Friday, March 26, 2010

Machu Picchu, Amazon and Arequipa, best attractions of Peru, says The Telegraph

Machu Picchu, the Amazon River and Arequipa are the best attractions of Peru, according to an article published by British Telegraph and writen by Chris Moss, which offers a guide to the Andean country, ahead of this year's celebrations to mark the bicentenary of Latin America's fight for independence.

According to "Peru: a guide for beginners", the top six attractions are Machu Picchu (reopening in April, after recent floods), whether by train, trek or bus; Iquitos and the Upper Amazon river; and Arequipa, known as the ciudad blanca for its buildings made from pearly white volcanic material, and a Unesco World Heritage site.

Also the archaeological site of Chan Chan, including the ruins of the largest adobe city in the world; the high peaks of the Cordillera Blanca to see tropical glaciers and turquoise lakes on off-the-beaten-track hikes; and the mysterious, geometrical Nazca Lines, thought to have been etched into the stony desert as far back as 900BC.

For Chris Moss, Cusco is the best city of Peru because it has many impressive monasteries, churches and pre-Columbian buildings and is, as Che Guevara recorded in The Motorcycle Diaries, tangibly "the navel of the Inca world".

He also recommends tourists to buy a bottle of Peruvian pisco, the national firewater, and read Hugh Thomson's The White Rock, which deftly combines a history of the last days of the Incas with a gripping story about the search for lost cities buried in uncharted corners of the Sacred Valley.

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