. Ishinca-Cojup (Ancash)
6. Quilcayhuanca-Cojup (Ancash)
7. Ausangante (Cusco)
8. Choquequirau (Cusco)
9. Belen Valley (Chachapoyas)
10. Colca Canyon (Arequipa)
 
     
     
                  TOP 10 CLIMBS

1. Alpamayo (Cordillera Blanca)
2. Chopicalqui (Cordillera Blanca)
3. Huascaran (Cordillera Blanca)
4. Pisco (Cordillera Blanca)
5. Mururaju (Cordillera Blanca)
6. Artesonraju (Cordillera Blanca)
7. Ausangante (Cordillera Vilcanota)
8. Coropuna (Arequipa)
9. Chachani (Arequica)
10. El Misti (Arequipa)
 
     
     
                TOP 10 WILDLIFE-               WATCHING SPOTS

1. Parque Nacional Manu (Manu)
2. Reserva Nacional Tambopata (Southern Amazon)
3. Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria (Northern Amazon)
4. Ballestas Islands (Ica)
5. Colca Canyon (Arequipa)
6. Pampa Galeras Vicuña Reserve (Ica)
7. Zona Reservada de Tumbes (Tumbes)
7.
Machu Picchu Santuary (Cusco)
8. Huascaran National Park (Ancash)
9. Lake Salinas (Arequipa)
10. Pampa Hermosa (Central Amazon)
 
     
     
                            TOP 10 LAKES

1. Lake Paron (Cordillera Blanca)
2. Carhuacocha Lake (Cordillera Huayhuash)
3. Lake 69 (Cordillera Blanca)
4. Llanganuco Lakes (Cordillera Blanca)
5. Lake Titicaca (Puno)
6. Lake Cullicocha (Cordillera Blanca)
7. Lake Solterococha (Cordillera Huayhuash)
8. Laguna de los Condores (Chachapoyas)
9. Lago Yarinacocha (Central Amazon)
10. Cocha Salvador (Manu)