Peru

Perú

Peru climbs from a cold sea through desert to the Andes and down into the jungle, and each level has its own larder: four thousand kinds of potato, three chillies with names, fish that must be eaten at midday. Lima turned that into a cuisine the world now travels for, with Chinese and Japanese immigrants among its cooks, and ceviche on UNESCO's list since 2023.

The Andes are not a museum. Quechua, the language of the Incas, is a family of some eight million speakers, official on paper and fragile in practice, and still the language of many Andean homes; and in February Puno dances for a promise to the Virgin, in masks and costumes made by hand for the occasion.

History

History of Peru: a timeline (16 moments of its history)

Start with

  • between 200 BC and 600: The Nazca draw on the desert — On the dry southern coast of Peru the Nazca people, who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 600 in valleys around their ceremonial centre of Cahuachi, scraped…
  • c. 1438–1471: Pachacuti and the rise of the Inca — Inca tradition says that around 1438 the Chanca attacked Cusco, the ruler fled, and a young prince stayed to defend the city, winning with the help of stones…
  • 16 November 1532: Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa — Francisco Pizarro reached the Andean town of Cajamarca on 15 November 1532 with 168 men.
  • 18 January 1535: Lima, the City of the Kings, is founded — On 18 January 1535 Francisco Pizarro founded the Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of the Kings, on the Rímac river near the Pacific coast, naming it for the Magi…
  • 28 July 1821: San Martín proclaims Peru's independence — Peru, the heart of Spanish power in South America, was the last great viceroyalty to fall.
  • 9 December 1824: Ayacucho: the end of Spanish rule in South America — On 9 December 1824, on the high plain of Quinua near Ayacucho, the United Liberating Army of Peru under Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar's most trusted general,…
  • 2017: Quechua today: the language of the Incas in the 2017 census — Quechua, the language family the Incas spread along the Andes, is still the most spoken indigenous language of the Americas.
  • 28 July 2021–9 December 2024: Peru's bicentennial — Two hundred years after San Martín's proclamation in Lima, Peru named 2021 the 'Year of the Bicentennial of Peru: 200 years of Independence', with 28 July as…

Culture

Culture of Peru

Food and drink

  • Ceviche and Peruvian cuisine — Raw fish cooked by lime juice, eaten at midday and never at night, and the kitchen behind it: four thousand potatoes, three chillies, Chinese woks, Japanese knives and a chef who made a country proud of its markets.

Festivals and celebrations

  • La Candelaria de Puno — Two weeks of February at 3,800 metres: tens of thousands of dancers in devil masks with light bulbs for eyes, brass bands on every street, costumes that cost more than a car, and a promise to the Virgin that lasts years.

Identity and society

  • Quechua today — A family of languages with some eight million speakers, official on paper, lost in three generations through shame rather than law, and now on television news, phone keyboards and trap records.

Places and landscapes

History

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