detail from: KRK Art dizajn

ON THE ANDES WITH THE INCAS

When the KLM plane took off from Dr Albert Plesman Luchthaven in the Netherlands Antilles, it headed for Venezuela and then via Colombia and Ecuador to Peru. There were only fourteen of us passengers and about the same number of crew members on board. Over Venezuela, we flew over the Orinoco River, the city of Caracas and Lake Maracaibo, and then over the mountain peaks of Colombia. The sky was completely clear, without a single cloud below us, and I stared at the sharp mountain peaks and remembered the famous Primo Carnera, the famous boxer and wrestler, who was mortally afraid of flying over the Cordilleras. At that moment, a stewardess approached me and gave me a KLM sticker that said “I crossed the equator with KLM”. The plane seemed to be standing still, all you could hear was the steady sound of the engine, the pilot approached me and sat down next to me. I looked at him in surprise and asked:

Who is piloting now? He replied:

The automatic pilot!

Seeing that I was looking at him with astonishment, he suggested that I go with him to the cockpit. And when we got in, the pilot's seat was empty, and to his right was sitting only the flight mechanic. The pilot showed me the default elements of automatic flight in the cockpit full of instruments, which I observed with admiration. When he assured me that the plane was flying without a pilot, we returned to our seats. The pilot had information that I was from Yugoslavia, so he asked me:

What will happen when Tito dies?

Without thinking ahead, I answered him:

We will bury him at state expense!

worked at CONAPS as part of technical assistance to the Republic of Peru, developing the bakery industry. CONAPS was under military administration, and its director was an active-duty general. They gave me wonderful staff to help me, Luis (of Spanish blood); Nely (Indian) and Rocio (a mixture of an Indian father and a Spanish mother). We worked for them in the institution and at the university, and every afternoon I spent hours on the beach. I enjoyed watching the master surfers on the waves of the Humboldt Current, up to five meters high, and even more so the graceful beauties in their thongs. All my days were sunny and I had never had a better tan in my life than the one I brought from Peru. It took me quite a while to learn how to get in and out of the water of the Pacific, which rolled rocks as big as soccer balls with its huge waves.

The accommodation at Señora Noya's was excellent, she had six members of the crew in the house who served us. Our favorite was Pasqual, who hated Señora Noya because she often punished him and paid him poorly. When we taught him some derogatory words in Serbian, he knew exactly when to use them towards Señora Noya, to which she always replied in the affirmative with "Si Seniore". One day Señora Noya asked me to cook a Serbian dish, and what else did I know besides beans? I asked her how many people she should count on, she said 20, and she had 144 living in her family. We found beans and dried meat in the city, and when lunch was ready, there were only fifteen of them. The general was the most careful about eating, probably afraid of the start of "war operations".

One Saturday, an acquaintance of mine from America, and a Bosnian by birth, Mr. Mijo Rašić, came to visit me with his American wife. They took Mirko and me to a beach about 20 km from Lima. Mijo, although in his advanced years, swam exceptionally well, dressed in a rubberized suit that protected him from the cold in the huge waves. He swam so far that we could not even see him, and his wife often climbed up to see him and waved at him.

Mirko and I watched the quick action of the Peruvian thieves. A young American, only about twenty

years old, was lying on the sand and kissing a Peruvian woman who was towering over him. The American had left his suit behind her back. While he was enjoying the beauty's embrace, two young men approached, grabbed everything behind her back, and disappeared in the form of fog among the numerous swimmers. When the young man regained consciousness, he got up and saw that everything had disappeared from him. He jumped up, they both started running, and he shouted hilariously, but too late. She soon left him, she was the organizer of the theft. The American was left on a beach 20 km from the city, without a wallet, hotel key, passport and complete clothes. Alone in the white world in only his swimming trunks.

When CONAPS organized a visit to the desert for us, we set off in a jeep with a driver who did not speak English, and we did not know enough Spanish. The Pan-Americana road to Barranca led through the desert and was straight for its 300 km. The driver was silent the whole time and fell asleep, landing in the sand. Mirko fell from the back seat to the front and got injured, and we forgot to bring bandages, potassium permanganate and everything else we had brought from Yugoslavia for emergencies. We had a very dirty hotel in Barranca, so I pulled my sweater over the pillow. For all three meals we only ate grilled chicken, and luckily for them it was an extraordinarily tasty dish. My lecture to the Indians, of Inca origin, was unforgettable. It's a shame we couldn't record it so I could watch it myself afterwards, I got the impression that the audience thought I had "fallen from Mars". None of the 12 of them knew English, and I didn’t speak Spanish. Before our return, we watched as the taxi driver used his feet to push the Indians into the car, to make them fit more, and as they were walking through the hot desert, he didn't care about that.

CONAPS organized a visit to the city of Cusco and the famous Machu Picchu for us. Before leaving, our ambassador Luka Soldić recommended that we visit Miroslav Marinković, our compatriot, who owns the Koricancha restaurant in Cusco. We flew with the domestic company Aero Peru and landed at the airport in Cusco at an altitude of 3450 m. The city itself is in a valley, while the surrounding hills are all over 4000 m. As soon as we got off the plane, we felt the lack of oxygen and had a hard time breathing. We walked slowly to the first taxi, which took us to the hotel. And at the hotel we immediately received two liters of coca tea each. Its taste is a little unpleasant, but it makes breathing easier. When we headed towards the Koricancha restaurant, which was quite close, we could barely walk. We met Miroslav in the restaurant, who looked 100% like Miroslav Čkalja. We conveyed the ambassador's greetings to him, after which Miroslav began his life story.

He is originally from Uba, and in Belgrade he worked as an engraver. They came to Peru to find his wife's father, while he was still alive, and life brought him here by chance, where he stayed forever. Miroslav's wife was his only child, so she also wanted to see her father. They arrived by boat in the port of Callao with their three-year-old daughter. That's where they encountered their first troubles, they didn't speak Spanish, and they had no idea about her father's address. And after much trouble, it was found that her father lived in the rainforest of the Urubamba River. And they set off in search. Their journey took them across the Cordillera, crossing the world's highest railway pass, and then they descended to the city of Cusco. After searching for countless days, they arrived in the rainforest and found their father alive. For him, it was a gift from God, the happiest day when he embraced his unit, only to give up his soul a short time later, but went to heaven happy. And while they took care of their father while he was still alive and shortly after his funeral, their return tickets expired and they had to start a life in the jungle with the Indians. They made a shelter out of branches and banana leaves, but at night they heard the howling of animals and the hissing of snakes. All three of them cried every night. Miroslav began trading in llamas, together with the Indians. He remembered to start growing tomatoes, since the rainforest was abundant in rain and warm sunshine, which the Indians liked. When they got fruits weighing up to 900 grams, the Indians elected him as their chief. Then their living conditions improved significantly. They stopped crying, and the little girl learned to play with the Indian children. After a few years, Miroslav had acquired enough wealth so they moved to the city, where they bought a house, and then opened the Korikancha restaurant, which in the Quechua language means "gift of the Sun God". They all learned the Quechua language and their daughter was educated, and the two of them worked hard. They made new friends among lawyers and doctors. And when we stayed with them, their daughter was in her third year of medical school. Miroslav expressed a burning desire to see Belgrade and his Ub once more. I do not know if these wishes ever came true. One weekend he took us to the village of Pisac, to a village market, where Inca Indians sold their products and handmade souvenirs. They seemed very friendly to me, with gentle smiles towards everyone.

From Cusco we traveled by narrow-gauge train to Machu Picchu, along the Urubamba River valley, which forms the upper basin of the Amazon. To the foot of Machu Picchu, at an altitude of about 2500 m, we partly passed through the jungle. We climbed up on foot, along very steep paths. Machu Picchu was discovered by the American professor at Yale University, Dr. Hiram Bingham, in 1911. The city was built by the Incas, hiding from the Spanish conquerors led by Pisar, who mercilessly robbed, abused and killed them. Mirko, Luis and I climbed to the very top of Huayna Picchu, which took us quite a while and a few glucose pills. The view down, down 900-meter-high cliffs, to the Urubamba River, roaring and rolling "wood and stones" was terrifying. We enjoyed looking down from the peak that only the Incas had climbed, and the return trip was even more terrifying, because pebbles were falling under our feet and there was a risk of carelessness slipping into the abyss.

On the train back to Cusco, it was raining in the jungle, from where we could hear the howls of wild animals. When the train climbed the surrounding hills, in the distance below the mountain peaks, the lights of Indian houses could be seen like night owls. Then the train stopped to let local passengers get off, and while we waited for it to move on, I watched an Indian squatting next to an anthill and deliciously eating live giant ants.

Near the city of Cusco, we visited the walls that the Incas built from huge stone blocks weighing, they say, up to 30 tons. It is a mystery where they dragged so many of them when there were no quarries even 100 km away, how they transported them when they did not yet know about the wheel and how they lifted them when no cranes were found anywhere. And their sides are processed in such a way that they fit perfectly into each other, without any binding mortar. These walls were built at a certain angle to withstand the frequent earthquakes, which have always occurred in this part of the world. The best descriptions of the Incas were left by the Swiss Erich von Daniken, whom I have always read with pleasure.

On a hill above the city of Cusco, there is a cave that the Peruvians say the Incas grew golden corn in. They warn us that if we enter it, no one guarantees that we will return. When I heard this story from the taxi driver who took us there, I said let them continue to believe it, and if there is any gold left from the Incas, it should remain with them, because the Spaniards robbed them too much anyway. In the city of Cusco, there is a monastery called Custodia de la Merced, which houses a 130 cm high golden statue made of 22.20 kg of 22-carat gold, made from 1720 to 1804 in the style of French neoclassicism and baroque. The statue contains 1,518 diamonds and brilliants and 615 pearls made of rubies, emeralds and topazes. It is known that the Incas loved gold and were the only ones in their time to combine it with silver through the forging process. Hence, they left behind the legacy of their "golden civilization".

I celebrated New Year's Eve with a group of people from the institute and their friends, there were nearly a hundred of us in a private house, and immediately after sunrise, I went to the beach. During my stay in Peru, from October to January, it was summer in the southern hemisphere. So that year I had two summers a year.

Before my return to Yugoslavia, Senora Noya and her husband, the general, gave me a farewell lunch in their private rooms. Noya happily showed me her private treasury of bracelets, rings, tiaras, necklaces and gold jewelry of all kinds, in a chest with a volume of about 600 liters. She mixed them with pleasure. She sold me a bracelet, which I bought for my wife. I bought my daughters Inca-themed ponchos.

Ambassador Luka Soldić, who often invited me to his office to talk, asked me to bring the diplomatic mail, which I gladly did and handed over to him at the Belgrade airport. Velizar Savić and Ilija Paunov drove me to the Lima airport, and from the airport terrace, the latter waved to me by Rocío as I climbed the stairs of the DC-10. On the plane, the music of "Flight of the Condor" brought back fond memories. Peru inspired me with the beauty of the Inca civilization, which I carry and pass on to my younger siblings, and as long as I walk the earth, I will never forget the country that gave me so much enjoyment.

After a three-month stay in the land of the Incas, from Lima we landed in Panama City, Curacao, Caracas, Madrid, Zurich and Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam to Belgrade I flew on a JAT plane. The trip and stay remained unforgettable.

SIMO JELAČA

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