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Peru geographic and climate

Peru is one of the larger South American countries - some ten times the size of England - covering an area of 1,285,000 square kilometres and with a population of over 26 million. Around seventy percent of its inhabitants live in cities, which are mainly located along the coast and limited almost exclusively to half a dozen thin but relatively fertile river valleys running into the Pacific.

Peru is unique in possessing such a wide variety of ecosystems ranging from the dryest hot desert in the Americas, to the high Andean peaks (over 7600m above sea level); from a two- thousand-kilometre-long belt of cloud forest, rich in flora and fauna, to a vast area of lowland Amazon jungle, covering about half the country. The three main zones of Peru are known as La Costa (the coast), La Sierra (the mountains) and La Selva (the jungle). Within a matter of hours, you can leave the scorching desert coastline with some of the Pacific Ocean's best fishing, cross the world's highest tropical mountain range - the Andes - and plunge down into our planet's biggest tropical rainforest.

The unusual weather conditions in Peru are created mainly by two major offshore ocean currents - the cold Humbolt Current coming up from Chile and the Antarctic, which meets the warm, tropical El Niño current coming down from the Pacific along the Ecuadorian coast. The Humbolt is largely responsible for the dry desert coastline of Peru and Northern Chile, sending Pacific clouds up into the Andes where they precipitate as rain. Traditional Peruvian wisdom says that it only really rains on the Peruvian coast about once every twenty years or so, when the El Niño current pushes further down the coast, warming the seas and causing disruptive rains in the desert. These rains bring devastating floods to towns and settlements poorly prepared for torrential downpours and often inhabited by migrants from the mountains. However, the rains also bring the desert into bloom as all the wild flower seeds, preserved by the drought conditions, suddenly burst into life. Over the last few years, the Peruvian weather has been rather unsettled and El Niño has been acting even more unpredictably than usual, possibly as a result of global warming. However, it still rarely rains on the coast, although the Lima region does experience substantial smog, coastal fogs or mists and even drizzle, particularly between the months of May and November.

The climate in the Sierra and Selva regions can be fairly clearly divided into a wet season (Oct-April) and a dry season (May-Sept). There is, of course, some rain during the dry season, but it is much heavier and much more frequent in the wet season, when travel becomes much harder: roads are often impassable, flights are frequently cancelled or delayed due to poor conditions, and landslides affect trains and bus routes alike. Trekking in the mountains and canoeing on the Andean or jungle rivers are also much less enjoyable during the wet season than at other times of year. Equally frustrating - especially if you've travelled halfway across the world to be here - is the fact that some of the stupendous views, particularly those around Cusco and in the Cordillera Blanca, are often obscured by clouds at this time of year. If you want to visit several different regions of Peru, then your best bet is to travel round in the middle of the dry season between June and September.

Again, weather conditions have been quite unsettled in these regions over the last ten years or so, with the Altiplano zone, around Puno, being affected by serious droughts , which have left the water level of Lake Titicaca at its lowest for years.

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Published articles and reviews about us

2009
Testimonials

Ajay Parikh
Date: Thu,16 Jul 2009

Hello all the folks at Peru Gateway Travel, 
We had a fantastic time in Peru.  We thank you all for making our trip a success. 
The only concern is that the accommodation in Cusco was below average and we would not recommend the Emparada Plaza (?) to anyone.  Even though the staff was good, the room/bathroom, breakfast was very bad. 
Once again, thanks a lot for making our trip to your country a memorable one.  All the guides, especially Guillarmo in Lima and Erica in Cusco, were excellent.


Kazuaki Kubo
Date: Thu,16 Jul 2009

I want to thank you and all of the staff of Peru Gateway Travel for the perfect arrangement of my trip in June.
Everything was so fantastic and I was made to think about another trip to Peru. 


Sincerely, Denise Pratico
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009

I am writing to let you know that we enjoyed Peru very much. The city tour led by Marco was fantastic. We will be happy to recommend your agency to other Americans


Jane
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009

We have completed our trip to Peru and are now back in New York City.  I want to thank you for all the arrangements you made.  The trip was wonderful and all our accommodations excellent.  Thank you for making our trip a success. 


Best regards, Marcy
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009

We arrived home at 4 o'clock in the morning, very tired (we had a long lay-over in Amsterdam) but very very happy. I am so pleased to tell you that our Peru vacation that you planned for us was excellent! Everything was just as the itinerary said it would be. We were very pleased with the hotels, and the transfer people and guides were always there and everybody was so nice and knowledgeable. We learned a lot about your very exciting country and its history, particularly about the Quechua culture. We will always remember the Inti Raymi festival in Cusco. I am so glad we were able to see that. Of course Machu Picchu was also a great highlight. And, Michael and I also very much liked Arequipa. We didn't know much about that city, but we had a very great time there on our free day and visited the cathedral, spent a lot of time going through the Santa Catalina monastario and, of course, went to the museum to see "Juanita". Beautiful architecture there too.
Really, every day was wonderful, and we would like to thank you so much for all your efforts. Also please extend our thanks to Maria Carmen who was so helpful on the phone and to Julia, who came to the hotel our first night to explain many things to us and give us all our tickets and vouchers. And perhaps you also had something to do with our last night in Lima at the Libertador. We got a suite -- a very big beautiful room! Thank you so much.
We wish you and your family all the best, and for sure we will be recommending Peru Gateway Travel to our friends.

 


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