FROM A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW. PERU FROM ABOVE
Peru offers an unforgettable experience to anyone who visits it. Machu Picchu is surely one of its most representative monuments, but the country offers much more.
We invite you to discover the country from above, to climb up to its most beautiful summits and enjoy the best views and the most majestic monuments thanks to the magnificent mountain ranges that run through Peruand which are part of its spectacular landscape and certainly of its history. Let yourself go and feel yourself flying from:
THE CABLE CAR OF KUELAP.
The Kuelap’s cable car is one of the last novelties this 2017.
The pre-Inca archaeological site of Kuelap is now more accessible thanks to the opening of a cable car.
Built between the sixth and sixteenth centuries by the Chachapoya culture on a hill, about 3000 metres above sea level, the fortress of Kuelap is the largest stone structure in South America (which includes about 450 buildings).
Rediscovered in 1843, it was declared a cultural heritage in 2003.
It’s important to emphasise that this is the first cable car system in Peru and that thanks to the fort can be reached in only twenty minutes, which allows its visitors to access an alternative route.
MACCHU PICHU.
Machu Picchu is an Inca city with temples, palaces, platforms and waterways that illustrate what a great civilization was able to build with large blocks of stone, without any help and with the greatest wisdom.
The historic site is located 2490 metres above sea level in the province of Urubamba, 112.5 kilometres northeast of the city of Cusco. According to research, Machu Picchu was built in the fifteenth century by the Inca Pachacutec.
Due to its important historical legacy, it is considered, since 1983, as World Cultural and Natural Heritage as well as one of the wonders of the modern world.
THE BELMOND ANDEAN EXPLORER, THE MOST ROMANTIC TRIP.
The new train service of Peru Rail, the Belmond Andean Explorer, has operated on the Cusco-Arequipa-Puno route since last May.
It’s a luxury train for up with a capacity of sixty-eight passengers in spectacular en-suite cabins of different categories for two people (Deluxe cabins with double bed, Junior cabins with double bed, Junior cabins with two single beds and cabins with bunk beds).
In addition, the train has two restaurant cars, an observatory car, a bar car and a spa car, a real luxury on rails!
The Andean Explorer offers different itineraries that run through some of the most impressive landscapes in the world and allow guests to connect with the rich vegetation of the south of the country.
For example, “El Altiplano Peruano” is a two-night and three-day trip that leaves from Cusco, crossing the highest plains of the Andes at 4800 meters above sea level, until reaching Puno, where you can visit the villages and the floating islands in Lake Titicaca; the trip continues to Arequipa, where one of the attractions of the trip is the exploration of the Colca Canyon.
THROUGH ADVENTURE: SANDBOARDING, PARAGLIDING OR CANOEING.
The latest in adventure is sandboarding. In Peru we can find the highest dune in the world with 2078 meters high, in Cerro Blanco (20 kilometres from Nazca).
This type of snowboarding consists in sliding on a board down the huge Peruvian dunes.
The Colca River, in Arequipa, is one of the best places for canoeing, kayaking and rafting. It’s an experience suitable only for the most daring: the rapids present a V difficulty, which certainly turns it into a real adventure.
And continuing with the extreme adrenaline, another of the most entertaining sports, which provides the most spectacular views, is to fly doing paragliding or hang-gliding.
It’s a different way of tourism, a different way of enjoying these unique scenarios while doing sport.
The possibilities are endless and extend from the Pan de Azúcar Hill in Yungay, where you can appreciate the great contrast between the Cordillera Negra and the Cordillera Blanca, passing through the Sacred Valley of the Incas until flying over the city of Lima and observing the Costa Verde. A real challenge.
FLYING OVER THE NASCA LINES.
This list would not be complete without it. The best way to observe these ancient geoglyphs, located in the Nazca desert and that stand out for being composed by figures of different designs, is from the air, in a plane.
These shapes can be geometrical, zoomorphic or phytomorphic and extend over an area of 750 square kilometres and its length ranges between 50 and 300 metres.
The travelers’ favourite tend to be those of the Hummingbird, because of their harmonic dimensions, and those of the Monkey, which have nothing more, nothing less than nine fingers and a spiral-shaped tail.
The mystery of these geoglyphs lies in how complex it could meant to build them from the ground, as they are stylised figures, performed in one single stroke.
UNESCO named them World Heritage in 1994. An unforgettable experience!