Human geography I wasn't on my own travelling around Peru. About 400,000 tourists visit every year and the country makes a lot of money from tourism. At the same time Peru worries about the effect the tourists have on the environment, ancient monuments and people's way of life. Lima, the capital city, is a port on the coast. About 40% of the people in Peru live here and it's crowded, noisy and polluted. It does have some great museums, churches and markets though, as well as modern clubs and restaurants, and I spent a happy couple of days exploring. Next I travelled south to a town called Nazca. This is famous for its pottery so of course I had to buy a few pots to bring home. Carrying them for the rest of the trip was certainly interesting. Here I saw the famous Nazca lines. These are huge patterns that were built sometime between 900BC and 600AD. They're only visible from the air, so I got a plane over the top of them. The weird thing is that no-one really knows why they are there and what they were built for. Cuzco was the main Inca city and is one of the only Inca cities still in use. I was amazed to look around and see that the stone walls that the Incas built are still standing. There are some ruins here that were once covered in gold, but someone seems to have nicked it. Near to Cuzco is the lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu. This is another place surrounded in mystery. Iquitos is one of the strangest cities I've ever been to because there are no roads going there. I flew into it before heading into the Amazon basin rainforests, but most of the locals reach it by boat. Life is very different in the rural areas. Only 28% of people there have clean water, and people generally die younger. There are fewer doctors and nurses in rural areas and children here are less likely to have the chance to go to school. I visited several ActionAid projects in these areas. Quecha and Spanish are official languages in Peru, although Aymara is also spoken. Peru is a Quechua word meaning 'land of abundance'. The country has large deposits of copper, lead, silver, gold and manganese. Not surprisingly the Spanish helped themselves to a lot of this, but there's still a fair amount left. About half of the people in Peru are Indians. The rest are European, a mix of Indian and European or black. The majority are Catholics and catholic feast days are often linked with traditional festivals. I was lucky enough to be there for the main Carnaval - or at least I thought I was lucky until I got soaked in the traditional water fight!