Pongo de Mainique

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The Pongo de Mainique is a pongo (canyon) in Peru, being 45 metres wide and 3 kilometres long, with 900 m to 300 m high cliffs. It is considered the most dangerous whitewater pass on the Urubamba River, which it divides between Upper and Lower Urubamba. It is crossed by the Inca Bridge, ancient secret entrance to the Machu Picchu. It is a global biodiversity hotspot. Its rapids were used for key scenes of Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo.

[edit] Overview

The Pongo de Mainique is a pongo (canyon) in Peru, being 45 metres (50 yd) wide and 3 kilometres (2 mi) long, with 900 metres (3,000 ft) to 300 metres (1,000 ft) high cliffs^[1]^[2]. It is the only break in the entire Cordillera Vilcabamba Mountain Range. It also divides the Urubamba River (a headwater of the Amazon River) between Upper Urubamba and Lower Urubamba. It is considered the most dangerous whitewater pass on the Urubamba; however, many boats traverse it, depending on seasonal river conditions. It is crossed by the Inca Bridge, ancient secret entrance to the Machu Picchu.

It is a global biodiversity hotspot; six square miles of rainforest around the canyon contains more species of life than any other similar-sized area on Earth.^[3]

The rapids of the Pongo de Mainique were used as a filming location for key scenes of Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo starring Klaus Kinski.^[4] In a 2006 survey of "15 of the world's top travel writers" by The Observer, Monty Python actor and BBC travel documentarist Michael Palin named it his "favourite place in the world".^[5]

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[edit] References

Sources consulted

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

Endnotes

^ Stromquist, Tamara (2000). "Paititi (ARA Winter 2000)". Macaw Landing Foundation's Ecotourism. Retrieved on 2007-08-18. “Onward we went to Pongo de Mainique, a 50-yard-wide, two-mile-long canyon through which flows the Urubamba River on its way from Cusco. This canyon is the only break in the entire Vilcabamba Mountain Range. The canyon has 3,000-foot-high walls, 30 veil-like waterfalls and is extraordinarily beautiful.”
^ Llama Travel. "Cusco Tourist Information". Peru Tourist Information. Retrieved on 2008-07-18. “The Pongo de Mainique, a long, but beautiful, bus ride from Cusco, is a narrow gorge, with 300m-high cliffs on either side of the Urubamba River, with waterfalls pouring down into the river.”
^ Wildlife Conservation Society (2001). "Surveys and protection of endangered wildlife in the Pongo". Macaw Landing Foundation's Field Projects. Retrieved on 2007-08-18. “WCS wishes to protect the Pongo because the lowland rainforests and mid-montane cloud forests within a radius of five miles of the Pongo possibly comprise the single most biologically-diverse site on the face of the Earth.”
^ Source requiring two languages:
- Herzog, Werner (1999). "Spanish captions of documentary My Best Fiend from 27:58 to 28:37". My Best Fiend (German: Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski). Archived from the original on 2007-08-17. “[Spanish captions keep "Mainique"] A unos días de viaje del Machu Picchu más abajo del río Urubamba. Aquí en el estrecho de las cataratas del Pongo de Mainique rodamos partes de la película "Fitzcarraldo". En la temporada seca, con agua baja no hay ningún peligro por aquí.”
- Herzog, Werner (1999). "English captions of documentary My Best Fiend from 27:47 to 28:25". My Best Fiend (German: Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski). Archived from the original on 2007-08-17. “[English captions omit "Mainique"] A few days journey from Machu Picchu, down the Urubamba river. Here, at the rapids of the Pongo, we shot parts of "Fitzcarraldo". During the dry season, with the water at its lowest level this is quite harmless.”
^ Wilkinson, Carl, ed. (2006-01-08). "My favourite place in the world". The Observer. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.