Peru

Discover Peru

Fun Foods

Pollo a la Brasa, Anticuchos, Ceviche, Churros, Picarones, and Alfajores. For drinks, try Inca Kola and Aguas Frescas.

The Inca ran the largest empire in the Americas, with millions of people spread across mountains, deserts, and jungle. And they did it all without a written language.

Instead of writing, they recorded everything, taxes, numbers, even stories, on bundles of knotted strings called quipu. The color of the string, the kind of knot, and where it sat all carried meaning.

Experts are still trying to crack the code today.

The Inca built their empire starting in the 1400s, with their capital at Cusco high in the Andes Mountains. They were incredible engineers.

They cut giant stones so precisely that they fit together without any cement. Many of their walls have survived earthquakes for centuries, and some stones are so tight you can't slip a sheet of paper between them.

Then, in 1532, Spanish soldiers led by Francisco Pizarro arrived. They captured the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, and demanded a room filled with gold and silver to free him.

The Inca paid. The Spanish executed him anyway in 1533.

Diseases brought from Europe, like smallpox, had already killed huge numbers of people. Within a single generation, the mighty empire collapsed.

There was one place the Spanish never found: Machu Picchu, a stone city perched on a mountain ridge. It sat hidden by jungle for almost 400 years, until a local guide led an explorer there in 1911.

Peru itself declared independence from Spain in 1821.

Today, you can take a train and a winding bus up to Machu Picchu and stand among its ancient walls and terraces. In Cusco and the nearby Sacred Valley, you can walk streets the Inca built and browse markets piled high with corn and potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes: they were first grown here, and Peru has more than 3,000 kinds. Try them with lomo saltado, a beef stir-fry served with fries and rice.

And on the coast, the famous dish is ceviche, fresh fish "cooked" in nothing but lime juice.