For Don Pedro!
Last week in the London Airport Heathrow Employee Lufthansa office at the time of receipt of the ticket for flight London – Bogota "captured hostage" Russian citizen. The conditions were tough: either the whole group, as part of which the victim flew, immediately receives a Colombian visa or "hostage" remains in the hecto to clarify the circumstances. After long-term negotiations of a vigilant clerk managed to convince the fact that for Russian tourists the way to Colombia is free and no visa needed. This unpleasant incident scratched a simple thought: Apparently, we, a group of Moscow journalists, almost the first "Organized" Russians who want to enjoy the beauties of Colombia and Peru.
That Lima is the capital of Peru, it is known to all that Sol – this is not a salt with a Caucasian accent, and the Peruvian coin (for the US dollar you can get 2.8 Sola), many know, but what in decent hotels guests are taken to meet "Pink", Ledo little to someone. Pisco – this wonderful local drink made of grape vodka, egg squirrel and something else – very nice to pull in the hotel hall after a long flight and to feel with each sip, how the strength is added. And they are as needed – after all, the real Indian in Lima does not live, for the real Indian it is necessary to go to Cusco, Nasco, Pisak, Allantambo. Or, for example, in Ikitos on Amazon.
All the way from Lima to Bungalow in the Amazon jungle will take about five hours, including flight. Civilization did not strongly touched this northeastern district of Peru. The farther from Ikitos takes the boat on the river, the easier people live. Their feed river, their river, their joy and trouble – river. And while the boat rushes to the tourist camp, as if shoes from a silent movie, scenes are rushed from the hard life of the Aboriginal.
This and case there are marina from concrete and plaster. Their strange architecture – steps flowing into the water, with railings in the style of Stalin Baroque, it looks ridiculous next to the wooden huts blowable by all winds. Actually, this wildness came up with local residents, and missionaries in order to decorate the village, but at the same time to attract the village to the Catholic Church, which for them all built. And people are valued. Children with delight bathed and dive from the columns sticking out of the water, their mothers immediately erased underwear on the steps and walked the chickens, and the dad, leaning on the railing, are observed with blissful.
Settlements are less common and less. Dissolves for feed in the impassive jungle lonely hut on the piles, and after a few minutes the boat moistened to reservation for tourists.
Jungle is not fiction. Jungle are real. They have a tourist, whether it is even a VIP person, for local flora and fauna means no more than a snail, overwhelming autoban, for a rush car. And that rest takes place, it is better to take care of the vaccinations from the yellow fever in advance, the pills from malaria, the visor (tool from mosquitoes and other bloodsows), sunscreen, sportswear and shoes (for one day you can experience a tropical rain, soaring sun and tropical heat). In general, you need to take with you everything that usually takes on a campaign near Moscow tourist, with the exception of bowls, spoons, mugs and tents. It will be necessary to live in the bungalow, but not in wooden on the piles, like the inhabitants of Amazon, but in quite modern, with amenities, however, without hot water.
With water is generally better to be careful, and it is not necessary to drink it from under the tap. Water enters the house directly from the Amazon through the filter, which is unable to protect the stomach of Europeans from a huge army of bacteria, continuously multiplied in this picturesque river. Drinking water stands in plastic bottles in the room, and if it is a little or wants to be stronger, then all this can be purchased in the only restaurant-dining room. Strong drinks for the purpose of saving it is better to bring with you. Due to the exclusivity of the local restaurant for the bottle "Absolute" In the jungle will have to put 40 dollars – the bargaining here is not appropriate, they will throw off the maximum of two dollars.
The main vehicle for the study of Amazon and its tributaries – a large cake with a motor. A group of 10 people are free to fit into it, as well as guide and fishing rods. Fishing rods are special and designed for wild fish, and not on some sand. The first major part of such a tackle is a huge hook, which rises a piece of meat, the second – one and a half meters of a thick fishing line without a float, the third, most important – stick (LAY). Secrets fishing on such a fishing rod. But even if they do not know them, but simply beat a stick on the water and periodically check the bait, then instead of meat on the hook can be detected. Piranu. After a walk along the river with stops in fish places and local piers, the cake will certainly approach the shore, from which a real Indian trail leads to the Jagua tribe.
Here they are, real nomadic Indians in straw clothes. Complete advantages, they allow the covered company of tourists to photograph and consider themselves from all sides. Unlike its city fellow, they do not pull hands and do not "UN SOL" After each click of the camera. Their business is honest: what did, then sold. Appeals amulets, drums, tubes for firing needles, you can spare with the head of the world. And it doesn’t matter if there is no tube at hand, and cigarette. Only with fire is more inactive, clothing from Indians-men straw.
And enjoying wildlife, enjoy the exotic city. From Ikitos to Lima, and there urgently in Baranko. Baranko – one of the five districts of the capital of Peru. Burlit nightlife: cafes, restaurants, discos. The entrance to the discos is paid, but is it sorry to give 10 strains for "Revolver" or 13 for "Amnesia", When there are so many fun girls and guys.
But not a baton one. In Lima "Massone man" Detect at least 20 museums and countless architectural monuments of the time of Francisco Pizzaro. Where, as not in the gold museum, look for the remains of the treasure of the Inca? This private museum and because more reminds Plushkina’s storage room, in which occasionally injected the order scientists. It’s interesting. In no other place you will see at the same time the sword of an unknown conquistador, a gun of the former Soviet military adviser, and a pincatile uniform. From gold products ripples in the eyes, and therefore the appearance of ceramic and wooden phallos of various sizes occurs suddenly. Actually, what from them, from the Incas, wait: not a TV, nor newspapers, so the people of life, as they could, about what the many figures frozen in the most obscene poses. The guide, of course, will give obsolence a noble appearance, explaining about the cult traditions. But the truth did not know only the inches.
Truth and we must fly to Cusco, the former capital of the Great Empire Inca, and now the provincial tourist city.
At the airport of tourists meet joyful sellers Koki. It turns out that the leaves of this sadly famous plant helps the human body to cope with a height. And the tourist with them behind the cheek is easier to walk around the city, located at a height of 3.360 meters above sea level.
Old Town destroyed the omnipresent pizzaro in 1534, but not to the ground. On the strong foundation of the capital of the Empire Inca, he built a new, Spanish Cusco, in which now live together "New Inki" – Kechua and descendants of the first conquistadors.
In the area of Cusco Pizzaro turn around as he did not have time. And tourists from all over the world Have something to see Urcos, Pisaq, Calca, Ollantaytambo. But the most untouched an ancient Indian city – Picchu Machu, who was accidentally found in 1911, and in 1914 it was already stretched by a narrow-chain in the direction of Cusco. Since then, abandoned by Incas, the city again came to life and hospitably takes tourists from around the world. And they, as an ants, crawl over the terraces, climb to the temple of the Sun, having stuck, look down the height of 600 meters on the Urabamaba river turned into a streaming river, fall from fatigue and get up again, take pictures with lamas and without llamas, hug up with sacred stones. Every tourist who wants to get into Machu Picchu is his own trail. Fans of a backpack and tents are offered a three-day 43-kilometer mountain route from the Orihuayrachina railway station. Wishing to get to Machu Picchu immediately – can take advantage of the helicopter, which flies from Cusco every day, lovers of railways – from Cusco train, well, and inquisitive, the whole valley of the Urabamba river by bus, join the "Railwayman" in Ollantaytambo.
Returning to Lima with full luggage of impressions, souvenirs and fatigue, I really want the sea. The sea is everywhere, even in Lima – a whole Pacific Ocean. But how to resist the desire, except for the quiet, swim also in the Atlantic Ocean, when to Colombia only three o’clock? According to the stories of the experienced tourists, there are stranger there and immediately run the scary drug Burundang, from which a person loses his will, and there are more partisans all the roads overlap and people are kidnapped in vain, as in Chechnya, only with computer accounting. The bus will be stopped with tourists, check the passport on your computer, and the richest – on the output.
Every decent office in Bogota has its own security, and not simple, but with dogs, every rich citizen – a house with a video camera and a searchlight, which is automatically included, if someone goes by. In expensive sleeping areas – houses for a common fence with guard and lattices on the windows of the first floors.
In Bogota really a lot of crime, but not so much to shake from fear in the room, closing for ten constipation. Instead, it is worth visiting the local gold museum and, if you allow funds to buy emeralds at the local factory. And in Cartagena, located on the coast of the Caribbean, except for the Sun, there is nothing to fear. True, at the beginning of the 16th century, the pirates loved to be frozen in this city, but the Spanish Crown put an end to these disgraces. In 1686, Spanish military engineers did not finish the hands of the city of the fortress wall and erected the fortress structures. Thanks to their efforts, modern tourists have a unique opportunity to combine beach holidays with a magnificent excursion program. Evening mice on the fortress walls and cozy streets of the old city do not overshadow even another beggar boy, half an hour walking near the outstretched hand.
It’s nice that Calesa not only rolling on a specific route, but it really really works like a taxi with a power of one horsepower. It’s nice that Centro modern hotels built in former monasteries, skillfully combine a colonial style with postmodern. It’s nice that in the Kabash Mr. Babilla all dance on the tables, despite the age, weight and thickness of the wallet. Nice to drink for Don Pedro – for Pedro Strait, who opened 465 years ago, is a paradise.
"I" Thanks by Columbia Avianca Airlines for organizing a trip.
Representation Reservation Services in Moscow: Tverskaya Street, 18-B; (095) 937 5571, Fax 937 5574.
