Andes travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s greatest natural resource – the most powerful and bio-actively diverse natural phenomenon on the planet. Yet still it is being destroyed just like other rainforests around the world.

Continue reading The world’s greatest natural resource is Amazon Rainforest

In Luzon Province of the Northern Philippines, through mountains and rice terraces, the road ends at a church, in a small town called Banaue. 4,000 feet above sea level in Banaue sits a small market village in Ifugao province. Located north of Manila in the Philippines, Ifugao province is famous for the handiwork of its people, who increased cultivable lands by carving gigantic rice terraces from the sides of mountains.

Continue reading Banaue Rice Terraces in Philippines, amazing human engineering achieve

Destination Chile, a virtual travel guide to the long coastal strip between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. This page aims to give you a broad overview of Chilean art, culture, people, environment, geography, history, economy and government.

Beside a country profile with facts and figures, the page contains links to sources which provide you with all the information you need to know about this South American nation, e.g.: official web sites of Chile, addresses of Chilean and foreign embassies, domestic airlines, city- and country guides with extensive travel and tourism information on accomodation, tourist attractions, events and more like weather information, maps, statistics and local newspapers from Chile.

Continue reading Chile is a country of startling contrasts and extreme beauty

Probably everyone alive has ever heard about the world’s most dramatic ruins, the Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is a city located high in the Andes Mountains in modern Peru. It lies 43 miles northwest of Cuzco at the top of a ridge, hiding it from the Urabamba gorge below. The ridge is between a block of highland and the massive Huaynac Picchu, around which the Urubamba River takes a sharp bend. The surrounding area is covered in dense bush, some of it covering Pre-Colombian cultivation terraces.

Machu Picchu is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. Machu Picchu (which means “manly peak”) was most likely a royal estate and religious retreat. It was built between 1460 and 1470 AD by Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, an Incan ruler.

Continue reading The Lost City of the Incas Machu Picchu

Colombia is bordered on the northwest by Panama, on the east by Venezuela and Brazil, and on the southwest by Peru and Ecuador. Through the western half of the country, three Andean ranges run north and south. The eastern half is a low, jungle-covered plain, drained by spurs of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, inhabited mostly by isolated tropical-forest Indian tribes. The fertile plateau and valley of the eastern range are the most densely populated parts of the country.

Official Name: Republica de Colombia.
Capital: Bogota.
Independence day: July 20, 1810.

NATURAL FEATURES
Area: 440,831 square miles (1,141,748 square kilometres), includes the San Andres y Providencia archipelago.
Climate:Tropical. Varies according to the altitude.
Highest Peak: Pico Cristobal Colon, 19,020 feet (5,800 meters).
Major Rivers: Magdalena, Cauca, Meta, Guaviare, Caqueta, Putumayo, Atrato, Vaupes, Vichada.
Mountain Ranges: Occidental, Central, Oriental.

PEOPLE
Population: 39,309,422 (July 1999 est.); 89.2, people per square mile (34.5 people per square kilometer); 73 percent urban, 27 percent rural.
Major Cities: Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Cucuta, Bucaramanga
Religions: Roman Catholicism, 95.4%.
Language: Spanish (official).

Continue reading One of the most impressive things about Colombia is the landscape that surrounds the country

The Perito Moreno Glacier is located in the Los Glaciares National Park in the south west of Santa Cruz province, Argentina. It is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Argentine Patagonia.

If you are on excursion there probably first you will go through the Patagonia valley with its natural environment of species such as guanacos, ostriches, foxes, etc. Afterwards you will enjoy many interesting spots: Cerro Comision o De Los Elefantes, river Centinela, Cerro Frias (guanacos site), many Patagonian farmhouses and, across the Mitre river you will get into National Park Los Glaciares. Then, you will go 35 km along the coast of of Lake Argentino’s Rico Branch, among vegetation of incredible trees such as nires, lengas, notros and cherry trees and at Curva de Los Suspiros you will get the first panoramic view of Glacier Perito Moreno.

Continue reading Amazing views from Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina

The Incas called Cuzco “the navel of the world” and the lake Titikaka “The womb of Mankind” , lakeside dwellers of today regard themselves as the “oldest people in the world”.Lake Titikaka in Bolivia is one really amazing place to see. It covers approximately 9000 square km and like many things in Bolivia it takes another highest championship: it is the world’s highest navigable lake (12,500 feet) 3,820 meters, its depth was recently measured at 457 Mt. Lake Titikaka has long been known to be not only the largest but also the most sacred in the world. Many cultures and civilisations have risen near it.

Continue reading The womb of Mankind – lake Titikaka in Bolivia