The capital of Peru, Lima, was founded almost 500 years ago on 15 January 1535. Its founder, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, considered this place extremely unfriendly: rains are rare, earthquakes are frequent, and in winter the whole sky is covered with gray clouds. However, Pizarro's soldiers liked the place. In the event of an Indian rebellion, it was possible to quickly flee from here to the sea and board the ship.
- Five years after its founding, Lima became the capital of the Spanish colonial power and received the title of "a beautiful, delightful, loyal city of kings". However, only Spaniards considered this city beautiful. There were almost no sources of freshwater, the wind was blowing all the time, and the land was barren. 3/5 of the entire Peruvian territory is occupied by the Amazonian jungle. The roads here are rivers, cars - motorboats or canoes. The Amazonian rainforests are home to less than 8% of the country's total population. Our expedition has climbed up the Madre de Dios River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon.
- The countryside is so impassable that no economic progress has been made here. Thanks to this, the forests have remained intact. Selva practically "preserved" the life of local tribes. Somewhere here live aborigines who have preserved the primitive way of life. The only civilized people they have ever talked to are missionaries.
- The main starting point for missionaries who intended to convert the Peruvian Indians to Catholicism was the Monastery of Santa Rosa de Ocopa, founded in 1725 by Franciscan monks. Many monks paid the price of their lives to get here. Some died on the road at the hands of Indian savages, while others were eaten by wild animals in the jungle. And even now it is not easy to get to the monastery. We had to overcome more than three hundred kilometers of dizzying mountain road, with endless tunnels, unexpected turns, and a serpentine falling off somewhere in the abyss. The furious, roaring mountain rivers seemed ready to wash away bridges, embankments, roads - everything they would get in their way.
- The main pride of the monastery is the library. Most of the books were brought here in saddle bags by European priests who crossed the Andes in mules. It took the founder of the book depository more than three years to classify and arrange the books on the shelves. This library is the largest in Peru and the best in Latin America.
- The oldest and most valuable books here are manuscripts on biology, astronomy, and theology from Europe, diaries with descriptions of the conquest of the New World by the Spanish. One of the rarest is the Bible of 1564, written in German. And the oldest book of the library was written in 1490.
- Unique and mysterious lines in the Nazca desert always attracted researchers. Nazca lines are drawings of geometric figures, animals, and birds up to 300 meters in size, inscribed on a dry crust of the Nazca desert 2,000 years ago and preserved due to the complete absence of rains and winds, which cleanse but do not destroy the upper layer of soil.
- Candelabra. It is believed that this drawing is directly related to the Nazca lines. But they are separated by more than a hundred kilometers of desert and a few more kilometers of sea. And it is possible to see the Candelabra only from the side of the Pacific Ocean, bypassing the island on which it is located.
- The Best Islands are part of the Paracas National Park in Peru. Here lives a huge number of birds and marine animals. It is said that the ships passing by anchored near the Balest islands to replenish the holds with fresh meat of strange creatures that have never sailed to the mainland. It seems that no man has ever set foot on these islands. All the ledges and platforms on these mountains are covered with birds. However, the manure does not disappear in vain - there is a guan farm on the islands, where manure is collected for fertilizers.
- Arequipa is probably the most Spanish city in Latin America. In 1540 it was founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco de Carvajal. At first, the whole city consisted of a single estate, which was called "Beautiful villa Arequipa". The villa became a transshipment point for caravans carrying silver from rich mines Potosiv in neighboring Bolivia to the port of Kilka for shipment to Spain. Later the whole town grew up around the villa.
In 1541, a year after its foundation, the king of Spain granted this oasis at the foot of the volcano the title "The most noble, loyal, loyal city of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary in the beautiful valley of Arequipa". The Aymara Indians, who lived in this valley even before the Spaniards, expressed themselves more simply. They called the valley "Arequipa", i.e. "the place behind the peaked mountain". According to one of the versions, Arequipa got its second name - the White City for its beautiful white stone houses. On the other hand, there were so many Europeans in the settlement founded by the Spaniards that Arequipa was called the White City for this.