Apurimac River
The Apurimac River rises from glacial meltwater of the ridge of Nevado Mismi, a 5,597-meter high mountain in the Arequipa Province in southern Peru.
The Apurimac is the source of the world's longest river system, the Amazon River. It rises in Peru's south-western cordilleras, 10 km (7 miles) from the village of Caylloma, and less than 160 km (100 miles) from the Pacific coast.
It flows generally northwest past Cuzco in narrow gorges of up to 3,000 m, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the USA, its course interrupted by falls and rapids. Of the six attempts so far to travel the Apurimac in its full length, only two have been successful.
After 730,70 km, the Apurimac joins the Mantaro River and becomes the Ene River at , 440 m above sea level; then after joining the Perene River at 330 m (984 ft.) above sea level, it becomes the Tambo River; when it joins the Urubamba at 280 m (859 ft.) above sea level the river becomes the Ucayali, which is the main headstream of the Amazon.
Sometimes the complete river from its source to its junction with the Ucayali, i.e. including the rivers Ene and Tambo, is called "Apurimac", with a total length of 1,069.80 km.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Apurimac River
