CuscoPeru.com

Michael, who is more adventurous than I, suggested we do a horseback tour through the Sacred Valley. We met our guide, Albizu, outside the travel agency next to our hotel early in the morning and took a 40-minute taxi drive out to the heart of the Valley.

The Sacred Valley is a tranquil area lined with important Inca sites and tiny, quiet villages. Our route was to take us through the salt mines of Salinas, followed by the Inca “crop laboratory” of Moray with a final stop in Maras, our guide’s village. After a few silent prayers at the horse stables, I put my fear aside, hopped on Inti, my horse, and we took off.

Cliffs of striking white and red are an eye-catching sight. The mines of Salinas have been used to harvest salt for the area since Inca times. A saltwater hot spring is diverted to the cliffs, where 3,000 salt pans hold water for evaporation. A co-op of farmers still cultivate the salt from the cliffs just as their ancestors did.

How to avoid a village empty of tourists? The Cusco chamber of tourism has recently updated a plan it originally proposed to the regional government in 2009: a project outlining the construction of four alternative access routes to the world wonder, three of which would be feasible to implement before the centennial this July.
The plan estimates that these new paths would cost around $78 million overall, but an initial investment of $5 million would be enough for tourists who arrive during the upcoming high season, which begins in June, to be able to use at least three.
One proposed route is the road along Cusco-Limatambo-Mollepata-Santa Teresa-Hidroeléctrica de Machu Picchu. According to Valencia, the road is paved up to Limatambo. To habilitate it would require leveling the piece between Mollepata and Machu Picchu. “An investment of about $3 million,” he said.

In order to pave the entire road, the cost would rise to approximately $70 million. This option would reduce the arrival time to Machu Picchu to two and a half hours from Cusco, since it would be a distance of only 150 kilometers.

Another alternative would be to follow the route Cusco-Ollantaytambo-Abra de Málaga-Santa Teresa-Hidroeléctrica de Machu Picchu, a route already used in the dry season. The new proposal is to construct a lift to allow travelers to cross over the hydroelectric power station, which would cost about $3 million.

Perhaps the most feasible new route would be to take advantage of the network of Inca trails and pave certain segments that branch off from the main road at kilometers 113.5, 115, 117 and 119. This would require an investment of only $2 million, according to the report.

Las orquídeas son una de plantas que se distinguen por la complejidad de sus flores y por sus interacciones ecológicas con los agentes polinizadores y con los hongos que forman micorrizas.
La diversidad de orquídeas que tiene el distrito de Machupicchu  es otro atractivo que presenta el Santuario y cada año atrae a más turistas.
Por ese motivo, el jardín especializado de orquídeas que tienen bajo su cuidado Inka Terra Asociación e Inka Terra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, es considerado el más grande del mundo in situ, donde se encuentran 372 especies, de las 1,650  que hay en el Peru, de las cuales, gracias a estudios realizados, 19 fueron descubiertas allí, y donadas a la ciencia por ese motivo.

Durante la inauguración de la Primera Conferencia Científica Internacional de Conservación de Orquídeas realizada en la ciudadela inca, se aseguró que la preservación de esta planta puede incrementar el turismo en la zona y mejorar los ingresos de los agricultores.

By Jose Alvarez Alonso (Researcher at the Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana – IIAP – Institude for Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon)

Allpahuayo – Mishana was created as an officially recognized Reserved Zone on the 4 of March 1999. It is located 23 km south of

Eurypyga helias - Heinz Plengue

Iquitos. In 2004 it was classified as a National Reserve (RNAM) with an area of 58,069 ha. The reserve protects, for the first time in Peru, an area of these rare white sand forests and black water flooded forests of the Rio Nanay. The lowland rain forests around Iquitos are famous for the heterogeneity of their habitat. A combination of historical and geological events has created a mosaic of diverse soil types, from nearly pure quartz sands to red clay, in the area. Each of these soil types supports a characteristic and unique flora and fauna, and as a result Allpahuayo-Mishana supports one of the highest biodiversities of the entire Amazon basin. Many of the species are specialists of white sand forests and as such are very rare, due to the scarcity of this forest type in Peru. For example, 21 species of bird in the area are associated with white sand forests, and for several of these species, the forests near Iquitos form the only area of their distribution in Peru. At least five new species have been found and described during the last five years from the white sand forests of Allpahuayo-Mishana. The reserve is also area where two primates, the Lucifer Titi Monkey Callicebus lucifer and Equatorial Saki Monkey Pithecia aequatorialis, are officially protected in Peru.
Continue reading