The beautiful coast of Peru houses over half of its 28.5 million residents. A good majority of the rest of the people live in the Andes Mountains and under 5% live in Eastern Peru in the tropical rainforests. Approximately 45% of the people are indigenous, 37% are mestivo and 15% are Caucasian, leaving the last 3% to be mainly Asian and African. The ethnic diversity of its people allow diverse customs and traditions to coexist.
Peruvians love their arts and crafts. The variety in creativity and color that they develop from their heart seems to be a fundamental activity for the way of life for many communities. They create from love and their pottery and exquisite craft displays bring people from many countries to shop for a unique piece of art to bring to their home.
Due to archaeological discoveries recently of many types of musical instruments, experts now believe that the people of Peru have played music for at least 10,000 years. Quenas and pututos, which are trumpets that are made from a sea conch are just a few of the instruments that have been found being made out of raw materials like mud, bone, precious metals and horns. In addition to these, plenty of percussion instruments have been discovered as well.
Over 3,000 festivals a year are celebrated in Peru, most of them being part of a Christian calendar from colonial times. These celebrations take place alongside other pagan celebrations that date back to native communities and ancestral myths in the jungle, in addition to plenty of newer festivals thought up over the past few centuries. Peruvians love the opportunity to come together and celebrate, partaking in amazing food, dance and plenty of drinks. It is interesting to note that they have a guinea pig festival every year that is worth attending.
Peruvian literature is made up mainly from traditions from pre-Columbian civilizations. In the 16th century, Spaniards introduced writing such as chronicles and forms of religious literature and is still greatly appreciated today by its people.
The cuisine in Peru is a delicious mix of Amerindian with Spanish food receiving influences of Arab, Italian, Chinese, African and Japanese cooking. It is not uncommon here to have an Italian dinner displayed with a side of rice and beans. Since there is a great variety in the climates of Peru, there are tremendous availabilities of diverse animals and plants for cooking. Peruvian cuisine receives acclaim due to the diversity of techniques and range of ingredients. The restaurant choices and unique food are sure to fill your hunger for cultural food while you are there.
Peruvian people embrace and celebrate their cultural with a great amount of tradition and they all love their county. Peru is a country that has received influences on its culture in music, cuisine and festivals from their ancestors back thousands of years ago and it is a country that will continue to add on memorable traditions from the wonderful people of its present.