The country of all superlatives
The Peruvian geography is impressive. Before entering in details, here is a little appetizer. It is here in the south of Peru that we find a canyon of 4 160 meters, the canyon of Colca that the condors fly over, and a few kilometers away the one of Cotahuasi, more confidential and its 2,5 to 3,5 km of depth. A little further, welcome to Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world located at 3,812 meters of altitude. Direction the jungle now where, in the list of the ten highest waterfalls in the world, Peru positions two: Las Tres Hermanas and its waterfall of 914 meters, close to the Cutivireni river but inaccessible, and Yumbilla and its 896 meters in the Amazonas region. It is also in Peru that the Amazon River is born, in the skirts of the volcano Mismi in the region of Arequipa, the most powerful river in the world and the second longest.
3,000 km along the Pacific
Let's start with the Costa. This immense strip of sand, 3,000 km long from north to south and up to 250 km long from east to west, bordering the Pacific and rising to an altitude of 500 m, is inhabited around the 52 or so rivers that flow into the ocean and give rise to veritable cultivated oases on their banks. Of the ten or so rivers that flow into the cold Pacific, only one is navigable, the Tumbes River, on the Ecuadorian border, in the far north. It constitutes an inextricable delta of channels and islands where manglares grow, forming a forest with a rich aquatic fauna.
The Pacific Ocean, also known as the Grau Sea, which covers more than 126 million km², forms a coastline of some 3,000 km in Peru, bordered by cold (Humboldt) and warm (El Niño) currents, each of which has an impact on the climate, fauna and flora. The El Niño phenomenon is occasional and causes torrential rains. The last episode, during the summer of 2017 (December-March), left the northern countryside battered by devastating rains.
Good news along this highly industrialized coast, on June 5, 2021 was born the Reserva National Dorsal de Nasca, the first marine protected area of Peru, that is 62,392 km² of protected ocean or 8% of the Peruvian sea surface. It is 1,100 km long and 200 km wide, and its depths host an underwater mountain range that goes from 1,500 to 4,000 meters deep.
A majestic mountain range
Let's go up in altitude, we are now in the sierra. It is important to keep in mind that this change of landscapes is fast and constant throughout the country, so much so that Lima also counts with its sierra and that we can see from some buildings of the capital the Andes chain taking shape. This rise in altitude is also very fast, often in just a few hours
Parallel to the Pacific coast, the Andes are made up of three mountain ranges: the western, central and eastern sierras , which separate the coastal desert from the Amazonian forests. The sierra records intense volcanic activity, as witnessed by the superb nevados (snow-capped mountains) of the Callejón de Huaylas, near Huaraz, the Valley of the Volcanoes near Arequipa, dominated by the mythical, eternally snow-capped Misti volcano, and the thousands of hot springs
The highest mountains are concentrated in the central and southern cordilleras, with an average altitude of 5,300 m. The Cordillera Blanca (department of Ancash) has more than 30 snow-capped peaks above 6,000 m, including the majestic Huascarán which, at 6,768 m, is the highest in the country and thethird highest on the continent, after the Aconcagua, which rises to 6,959 m, and the Nevado Ojos del Salado, both of which are located on the Argentina-Chile border. Another characteristic landscape of the Andes, the puna extends to an average altitude of 4,000 m. The short, hard grass that grows here, the "ichu", feeds the camelids (llamas, alpacas, guanacos and vicuñas) without which the Andes would not be what they are. The puna is mainly found in the Puno region, between the Western and Eastern Cordilleras, on the Altiplano that Peru shares with Bolivia, as does Lake Titicaca. At the lower level, between 3,500 and 4,000 m, there is a transition region between the cold puna and the hot zones. Here there is a great deal of agricultural activity, with impressive terraced crops where all kinds of potatoes and some typically Andean cereals grow, such as quinoa and other grasses of high energetic and nutritional value(maca, kiwicha). The hostile nature of the Andes means that 80% of the cultivated land is not irrigated and is dependent on rainfall. The properties are very fragmented and the yields mediocre: one always uses a summary tool, sometimes inherited from the Incas. During the rainy season, especially from January to April, deadly landslides and mud avalanches, the "huaycos", occur, adding to the distress of the populations. During this period, visitors should be extra vigilant and avoid, as much as possible, road transport on the gullied dirt roads.
The Amazon, the great forgotten one
Finally, when the Andes slowly descend towards the interior of the country, the bushy and tropical hills and the immense Amazonian plain take shape. Let's give the figures once again: 60% of the territory and less than 10% of its population! Many travelers still ignore this region when planning their trip. If you can, devote a few days to it, you will not regret it
The high selva or ceja de selva (the eyebrows of the jungle), comprised between 500 and 2,000 m of altitude, is covered with dense vegetation. These regions are mainly populated by indigenous settlers of the sierra who, due to the crises of the last decades, have been forced to leave the country. This movement gave rise to the construction, in the 1960s, of the Carretera Marginal de la Selva, which unites the northern selva with the southern one and allows trade. It is also in the regions of the high selva , in the center of Peru in the region of Ayacucho, that the armed revolutionary groups of the Shining Path and the MRTA (Revolutionary Movement Túpac Amaru) took refuge. Today, with the redeployment of poppy crops worldwide, the high selva is seeing the development of a new type of illegal crop.
The low selva or Amazonia is located between 80 and 400 m of altitude and covers the bed of the Amazon, the longest river in the world. The latter receives the tributaries born in the Andes, the Ucayali and the Marañon. The official source of the Amazon is the Nevado Mismi, about 20 km northwest of Chivay. The Apacheta torrent, which flows from the northern cliff of the mountain, is considered the furthest source of the Amazon network from the river mouth. Of the 6,800 km of its course, only 680 km are in Peru, but its tributaries are endowed with the same finery: turbid waters, immense width and infinite expanses. The name Amazon (Amazonas in Spanish) would have been given to the river by the conquistador Orellana who had to fight against formidable warriors, the Amazons. Here, the rivers cross each other, drawing lazy meanders, bathing a luxuriant vegetation populated by an exuberant fauna and periodically flooding the villages built on stilts. The rivers are, along with the airplane, the only means of access to the populated areas. There are two distinct periods in the Amazon: the period when the waters rise (from December to April) and the period when the waters subside and reveal more vegetation (from May to November). Depending on the type of animals you wish to observe, this is a criterion to take into account. As well as the direction of the river: depending on whether you are traveling along the current or against the current, the travel time will sometimes be modified by a whole day
A real seismic threat
In Peru we find the geological pattern of all South America, which contrasts a stable eastern zone (the Amazon in the north, the pampas in the south) and a western zone (the Andes) with strong tectonic and seismic activity. This activity is due to the subduction of the Pacific Oceanic plate under the South American continental plate. The oceanic plate, plunging to the center of the Earth, melts, then rises under the continental plate of the Andes and generates volcanic massifs. The Peruvian Andean zone is separated from north to south in two bands by the broad Puna Plateau. There is intense volcanic activity, particularly in the south, with lava sheets covering the plateaus. The eastern plains area, which rests on a secondary and tertiary basin, has soils rich in hydrocarbons and gas.
As a result of this geological entanglement, the earth trembles in Peru quite regularly. The region of Pisco was devastated by a terrible earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale) in August 2007, killing over 500 people. Many hotels and monuments were destroyed on that occasion. More recently, other earthquakes occurred in the fall of 2011, causing further destruction. The affected areas are slowly being rebuilt and unfortunately some monuments are not saved. The recent episodes have remained reasonable, but the concern is real. You will often see circles marked with the S sign on the ground which represent the areas where to gather in case of a seismo or earthquake.
