Biru or Peru?The territory of Peru borders Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east, Chile and Bolivia to the south and is washed by the Pacific Ocean. In Peru you can find everything from steaming jungles to creeping glaciers, Peru, which hugs the western coast of South America, wraps its borders around a dramatically varied geography that elicits diverse cultures. A little smaller than Alaska, Peru has coastal deserts so dry that no one has ever recorded rain. The oceans are so cold from the Arctic that surfers would have to forget, the mountains so new that they are still growing, the seismic activity so frequent that buildings are never higher than a few stories, the glaciers so close to the equator that they are called "tropical" and jungles so dense that only rivers have access. The Sierra Mountains of Peru cover an area the size of Rhode Island. To the west, in or above the Andes, there is an extreme separation in culture and values. Some of the highest mountains in the world are located here, such as Huascaran and Yerupaja (Flores). The high Andes of Peru are the land of the Incas; the Inca were the native South Americans who once ruled one of the largest and richest empires. Their empire covered much of present-day Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile and parts of Colombia and Argentina. Spain invaded in the 16th century and conquered the Inca empire. The Andes mountain range is a model of over 200 granite buildings (Flores). Tourists can only travel on a four-day hike or a nearly two-hour train ride through the fern- and fog-covered Urubamba River Canyon. Machu Picchu was founded in the mountainous terrain by the Incas as a wealthy estate and religious retreat. Near Machu Picchu is the city of Cusco, where native residents gather to honor the Sun God. The festival is called “Inti Raymi Sun Festival”, which is held on June 24. The natives sacrifice an animal to ensure good harvests and to pay admiration to the Incas, as the firstborn son of the Sun. Today, “Inti Raymi Festival of the Sun” is the second largest festival in South America. My partner said hundreds of thousands of people come to Cunzo from other parts of South America and the world for the week-long celebration that marks the start of the new year. Beyond the mountains, to the east, in the Amazon forest called Selva, there is said to be a land of wonder, it has rare birds, deadly parasites and stormy clouds.