Theme Week Peru – Chiclayo, Capital of Friendship

24 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  12 minutes

Palacio Municipal © Pitxiquin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Palacio Municipal © Pitxiquin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Chiclayo is the principal city of the Lambayeque region in northern Peru. It is located 13 kilometers inland from the Pacific coast and 770 kilometers from the nation’s capital, Lima. Founded by Spanish explorers as “Santa María de los Valles de Chiclayo” in the 16th century, it was declared a city on 15 April 1835 by president Felipe Santiago Salaverry. He named Chiclayo “the Heroic City” to recognize the courage of its citizens in the fight for independence, a title it still holds. Other nicknames for Chiclayo include “The Capital of Friendship” and the “Pearl of the North”. Chiclayo is Peru’s fourth-largest city, after Lima, Arequipa, and Trujillo, with a population of 738,000 as of 2011. The Lambayeque region is the fourth most populous metropolitan area of Peru, with a population of 973,000 in 2009. The city was founded near an important prehistoric archaeological site, the Northern Wari ruins, which constitute the remains of a city from the 7th to 12th century of the Wari Empire.   read more…

Theme Week Peru – Lima

23 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  22 minutes

Lima City Hall © WMrapids

Lima City Hall © WMrapids

Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the central coastal part of the country, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima Metropolitan Area. With a population of more than 9 million, Lima is one of the largest cities in the Americas. Lima was named by natives in the agricultural region known by native Peruvians as Limaq. It became the capital and most important city in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Following the Peruvian War of Independence, it became the capital of the Republic of Peru (República del Perú). Around one-third of the national population lives in the metropolitan area. Lima is home to one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the New World. The National University of San Marcos, founded on 12 May 1551, during the Viceroyalty of Peru, is the first officially established and the oldest continuously functioning university in the Americas. Nowadays the city is considered to be the political, cultural, financial and commercial center of the country. Internationally, it is one of the thirty most populated urban agglomerations in the world. Due to its geostrategic importance, it has been defined as a “beta” city. Jurisdictionally, the metropolis extends mainly within the province of Lima and in a smaller portion, to the west, within the Constitutional Province of Callao, where the seaport and the Jorge Chávez Airport are located. Both provinces have regional autonomy since 2002.   read more…

Theme Week Peru – Cajamarca, capital of Carneval

22 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Plaza de Armas © Catatine/cc-by-sa-4.0

Plaza de Armas © Catatine/cc-by-sa-4.0

Cajamarca, also known by the Cajamarca Quechua name, Kashamarka, is the capital and largest city of the Cajamarca Region as well as an important cultural and commercial center in the northern Andes. It is located in the northern highlands of Peru at approximately 2,750 m (8,900 ft) above sea level in the valley of the Mashcon river. Cajamarca had an estimated population of about 226,031 inhabitants in 2015, making it the 13th largest city in Peru. Cajamarca has a mild highland climate, and the area has a very fertile soil. The city is well known for its dairy products and mining activity in the surroundings.   read more…

Theme Week Peru – Iquitos, capital of the Peruvian Amazon

21 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Floating houses on the Amazon © flickr.com - Bruno Girin/cc-by-sa-2.0

Floating houses on the Amazon © flickr.com – Bruno Girin/cc-by-sa-2.0

Iquitos, also known as City of Iquitos, is the capital city of Peru‘s Maynas Province and Loreto Region. The largest metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon, east of the Andes, it is the ninth-most populous city of Peru. It is known as the “capital of the Peruvian Amazon”. The city is located in the Great Plains of the Amazon Basin, fed by the Amazon, Nanay, and Itaya rivers. Overall, it constitutes the Iquitos metropolitan area, a conurbation of 471,993 inhabitants consisting of four districts: Iquitos, Punchana, Belén, and San Juan Bautista. It is the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road – it is accessible only by river and air.   read more…

Theme Week Peru – Cusco, capital of the Inca Empire

20 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  16 minutes

Plaza de Armas © Lunaloop/cc-by-sa-4.0

Plaza de Armas © Lunaloop/cc-by-sa-4.0

Cusco is a city in southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru and, in 2017, had a population of 428,450. Its elevation is around 3,400 m (11,200 ft). The city was the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th century until the 16th-century Spanish conquest. In 1983, Cusco was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO with the title “City of Cuzco”. It has become a major tourist destination, hosting nearly 2 million visitors a year. The Constitution of Peru (1993) designates it as the Historical Capital of Peru. The city is served by Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport.   read more…

Theme Week Peru

19 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  18 minutes

Architecture of Paseo Pizzaro in Trujillo © Pitxiquin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Architecture of Paseo Pizzaro in Trujillo © Pitxiquin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is a megadiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River. At 1.28 million km² (0.5 million mi²), Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America.   read more…

Zapallar in Chile

17 February 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

© panoramio.com - Colin W/cc-by-sa-3.0

© panoramio.com – Colin W/cc-by-sa-3.0

Zapallar is a Chilean town and commune located in the Petorca Province, Valparaíso Region. The commune spans an area of 288.0 km² (111 sq mi). Zapallar is located two hours northwest of Santiago and seventy minutes north of greater Valparaíso and Viña del Mar.   read more…

São Marcelo Fort in Salvador da Bahia

26 October 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

© JLPizzol/cc-by-sa-4.0

© JLPizzol/cc-by-sa-4.0

São Marcelo Fort (Portuguese: Forte São Marcelo), also known as Forte de Nossa Senhora do Pópulo e São Marcelo or Forte do Mar, is located in Salvador in Bahia, Brazil. It is located in small bit of land off the coast in the Baía de Todos os Santos. Standing on a small bank of reefs about 300 metres (980 ft) from the coast, it is one of two forts separated by water from land in Brazil, the other being the Fort Tamandaré da Laje Tamandaré in Rio de Janeiro. It is the only cylindrical fort in Brazil. Its design follows those of Castel Sant’Angelo in Italy and Fort of São Lourenço do Bugio in Portugal. It is popularly known as the “Forte do Mar” (Fort of the Sea). It was built to protect the important port city Salvador from threats; the city had the largest number of forts during the colonial period of Brazil. The São Marcelo Fort was listed as a historic structure by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) in 1938. The fort is closed to the public due to construction works. It opened to the public in 2006 after a long period of restoration, but closed again in 2018.   read more…

Huacachina Oasis in Peru

28 September 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Havardtl/cc-by-4.0

© Havardtl/cc-by-4.0

Huacachina is a village built around a small oasis and surrounded by sand dunes in southwestern Peru. It is about five kilometers from the city of Ica in the Ica District of Ica Province. The oasis was introduced as a feature on the back of the 50 nuevo sol note in 1991. Huacachina has a permanent population of around 100 people, although it hosts many tens of thousands of tourists each year. Huacachina is a resort geared to local families from the nearby city of Ica, and increasingly as an attraction for tourists drawn by the sports of sandboarding on the sand dunes that reach several hundred feet high. Other popular activities include dune buggy rides on buggies known locally as areneros.   read more…

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