Peru: Amazon Rainforest

 

Along with being a great place to see some rich cultural and indigenous heritage, Peru is also a great place to explore the Amazon Rainforest. Sixty percent of the country is covered by the Amazon. These forests are protected by different environmental laws, so they are pure and not destroyed by humans.

Most of the Peruvian Amazon, with the exception of the region near the Andes Mountains is called the lowland jungle. This part of the Amazon is extremely warm, with an average temperature of over 80 degrees Fahrenheit and with humidity usually over 75%. The rainforest gets over 100 inches of rain a
year, which is one of the highest rainfall amounts in the world.

 There is great biodiversity in the Peruvian Amazon with numerous species of plants and animals that have been discovered, and even more that have not yet been discovered. There are more types of trees in the Amazon Rainforest than in any other place on earth. The Peruvian Amazon contains over 2,500 types of butterflies, 697 types of fish, 806 species of birds as well as numerous types of bugs and other organisms. And that's just what's been discovered so far. There are many scientists who believe that most of the organisms that reside in the Peruvian Amazon have yet to be discovered. While I could get into more detail and spend more time describing the Peruvian Amazon and all the creatures in it, this is beauty you really have to see:

 Pink Hibiscus

Scarlet Flowers

Butterflies

Jaguar

Pink Nose Dolphin

Squirrel Monkey

Toucan

Poison Dart Frog

Those are just a few of the millions of species that reside in the Amazon Rainforest. It is quite amazing how diverse this beautiful part of Peru is! I hope you have been enjoying our trip so far; we've spent a lot of time exploring just a few countries, and there are so many more to explore. So, let's leave this beautiful part of the world behind us so we can continue on to yet another destination: Italy!

Peru: Machu Picchu

So, I promised you that on our stop to Peru we would visited three cultural sites, so today we will visit our third: Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is an extremely famous Incan site located in in the southern part of Peru. This site was discovered in 1911, and it is believed that it was built as an estate for the Incan emperor Pachacuti. This estate was built in the 1400s, before the Spanish conquest of Peru. The Spanish never found this site during their conquest, and so the site was amazingly well preserved allowing us to learn a lot about the Incans, their lifestyles, and their culture. In 1983, Macchu Picchu became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered by many to be one of the new seven wonders of the world.

We are very lucky to be able to visit this site, as there have been problems with tourism at Macchu Picchu. The increased number of tourists that want to visit this site has put extreme stress on the estate. Starting in July of 2011, restrictions were put on how many people could visit the site. Only 2,500 people are allowed to visited Macchu Picchu each day. Although companies have tried to do tours from the sky over Macchu Piccho as well, a no fly zone has been put in place over the ruins, preventing this from occurring.

To get to Macchu Picchu we must start at the city Cusco. From here, we can walk along the Incan Trail. This road was built by the Incans to lead to Macchu Picchu. We must walk through the Andes Mountain Range on this road to get to Macchu Picchu. This journey will likely take us two to four days to complete.

Now that we have arrived at Machu Picchu, we can enjoy the ruins of this great estate. The architecture of the Incans was quite remarkable for the time. Many of the buildings and walls built in Macchu Picchu were earthquake resistant. Although the Incans knew about the wheel and used it in the building of toys for children, it is believed that it was not used at all for engineering. Archaeologists still do not know how the Incas were able to move the huge stones that were used in the building of this estates, although some speculate that hundreds of men simply pushed them to where they needed to go.

There is a sacred district of Macchu Picchu that involved different temples and structures related to the religious beliefs of the Incas. The Incans were polytheistic, believing in many deities. This is the Temple of the Sun which was dedicated to Inti the sun god and greatest deity in Incan religion. The Incans believed in reincarnation. They believed that those who lived by Incan codes got to spend eternity in the warmth of the sun, while those that did not had to remain in the cold of the earth. The Incans performed human sacrifices and in particular child sacrifices. This was especially true during famine or after the death of an important person.

Along with religious sites, Macchu Picchu also includes buildings both for nobility and poorer people. Many buildings were simple storage buildings and simple houses for the lower class. However, there were also much grander houses where nobility and "wise persons" resided on this estate.

The last thing I want to look at in Macchu Picchu is the Intihuatana stone. This is one of the ritual stones in South America. Ritual stones were placed in such a way that they would point directly at the sun during the winter solstice. It is believed that these stones were built as clock or calendar so people could keep track of time based on astronomy. It is also thought that the Incans believed that this stone held the sun in place while it moved along its path in the sky. 

Peru: Sipán and Caral

Welcome to Peru! I hope you all enjoyed your flight. I must say, I'm excited to be here. I don't know as much about South America and its culture as I do about Europe and Asia, so I'm very excited to start learning a little bit about this part of the world!

Peru is located in western part of South America boarding the Pacific Ocean.  The capital and largest city of this country is Lima. This country was once home to several ancient cultures, making it rife with cultural sites we can visit. In the 16th century this country, along with much of South America, was conquered by the Spanish Empire. The country then gained its independence from Spain in 1821. The history of this country has affected the languages spoken. The official language of Peru is Spanish, influenced by the time it was under Spanish reign. However, many people there speak native languages, such as Quechua, that were spoken before the invasion of the Spanish.

So, as I said, one thing that makes Peru so exciting to visit is that the country has so much culture and history. There were several ancient cultures that lived in Peru, and some of the architecture from these cultures has been preserved. While there are numerous sites that are wonderful to visit, on this trip we are going to visit three: Sipán, Caral, and Machu Picchu.

The first archeological site that we'll visit on our trip is Sipán. Sipán is an archeological site of the Moche people. The Moche were an ancient civilization that resided in what is today northern Peru from around 100 AD to 800 AD. Sipán is mostly known for the tombs that were discovered there in 1987. What was remarkable about the discovery was the fact that the tombs had not been looted or found by others, and were therefore intact when discovered. The most famous tomb found here is that of the Lord of Sipán.

While here, we should also visit the Royal Tombs of Sipan Museum. Many of the objects discovered in the tomb, as well as the remains of the Lord of Sipán and a few others have been set up in this museum so they can be preserved and viewed by others. By looking at the objects preserved all these years, we can learn a lot about the culture of the Moche people.


Our next cultural site in Peru is Caral. What makes Caral so unique to visit is the fact that it is the most ancient city in the Americas. This ancient city was settled in the Supe Valley by the Caral (or Norte Chico) civilization. It is believed that the Caral people resided in this city from around 2600 BC to 2000 BC and that at one point, more than 3,000 people resided in this area.  

What is also very interesting about Caral are the pyramids there. There is the Main Pyramids of Caral which is 60ft tall. There are also 19 smaller pyramids that have been found in the area of the Supe Valley and it is believed that these were built by the Caral civilization as well. It is interesting to note that the existance of this civilzation and the building of these pyramids occured around the same time in Egypt.

Many other things have been discovered that give us insight into how this ancient civilization went about day to day life. Temples and houses have been found as well as musical instruments, jewelery and day to day household objects. It appears that the Caral people had a complex, developed civilization. Although all of these artifacts have been found, there have been no weapons, mutilated bodies, or other signs of war or violence discovered. It appears that the Caral people were a peaceful people.