Despite Economic Gains, Peru’s Asparagus Boom Threatening Local Water Table

Peru’s booming cultivation of asparagus for export to the US and Europe is causing water stress in the region.

Protecting Peru’s Ancient Past

One of Latin America’s most famous archeological sites figures in our Geo Quiz: A century ago, many artifacts were taken from the Incan city of Machu Picchu, now, they’re being returned to Peru.

Researchers Work to Save Peru’s Food Diversity

If you’re a foodie, you might have noticed a new kind of restaurant cropping up in your neighborhood. Peruvian cuisine is all the rage these days. Peru has one of the most varied food cultures in the world, with crops and flavors from the Pacific coast, the Andes Mountains, and the Amazon rainforest. But not long ago, many of the country’s indigenous crops were falling out of favor. Reporter Cynthia Graber recently traveled to Peru and met with two men working to reverse that trend in very different ways.

Afro-Peruvian Activist and Musician Susana Baca is Peru’s New Minister of Culture

Susana Baca is a singer-songwriter and Afro-Peruvian activist in Peru. She is now Peru’s new minister of culture. Mirissa Neff reports from San Francisco.

Legal Foreign Workers said to be Exploited in Colorado

Many foreign workers are legal immigrants who get paid more than they would in their home country. Still, they’re finding that legal or not, they are often exploited and their working conditions are poor.

Climate Change Spurs Revival of Ancient Incan Agriculture

A community high up in the Peruvian Andes is reviving ancient agricultural practices to help weather climate changes.

An Andean Lake

We are looking for a mountain lake that straddles Bolivia and Peru.

Peru’s political divide

Many voters in Peru aren’t happy with their presidential candidates.

Global Warming Makes a Splash

I’m traveling the world in search of the human face of the impacts of climate change. I encountered a sobering example yesterday, in Carhuaz, Peru. There, I met Juana, a middle-aged woman dressed in a white embroidered shirt, orange skirt and a grey felt hat. One Sunday morning in April 2010 Juana puttered around the rustic house she rented by a stream on the outskirts of Carhuaz, at the base of Peru’s Cordillera Blanca range. The day, like every Sunday in Carhuaz [pronounced car-WHAS], a bustling town of 60,000, was market day [...]

An Optimist

I’ve never before met anyone as thoroughly optimistic as Peruvian glaciologist Benjamin Morales. I asked him today if his rosy take on life began when he narrowly missed death in 1970. On May 31st 41 years ago Morales lunched near his home in the town of Yunguay. Despite protestations of friends who had joined him for the meal, he left just before 3 p.m. He had promised to drive his mother to another town. At 3:23, a powerful earthquake struck the region [...]

Waiting for Water

Steep conical hills of brown sand and stone ring the city of Lima. Massive cement water tanks cap many of the summits, some bearing a slogan of the city’s powerful water utility, Sedepal: Agua Para Todo (water for all). To an inhabitant of the eastern United States, where water is generally plentiful, and where few lack a working tap, the motto appears at first to be either simply a statement of fact or an easily achievable promise [...]

Lima’s Brown Coast

Lima and its contiguous suburbs and shantytowns sprawl between a sand-brown desert of undulating hills on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. Today, accompanied by my translator, Dado, and driver, Juan Carlos, I sped down an avenue that hugs the shoreline [...]

Glacier Closeup

Nearly all the world’s tropical glaciers cap mountains of the Andes. If you wonder why, look at where the highest peaks in the tropics are located and you’ll have your answer. About three quarters of these glaciers top Peruvian peaks providing the South American country with a natural resource of immense value and justifiable pride. But Peru’s glaciers, like most glaciers in the world, are melting at an alarming rate [...]

Lima’s Future Water Shortage

As I type these words, I’m flying 39,000 feet over Ecuador. Shortly, I will land in Lima, a sprawling city of about nine million people. Lima is one of the cities of the world most immediately threatened by global warming. The city was built on the edge of a desert, one of the driest in the world. And its primary source of water is a small river, the Rimac. The Rimac’s water trickles of glaciers high in the Andes which, unfortunately for Limeños, are rapidly melting. Peru has lost about 30 percent of its glacial ice in the last 40 years [...]

Surf’s Up in South America

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Slideshow: John Otis’s Surfing Pictures