Peru is a country in western South America, bordering the South Pacific Ocean and straddling part of the Andes mountain range that runs the length of the continent. Peru is bordered by Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east and Chile to the south. Peru has a natural diversity and cultural wealth hardly equaled the world over.
The country is divided by the Andes into three distinct regions: the coast, the highlands and the jungle. This means that Peru is an ecological tourist’s paradise, with beautiful beaches and coastline, several mountain ranges of varying character and an expansive rainforest teeming with wildlife. Besides Peru’s natural resources, the country’s major assets are its archaeological patrimony, its gastronomy (one of the most important in the world) and its imposing colonial architecture. Of course, there’s also Machu Picchu, a pre-Colombian Incan city almost 8,000 feet high in the mountains, heralded as an architectural masterpiece.