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Tag: Peru

Video » Lake Titicaca from Space

Earth from Space: Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca, which borders both Bolivia and Peru, is one of the largest freshwater lakes in South America.

The video is brought to us by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Covering an area of around 8300 sq km, Lake Titicaca lies on the high Andes plateau and straddles the border between Peru (to the west) and Bolivia (to the east). It is considered the highest major body of navigable water in the world, as it sits at an elevation of 3800 m above sea level.

More information is available from the ESA.

Video » Amazon River from Space

The European Space Agency (ESA) brings us a video of the Amazon River meandering through one of the most vital ecosystems in the world, the Amazon rainforest, and six countries in South America.

The Amazon River originates in the Andes Mountains of Peru and travels through EcuadorColombiaVenezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.

Earth from Space: Amazon River

The Amazon river begins its journey in the Andes and makes its way east through six South American countries before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast coast of Brazil. The river has a length of around 6400 km – the equivalent of the distance from New York City to Rome.

The Amazon is considered the widest river in the world with a width of between 1.6 and 10 km, but expands during the wet season to around 50 km. With more than 1000 tributaries, the Amazon River is the largest drainage system in the world in terms of the volume of its flow and the area of its basin. As a consequence of its ever-changing flow, older riverbeds can be seen as thin lines around the main river at the top of the image.

One of its tributaries, the Javari River, or Yavari River, is visible as a thinner blue line weaving through the tropical rainforest. The river flows for 870 km, forming the border between Brazil and Peru, before joining the Amazon River.

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A time-lapse video of beautiful South American landscapes by Morten Rustad

A beautiful time-lapse video of many South American landscapes by Morten Rustad.

Morten Rustad via Vimeo says »

One year of travel, nine countries, countless hours on busses, motorbikes, and cars. Hundreds of thousands of images taken. 30TB of data used, 5 months of editing. The time-lapse film features South America like it has never been before with images from Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

More about this project, including BTS videos, at Morten’s website.

Peru’s Sacred Valley is opening up to tourism

Nikki Ekstein, Bloomberg:

Machu Picchu is one big marketing myth. At least, that’s how our guide, Leo, puts it as we wander the breathtaking fog-shrouded Inca ruins. First off, he says, the 600-year-old city wasn’t hidden: Otherwise, why would there be seven gates to get in? Second, it was hardly the last remaining Inca citadel: You can see two others with the naked eye from Machu Picchu when the weather is clear, if you know where to look. Despite the mist, we spot one in the distance.

As we walk through the maze-like ruins, Leo continues his impassioned rant. The Peruvian government doesn’t know how to safeguard its resources, he says, pointing to a sundial called Intihuatana—“the hitching post of the sun” in Quechua, the local indigenous language. In 2000, a television crew chipped it while shooting a beer commercial. After that, Leo explains, the government recognized that it needed to regulate the country’s most famous heritage site before it could begin promoting any others. It took 17 years. Meanwhile, an expansion of infrastructure brought ever-larger hordes to this single, barely protected spot.

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