Peru Travel Guide – Travel to Peru

Peru encompasses a past of over 10,000 years of probably the most harsh and inhospitable, if spectacular, environments within the globe – the high Andes of South America. Civilization inside the Andes has long been equated with the Incas. The architectural achievements of the Incas are inevitably compared to the feats of the Romans.

In contrast, the invasion of the Spaniards in 1532 between the Andeans was one of the first clashes between Western and non-Western civilizations. The Spanish conquest and colonialism has characterized Peru down by means of the centuries. Peru, like its geography, became divided economically, socially and politically between a semifeudal, largely native coast. The persistence of this “dualism” and also the inability of the Peruvian state in far more recent occasions to overcome it have prevented not only the development but also the efficient integration of the Peruvian nation to this day.
An additional unique characteristic of Peru is the role that foreigners have played in its history. Peru’s independence from Spain in 1824 was largely the accomplishments of “outsiders” including the Venezuelan Sim.