One creaky carriage, nearly 100 years old, still does the run over the white viaduct that arches through the crumbling rooves of Largo de Lapa. Angelic favela boys hung on to the outside of the train, eyeing my pockets as they swung between lamp-posts. None of them mugged me.FACT FILEFlightsA return flight on British Airways (Reservations: 0345 222111) from London Gatwick to Rio de Janeiro currently costs pounds 539 plus tax, if booked by the end of May for departures before end of June.PackagesA week’s package to Rio with Journey Latin America (0181 7478315), including return BA flights, six nights in a three- star hotel in Copacabana and some excursions, costs from pounds 818. JLA also run extended escorted tours of Brazil, incorporating Rio.ToursFavela tours, lasting half a day, can be arranged through any hotel for about US$50 (regardless of numbers). Football tours, on match days, are also available.VisasVisas are not required by British citizens.ReadingThe Lonely Planet guide to Brazil (pounds 11.95); the Rough Guide to Brazil (pounds 9.99; next edition currently in preparation).The author travelled as a guest of Journey Latin America and British Airways.. 1 – Tikal, Guatemala: cAD800. With spectacular temples cloaked in jungle, the Mayan city of Tikal is the image of a “Lost City” from a Hollywood movie.
Stay overnight and enter the ruins early for an unforgettable dawn chorus of parrots, macaws, toucans and howler monkeys. Other Mayan ruins include Chichen Itza and Palenque in Mexico and Copan in Honduras.
2 – Machu Picchu (right), Peru: cAD1500.Breathtaking. The four-day Inca Trail hike, passing smaller ruins, Inca roads, cloudforest and snow-capped mountains, is the best way to appreciate it. The Cusco region contains many other worthwhile Inca ruins.3 – Kuelap, Peru: cAD1OOO.The greatest pre-Colombian fortress in the Americas.4 – Ciudad Perdido, Colombia: cAD500-14OO.This 400-hectare city is South America’s most important archaeological find this century. It lies hidden high on the thickly forested slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia.
You can get there by helicopter but, like the Inca Trail, hiking (a seven-day round trip) makes it an unforgettable experience. The Tairona people were highly skilled engineers and astronomers who resisted the Spanish for a century.5 – Teotihuacan, Mexico: c30OBC.On the plains near Mexico City, this was once one of the world’s largest cities, with an estimated population of 250,000. A 4km-long central avenue is flanked by huge ceremonial plazas and pyramid temples. Its builders are unknown.6 – San Augustan, Colombia: cAD600-1400.Hundreds of strange, often conical statues dot the green hills around this laid-back country town Again, little is known of the people who left them. Ancient burial chambers surround the nearby village of Tierradentro, which is set in lovely countryside.7 – Cartagena, Colombia: AD1533.Frequently besieged by pirates such as Sir Francis Drake, this Caribbean port was the storehouse for the treasures of the Spanish Main waiting to be shipped to Europe.
