Cusco & Machu Picchu, PERU

Cusco (or Cuzco)

The city is located high in the Andes at the west end of the Huatanay valley.

Cusco, whose name comes from a Quechua word meaning "navel" or "center," was built in the 11th or 12th century and was the capital of the Incan empire.

The city and the surrounding area still contain a lot of ruins, which show the great engineering, stonework, and architectural skills of the Incas.

In 1533, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro took over Cusco and set up the city's government a year later.

Nowadays, about 420,000 people live in the city.

Besides tourism and agriculture, the main economic activities are textile, rug, tapestry, and fine metalwork production.

Perú

The earliest signs of people living in Peru go back to around 12,500 BCE at the Huaca Prieta settlement.

In 1532, a group of conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro defeated and captured the Inca Emperor Atahualpa, which was the first step in a long campaign that took decades of fighting and ended in Spanish victory and colonization of the region known as the Viceroyalty of Peru.

In the early 19th century, while most South American nations were swept by wars of independence, Peru remained a royalist stronghold. But in 1821, Peru gained independence followed by decades of civil wars and stable periods. In 2000, democracy was formally restored.

Despite Peru's recent history, its economy is the 48th largest in the world, and the income level is classified as upper middle with an above-average Human Development Index of 0.77.

With over 34 million people, Peru is the fifth-largest Spanish-speaking country