The Top 8 Amazing Wonders of Peru
What s up guys! It s Jason here and welcome to my YouTube channel, Travel Insight. You
might think about furry Llamas and big tall mountains when someone mentions Peru, but
do you know what else is amazing about Peru? Lithium. Recent explorations have revealed
the largest Lithium deposits in the world, creating a kind of lithium gold-rush in the
developed world to extract the extremely valuable metal. The various factions of the Peruvian
government are arguing how best to exploit this natural resource. Canada s Plateau Energy
Metals has found 2.5 million tonnes of high-grade lithium resources and 124 million pounds of
uranium resources at its Falchani hard rock deposit, in the Pruno region of Peru. This
enormous find will make Peru the principal Lithium producer on the planet. If you add
Peru s incredible copper mining activities, there is a great potential for economic growth.
Although hunting tools dating more than 11,000 years have been found in caves, the first
settlements which evidence domestication of animals are the Camelid relief paintings in
the Mollepunko caves in Callalli, and they are only 6,000 years old. Ancient Peruvians
domesticated the alpaca, llama, and guinea pig. In Cusco, The Incas built the largest
and most advanced empire of pre-Columbian America; The Tahuantinsuyo, which reached
its greatest extension at the beginning of the 16th century. In 1531, the savage Spanish
put an end to all that looking for gold. Under the brutal leadership of Fransisco Pizzaro,
the natives were reduced to slavery and their history was errased. Today, after centuries
of bloody internal civil wars and a long legacy of abuse and foregin imperialism and interventionism,
Peru stands at the crossroads between democracy and military dictatorship. But Peru also remains
as the undisputed cradle of prehispanic civilization, and it is without a doubt a land of magic,
full of some of the most curious mysteries in all of history. Let us take a look at some
of the most interesting mysteries of Peru that lead us to the past and future of this
amazing country.
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doing that and now let us continue on with the Top 8 Amazing Wonders of Peru.
1 The Cusco Coneheads: It is not a secret that there are thousands
of elongated heads all over the world in museums around the world, but the largest finds of
these strange cone heads all come from the same graveyard in Cusco, in a region known
as Chango, and the discovery was made in the late 1920s, but then conveniently forgotten
by academia and explained away as ritual cranial deformation, a well known practice done all
over the world by a variety of people, from Africans to Mongolians. However, recent investigations
by researchers such as Brien Foerster, reveal an entirely different story. The skulls found
in Peru belonged to a now-extinct human race, and they were ginger-blond haired and pale
skinned. Ancient aliens or just weird extinct humans, it matters not, DNA studies reveal
that these skulls, many of which are supposed to have disappeared around 3000 years ago,
are not even remotely related to current human populations, and even more interesting, they
have DNA that does not match any human or hominid known in our planet.
2 The
Nazca Lines: Alien conehead people are not the only oddity
that points to Ancient Aliens living in Peru thousands of years ago. Giant artworks that
can only be seen from the air, the Nazca Lines are one of the most perturbing mysteries of
the ancient people of Peru. Why were they made if they can only be seen from the air?
As recently as 2019, a group of Japanese investigators found 143 new figures, including humans, and
get this dinosaurs (or fat-Llamas that look like a brontosaurus). The first published
mention of the Nazca Lines was by Pedro Cieza de Le n in his book of 1553 and he thought
they were roads. But now, after centuries of investigation, the mystery of their creation
has only gotten deeper.
3 Machu Picchu. Sadly, this site is not the work of aliens.
It s the work of Emperor Pachacuti, a 15th century monarch who ruled over the Incan Empire.
It was built principally as a private residence for the Emperor and his court. It is perhaps
one of the most amazing feats of architecture past, present, or future. Farming in Machu
Picchu was done in terraces with a clever hydration system that still amazes modern
investigators. In 1983, UNESCO declared Machu Picchu a World Heritage Site. But how did
the Peruvians get up and down a mountain to bring other supplies? And why would they build
in a mountaintop to begin with? With the arrival of the Spanish, the site was completely abandoned
by its owners, perhaps so that the Spanish would not profane it or it s treasures. The
plan worked, and the Spanish did not pay any attention to Machu Picchu (which means something
like place for chewing coca leaves, so we actually do have some idea of what those crazy
natives were doing up there) and the site was not discovered until 1911 by American
Historian Hiram Bingham.
What about modern Peru? Most importantly, it is a land with one of the most important
megabiodiversity populations, with 21,462 known species of which around 6,000 are endemic
to the land, and perhaps many more new species still to be discovered. Few countries have
as many native species, and scientists are still trying to classify and study all of
them. With 1.28 million km2 Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the 3rd
largest in South America. It is home to 33 million souls, 97% of whom are staunch Catholics.
4 People: Peru is strongly multi-ethnic, with various
migrations in prehispanic times and then followed by various waves of European migrations and
African slaves, who were freed in 1854, shortly after Peru gained her independence from Spain
in 1821. Chinese and Japanese workers arrived after 1850, creating the largest Asian population
in South America. Fascinatingly, there are still 15 uncontacted ameri-indian indigenous
tribes living in the Peruvian Amazon who live in voluntary isolation from the modern world.
The official languages in Peru are Spanish, which is spoken by 83% of the population,
Quechua, which is spoken by around 13% and the rest of minority indigeous languages which
represent the rest of the natives and are spoken mostly in local, autonomous native
zones. Roman Catholisim is the official religion, and it is mandated in all schools, although
lately, it has been losing adepts to protestant cults.
5 Agriculture: Peru has the largest variety of potatoes in
the world, with over 3000 species known. The New World exported potatoes, tomatoes and
maize to the Old World long ago. We have already spoken about the incredible biodiversity,
but as far as farming goes, Peru is certainly an important producer of such goods as coffee,
sugarcane, and cotton, which are some of Peru s most important exports. The wool from animals
such alpacas and llamas is also an important export product. There is immense pressure
to convert Peru s forests into timber, but fortunately, Peru s leaders have seen that
this does not happen for now. Peru is one of the few countries on the planet that has
most of its forest reserves relatively untouched. Let's hope they keep it that way.
6 Food: The local cuisine is still strongly influenced
by original, prehispanic dishes. The staples of the Peruvian diet are maize, potatoes,
quinoa, and legumes. Perhaps the best worldwide known dish is the Ceviche, a kind of marinated
raw seafood dish which is the most popular dish in the country. Alpacas and guinea pigs
are eaten in the mountain regions but also beef, pork, and chicken most of which is imported
from other nations. There is a strong attraction for gastronomic tourism in Peru, principally
because one of the main industries is the fishing industry, and the coasts are wonderful
places to eat and the native dishes are simply scrumptious, including papa rellena (stuffed
potatoes), arroz tapado (covered rice) and pollo a la brasa (a kind of roasted chicken
with Peruvian spices). If you go to Peru, don t come back without having tried their
fried piranhas and roasted guinea pigs.
7 The Amazon. Try this sometime: look at google maps and
search all the rivers in the world. Quickly, it will become evident that the last really
blue river around is the Amazon, with all the other great rivers, like the Mississippi,
the Volga and the Ganges looking a kind of grayish-green, sickly polluted color. It is
rather amazing, and slightly disgusting when you realize that the Amazon is the last really
clean river in the world, mostly thanks to the fact that it has not yet been destroyed
and polluted by our so-called civilization. Peru shares the Amazon Basin, and for the
most part, it is still intact. This allows for Peru to continue being the refuge of innumerable,
irreplaceable species. Many scientists refer to the Amazon Basin as The lungs of the world
and rue political policies which endanger the Amazon in the same way as the rivers in
Europe, Asia and the United States have been endangered by man-made pollutants. The scientific
importance of the Amazon Basin cannot be overlooked for a variety of reasons, and the efforts
to Save the Amazon are ongoing from every corner of the world.
8 Ayahuasca. One can not speak of the Peruvian Amazon without
mentioning Ayahuasca. This ancient medicinal brew which has been used in the Amazon by
native peoples for over 5000 years is the combination of the ayahuasca vine and one
of various other DMT rich plants like mimosa hostilis or sirian rue. Ayahuasca shamans
have been using the concoction to cure a variety of mental disorders, from addictions, neurosis,
and various other adaptability problems. Recently, thanks for the efforts of celebrities like
Joe Rogan and Graham Hancock, ayahuasca has gone mainstream, and an enormous shamanistic
tourism has sprung all along the Amazon, creating a new space for spiritual awakening and psychological
recovery.
The present and future of Peru. And that brings us to today. Right now Peru
is in the middle of a very exciting and dangerous presidential election. On the one hand the
leading candidate, Pedro Castillo is known to be a leftist with Socialist views. He will
have to go off in a second-round runoff election in June against Keiko Fujimori, daughter of
the tyrant Alberto Fujimori, who is now serving a jail sentence. Ms. Fujimori has vowed to
end the Covid closures. For a country whose economy depends around 42% on tourism, this
is a vital point. The Peruvians are still sore over the Odebrecht scandal, which has
frustrated the country's faith in their political system. Castillo has benefited from the scandal,
surfing a wave of anti-establishment rhetoric, but he is fundamentally a fiscal conservative
with socialist views, which might mean that all the natural resources in Peru will be
nationalized, which generally does little to attract foreign investors.
Badly planned exploitation of natural resources like the huge lithium deposits recently found
in Peru could cause an environmental catastrophe to rival Brazil s wildfire epidemic. None
of the candidates seem very preoccupied with this concept, and the vast majority of Peruvian
people are actually fed up with the government in general because of the widespread corruption
and abuse of power which has only been more evident now during the pandemic. Fortunately,
the Peruvian people have a certain resistance to this abuse, so there seems to be an opening
for a new way of doing things, especially now that the extremely powerful influence
of Rome has lost some of it s mojo due in part to the rising popularity of protestant
faiths. So it s doubtful that things will be as they have always been before in Peru
after these elections, and we can only hope for a true spiritual revival of the Peruvian
people who have been led as sheep to the slaughter since the Spanish Conquista.
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As always, stay happy and healthy and stay tuned for another episode of Company Insight
next week. 8