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Voyage antigo restaurado em alto padrão a versão LS 1983 de volta a vida

• 23 de fevereiro de 2024

Voyage antigo restaurado em alto padrão a versão LS 1983 de volta a vida, o compacto Volkswagen que foi sonho de consumo no início dos anos 1980, começa a ganhar mais espaço no mercado de carros antigos.

Ele chegou as concessionárias em maio de 1981, logo caiu no gosto dos fãs de compactos e da montadora alemã, com um visual atraente. Mas o que mais chamou a atenção do sedan do projeto BX da Volkswagen , foi o motor BR 1.5 refrigerado a água, o mesmo que equipava a família VW Passat.

O conjunto propulsor foi o grande trunfo da montadora no marketing da época. O que mais se ouvia falar tanto nas ruas, como nas principais revistas automotivas era, “o novo Gol sedan foi lançado com o motor do Passat”.

O carro causou um grande frisson no mercado, já o irmão hatch lançado no ano anterior, ainda amargava a maldição do motoro Boxer refrigerado a ar. Em 1983 ano do modelo da nossa matéria, a montadora equipa o Voyage com o moderno motor MD-270 1.6, mais robusto mais rápido e com um tempo de vida útil maior.

Entre os anos de 1982 e 1983 o VW Voyage, VW Passat e o Ford Del Rey, passaram a ser os carros com seguro total mais caro do Brasil, entre os médios e compactos. O motivo era o sucesso, os modelos vendiam tão bem, que se tornaram o principal alvo dos ladrões.

Uma das principais revistas automotivas da época, fez uma matéria sobre o assunto, e estampou na capa, “cuidado dos de Voyage, Passat e Del Rey, os ladrões estão a solta” . Consequentemente bancos e seguradoras, deitaram e rolaram nas vendas de seguros.

Voltando a falar do Voyage antigo da nossa matéria, o exemplar foi restaurado em alto padrão pela clássicos Premium. Tecido original dos bancos e portas, interior totalmente original, incluindo forrações e teto, o painel nunca foi instalado rádio. Pintura com acabamento Premium. Além dos vidros ainda originais.

No mercado de carro antigo, o Voyage assume um posicionamento econômico no mesmo padrão da família Chevette, mas uma unidade que passou por um processo de restauração classe A, como o da matéria, a avaliação de valores, depende muito da política de cada colecionador.

Ficha Técnica – Voyage antigo – Versão LS – Ano 1983

Carroceria –  Sedã; Porte –  Compacto; Portas –  2; Motor –  MD-270 1.6; Cilindros –  4 em linha; Válvulas por cilindro – 2; Posição –  Longitudinal; Combustível –  Álcool; Potência –  81 cv; Peso Torque –  69,6 kg/kgfm; Cilindrada –  1588 cm³.

Torque máximo –  12,8 kgfm a 2600 rpm; Potência Máxima –  5200 rpm; Tração –  Dianteira; Alimentação –   Carburador; Direção –  Simples; Câmbio –  Manual de 4 marchas com alavanca no assoalho; Embreagem –  Monodisco a seco.

Freios –  Freio a disco sólido nas rodas dianteiras e tambor nas rodas traseiras; Peso –  891 kg; Suspensão dianteira – Independente, McPherson – Mola helicoidal; Suspensão traseira – Eixo torção – Mola helicoidal.

Comprimento –  4083 mm; Distância entre-eixos –  2358 mm; Largura –  1601 mm; Altura –  1364 mm; Aceleração de 0 a 100 –  15,3 Segundos; Velocidade máxima –  154 km/h; Consumo:  Cidade 8,9 km/l – Estrada 15,3 km/l; Autonomia:  Cidade 473 km – Estrada 655 km.

Porta malas –  382 Litros; Carga útil –  390 kg; Tanque de combustível –  55 Litros; Valor atualizado Aproximado –  R$ 128.000,00; Valor atualizado aproximado se refere apenas a uma estimativa de quanto o carro custaria hoje Zero Km na concessionária  – Não possui nenhum parâmetro real do mercado atual.

O Motor Tudo,  NÃO  trabalha com nenhum tipo de comércio de carros, apenas faz matérias sobre a história de carros clássicos.

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Voyages Antigua Tours and Services

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Scenic Full Day Tour of Antigua

Airport Transfers to Antigua Hotels/Resorts

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Voyages Antigua Tours and Services - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Voyages Antigua Tours & Services

Excursions & day trips st. john’s, antigua, start your adventure today.

Allow us to be your personal tour guide and experience the real Antigua. We can take you from the most iconic places to off-the-beaten-path destinations that you would never find on your own. Take a full-day or half-day tour to enjoy history, nature, and scenic places!

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Scenic Full Day Tour of Antigua

This extensive sightseeing tour visits Devil’s Bridge, Betty’s Hope, Blockhouse, Shirley Heights, Nelson Dockyard, Fig Tree Drive, and much more!

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Historical Half Day Tour/Beach

Starting from St. John’s, explore the quaint villages of Freeman’s and Liberta, Shirley’s Heights, Nelson’s Dockyard in English Harbour, and one of the island’s fine sandy beaches.

Voyages Antigua Tours & Services provides professional services through transfers, cruises, and tours in French, Spanish, and English.

Sometimes it is what a destination does not have that attracts people. Antigua and Barbuda is a case in point. Looking for a frantic pace? You’ll realize it is happily missing once you get on board one of our buses or sip a tropical punch under the benevolent sun. Crowds on the beach? You have 365 white sandy beaches to choose from, providing a sense of tranquillity and ample elbow room, whether you’re alone or with that special someone.

Of course, there are things we do have in abundance — history, nature, scenery, and more, stimulating the senses of body and soul. With an ocean of great adventure, breathtaking underwater scenery, and friendliness unparalleled in the Caribbean, Voyages Antigua Tours & Services lies ready to receive you and yours for your dream vacation. Book a tour today!

A Great Way to Experience Antigua!

This was a better than expected tour. A few passenger were very late so I actually had a solo tour. So I think I experienced and seen areas I probably wouldn't have otherwise. So that was an added bonus. My tour guide Julie was very sweet and kind. I love the fact that we toured within the various communities and even checked out a few local spots; Antigua is such a beautiful island. Over-all this was a really good tour.

Our driver, George, was excellent and tailored our tour to fit our interests. He was very knowledgeable and obliging. We can recommend this tour to anyone visiting as we did off a cruise ship.

We have ordered a day trip by mail after reading the reviews on TripAdvisor. We were on the island with a cruise and the staff was super service minded, responded quickly our emails. The driver was Randy, a happy guy, good and informative driver, we were very pleased with both sightseeing and fantastic beach. Highly recommended.

We had such a wonderful tour of Antigua during our cruise ship stop recently. George, our tour operator, tailored a tour to the needs of all 12 in our group - tasting local delicacies, visiting some lovely beaches and enjoying the natural beauty of this island paradise. Lovely island...lovely people.

8 Ancient Voyages That Changed the World

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Throughout human history, the call of the unknown has driven explorers to embark on daring voyages into uncharted waters. These intrepid explorers have braved treacherous seas, and unknown dangers, driven by the thrill of discovery and the promise of new knowledge and riches. From the earliest days of seafaring civilizations the human desire to explore and push the boundaries of what is possible has led to some of the greatest achievements in history. Here are 8 of the greatest voyages of all time and how they shaped history. 

1.Pytheas - Discovered Thule (Kind Of)

We start our list with one of the great ancient Greek explorers, Pytheas . Born in around 350 BC, Pytheas spent much of the 4th century BC on voyages exploring the coasts of Europe. His most famous voyage was when he set sail from the Greek colony of Massalia (modern-day Marseille in France) and sailed to the north, reaching regions the Greeks had never laid eyes upon before.

His most famous achievement is perhaps discovering the land of Thule in the Northern Atlantic. This is a bit of a strange one because, for all intents and purposes, Thule doesn’t exist and never has. Pytheas believed he had discovered a hitherto unknown frozen island far North of Britain, the only problem being, there was no island there.

Today many historians believe Pytheas was either lying or got lost. It is likely that “Thule” was actually modern-day Norway or Iceland. Pytheas described Thule as a land of perpetual ice and snow where the sun barely rose. It’s more likely Pytheas would have described anywhere near England as perpetually damp and grey!

Pytheas didn’t just discover imaginary islands. He extensively voyaged around the coasts of Britain, Iceland, and northern Germany, documenting the customs and lifestyles of the people he met along his way. 

His greatest accomplishments were perhaps on the scientific side of his voyages. He was fascinated by tidal systems which he studied and described them in great detail. He is also credited as being one of the first navigators to identify the phenomenon of the midnight sun, where the sun remains visible for 24 hours a day in the far north during the summer months.

2.Leif Erikson - Beat Columbus to it

Christopher Columbus was the first European to set foot on North American soil. Right? Wrong. Over the years it has become increasingly likely that a Norse explorer by the name of Leif Erikson beat Columbus to it, and likely many others did too.

Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer active during the 10th century. According to the Norse sagas , Leif’s greatest achievement was when he sailed from Greenland to a region called Vinland, believed to be somewhere in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada today.

L'Anse aux Meadows is the only site widely accepted as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. It is notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with Norse exploration of the Americas. (Michel Rathwell/ CC BY 2.0 )

Our knowledge of Norse history is famously spotty, but it’s believed Leif’s voyage set sail around the year 1000 AD. It is likely he got the idea for his journey after another famous Norse explorer, Bjama Herjolfson, had been blown off course while sailing to Iceland and stumbled across the unknown region.

Leif set sail with around 30 of his best men and upon reaching Vinland, established a Viking settlement in an area called L’Anse aux Meadows. They weren’t there for very long (carbon dating estimates from 990-1050 AD) but it was a major achievement in Norse exploration and colonization. Evidence of Norse buildings including a longhouse and a smithy has been found and it is believed they traded and interacted with the locals, whom they dubbed “Skraelings.”

Leif Erikson is a celebrated figure in Norse culture and mythology but only in recent years has he started to get the recognition he deserves as the first European to land in North America. Today L’Anse aux meadows is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourist attraction. 

3.Columbus - Set Out for Asia, Found America

It might seem a little unkind to follow up Leif with Columbus, but Columbus’s voyage was still an important one. Born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451, Columbus is perhaps the most famous explorer of all time. In particular, he’s famed for his attempt at finding a new route to the lucrative spice trade in Asia.

Going against what was accepted knowledge at the time, Columbus believed that by sailing west across the Atlantic, he could reach Asia more quickly than by sailing around the southern tip of Africa like everyone else. 

"Columbus map", drawn c. 1490 in the Lisbon mapmaking workshop of Bartholomew and Christopher Columbus. ( Public Domain )

Getting sponsors for his voyage was no easy task. Most people believed the earth was flat and thought Columbus’s ship would sail right off the edge of the earth. Those who were coming around to the idea of earth being a globe just thought he’d get lost. Still, in 1492 Columbus set sail from the port of Palos in Spain and headed west. He took three ships with him, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

After a few weeks at sea, Columbus and his crew spotted land, which they believed to be Asia. Instead, they reached an island in the Bahamas, which Columbus named San Salvador. Over the next few months, Columbus and his men explored the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing the settlement La Navidad. 

Over the years Columbus made a total of four voyages to the New World. Once hailed as a hero, today his legacy is a complicated one. On the one hand, he’s credited as being responsible for opening up the Americas to European exploration and colonization.

But on the other hand, what one person calls colonization, another calls exploitation. His treatment of the indigenous peoples he found has been widely criticized. Columbus and his men brought disease and violence to the New World and the European colonizers happily enslaved and exploited many of the locals.

4.Zheng He - Ancient China’s Greatest Explorer

It isn’t just Europe that has given us some of history’s greatest voyages. The Chinese explorer Zheng He was born in China in 1371. A high-profile admiral in the imperial navy of the Ming dynasty, Zheng He was tasked with an important mission, to lead a series of voyages to establish diplomatic and trade relations with other countries.

• Ancient Mariners: Transoceanic Voyages Before the Europeans
• Did China discover America 70 years before Columbus?

His first voyage took place in 1405 and was of a grand scale. Zheng He commanded over 300 ships, including colossal treasure ships measuring up to 400 feet long (121.92m). The voyages had one goal, to promote Chinese power and prestige and it was Zheng He’s mission to deliver gifts and treasures to the leaders of the countries he visited.

Under the Yongle Emperor (third Emperor of the Ming dynasty ) and Xuande Emperor (fifth Ming Emperor) Zheng He carried out 7 voyages. He visited a wide range of countries and regions, including Southeast Asia, India, and East Africa. Along the way, he established important Chinese trading posts and diplomatic missions in these areas. On his return trips, he brought home exotic animals such as giraffes and zebras to entertain the Chinese court. 

All of this wasn’t cheap. While his voyages were remarkable achievements in both maritime exploration and diplomacy, after his death in 1433 the Chinese government turned inward and brought an end to China’s age of exploration.

Woodblock print representing Zheng He’s ships. ( Public Domain  )

5.Magellan - Around the World in 1095 Days

Columbus wasn’t the only European whose voyages were focused on the spice trade. Ferdinand Magellan , born in Portugal in 1480, was a soldier and sailor who was commissioned by the Spanish government to lead an expedition to find a western route to the spice islands of Indonesia.

He set sail from Spain in 1519 with a fleet of five ships and a crew of over 200 men. He crossed the Atlantic and traveled south along the coast of South America. In doing so he discovered a passage that led through the southern tip of the continent, the Strait of Magellan. His voyage then continued as he crossed the Pacific Ocean, encountering several new islands along the way, including Guam and the Philippines.

Magellan’s voyage was a long one. So long in fact, that by the time his crew returned to Spain in 1522, they had circumnavigated the globe. The first people in history to do so. Despite being remembered as the first man to circumnavigate the globe, Magellan didn’t finish his voyage. 

His trip had faced numerous challenges along the way from storms to mutinies and skirmishes with ingenious people. One of these skirmishes proved fatal and Magellan fell in the Philippines, killed by a bamboo spear, on 27th April 1521 after trying to convert the locals to Christianity.

6.Hanno the Navigator - Ancient Voyage in Africa

Hanno the Navigator, or Hanno the Carthaginian as he was also known, was an explorer from the ancient city-state of Carthage located in modern-day Tunisia. In the 5th century AD, he set out on a voyage along the west coast of Africa looking to establish new trade routes that would expand his people’s influence.

Hanno voyaged far and wide. His ships took him along the Atlantic coast of Africa through present-day countries like Morocco, Western Sahara, Senegal, and Gambia. Along the way Hanno stopped to take in the sites, encountering many new lands and peoples, including the people of the Verde Islands. He even discovered a tribe of ape-like, highly aggressive people. He killed three of them, skinned them, and took their pelts back to Carthage. Their name? The Gorillai.

The term gorilla comes from Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator, who was exploring the African coast. He described coming across a tribe of “gorillae”, monstrous and violent humans. It is likely he actually encountered chimps or baboons. (Mira Miejer /  CC BY SA 4.0  )

Hanno recorded his voyages in a text called the Periplus of Hanno which details the lands and peoples he came across. While some historians today doubt its accuracy it is still seen as an important document in the history of exploration and geography. Hanno’s voyage helped establish Carthage’s influence along Africa’s west coast and paved the way for further exploration and trade in the region. 

7.Sir Francis Drake - Survived Circumnavigating the Globe

Magellan may have been the first man to circumnavigate the globe but Sir Francis Drake, the second man to do so, did it in style. Sir Francis Drake was a 16th-century English explorer, privateer, and naval commander whose voyages have become the stuff of legend.

Drake’s first voyage was in 1567 when he sailed to the Caribbean as part of a slave trading expedition. Over the next ten years, he made several voyages to the Americas. During these trips, he was a state-sanctioned privateer. He raided Spanish ships and settlements accumulating great wealth and fame in the process.

A map of Drake's voyage [showing Europe, western Africa, northern South America, and eastern North America]; the four other engravings consist of bird's-eye battle plan views of the cities of Santiago, Santo Domingo, Cartagena, and St. Augustine, Florida.( Public Domain )

In 1577 he used this wealth to set out on a three-year voyage around the world, copying Magellan’s feat. Along the way, he explored the west coast of South America, claimed land for England in what is now California, and traded with the people of the Moluccas in modern-day Indonesia.

Perhaps his greatest achievement came in 1588 when he played a key role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada which had been sent to invade England. Drake's years of experience and skill as a naval commander helped to turn the tide of the battle and secure a massive victory for England.

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• The Adena People and Prehistoric Colonization of North America

8.Erik the Red - The Great Norse Adventurer

History often focuses on those explorers who made the most famous discoveries or whose accomplishments had the most visible impact on history. But often these men’s successes and achievements wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the work of the lesser-known explorers who came before them.

Erik the Red was a Norse explorer and adventurer whose voyages paved the way for later Norse expeditions to North America during the 10th century AD. According to legend, Erik was exiled from Iceland after committing murder and so he set out to find new lands to live in.

He and his crew sailed westward across the north Atlantic and eventually arrived in a remote, uninhabited land that they named Greenland . Conditions were harsh and the environment was challenging, but Erik and his followers managed to set up several settlements, thriving there for several centuries.

These settlements enabled later explorers, like Leif, to head even further northwards, eventually discovering North America. Today Erik is remembered as a bold and daring explorer who played a crucial role in shaping the history of the North Atlantic region. 

Erik the Red is remembered in medieval and Icelandic sagas as having founded the first continuous settlement in Greenland. (tonynetone/ CC BY 2.0 )

The voyages of exploration throughout human history have shaped the world we live in today. From the ancient mariners like Pytheas and Hanno who connected different civilizations and sparked cultural exchange, to the early voyages of discovery that led to the discovery of new continents, each journey has contributed to our understanding of the world and our place within it.

Today we often take travelling great distances for granted, or worse, see it as a chore. We must remember these early voyages required incredible feats of courage, resourcefulness, and adaptability from the explorers who undertook them. They not only expanded our knowledge of the world, but also enriched our cultures and transformed our societies. The legacies of these voyages continue to inspire and captivate us, driving us to seek out new frontiers and push beyond our boundaries.

Top image: Ancient voyages set off to discover new realities. Source: XaMaps /Adobe Stock

By Robbie Mitchell

Cartwright. M. 2021. Ferdinand Magellan . Available at:  https://www.worldhistory.org/Ferdinand_Magellan/

Davidson. L. 2022. Who Was Norse Explorer Leif Erikson? Available at:  https://www.historyhit.com/who-was-leif-erikson/

Editors. 2009. Christopher Columbus . Available at:  https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus#:~:text=The%20explorer%20Christopher%20Columbus%20made,he%20stumbled%20upon%20the%20Americas .

Wallace. B. 2023. Erik the Red . Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-the-Red

I’m a graduate of History and Literature from The University of Manchester in England and a total history geek. Since a young age, I’ve been obsessed with history. The weirder the better. I spend my days working as a freelance... Read More

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Geography Notes

Voyages, discoveries and the renaissance | medieval period | geography.

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In this article we will discuss about the impact of voyages, discoveries and the renaissance on geography.

It is surprising to note that the exploring activities among the Arabs and the Chinese gradually came to an end. There was no great Arab traveller after lbn-Batuta in the fourteenth century, and in China, the end came after the seventh expedition of Cheng Ho in 1433.

But the exploring activities in Europe all of a sudden increased in the fifteenth century and this time they were well-planned and supported by governments or by merchant companies and expedition to the open oceans were preferred. It was a major turning point in the world geographical scholarship as new discoveries largely removed the doubts created by the earlier notions and concepts.

These exploring activities were motivated by religious and economic factors – the zeal to spread the Christian faith and the need to replenish the European supplies of precious metals and spices, and the desire for personal wealth.

The desire to liberate the greater part of Spain and Portugal from the Arab rule, as a part of a unified national consciousness, accelerated the zeal to spread the Christian faith. Increasing trading activities with a view to provide financial support for trade necessitated the need for a supply of gold and silver or valuable gems.

Prince Henry of Portugal is credited with organising voyages and expeditions to the open seas. The fall of Arab stronghold on the southern side of the strait of Gibraltar under his command in 1415, widened the horizon of the Portuguese world. Prince Henry is also credited with the establishment of the world’s first geographic research institute in 1418.

At Sagres, he built a palace, a chapel, an astronomical observatory, and buildings to store collections of maps and manuscripts, and houses for the institute staff. He may be compared with Roger II of Sicily who found Palermo for the academic activities. Like Roger II, Prince Henry brought scholars of all faiths to Sagres from all around the Mediterranean. Master Jacome of Majorca was the chief geographer.

The purpose behind the setting up of Sagres was to improve and teach the methods of navigation to Portuguese sea captains, to teach the new decimal mathematics, and to shift the evidence from documents and maps concerning the possibility of sailing southward along the African coast and thence to the Spice Islands.

Prince Henry’s captains successfully sailed to the three groups of islands of the Atlantic off North Africa and Europe that included the Canary Islands (Ptolemy’s Fortunate Islands), the Madetra Islands, and the Azores. The discovery of these islands by the Portuguese sailors brought about changes in the perception about the high seas, and the bearings which were wrongly shown on the Portolano Chart of 1351 were made accurate.

In 1434, one of the trusted captains of Prince Henry, Gil Eannes sailed south of the latitude of Bojador and turned eastward. He made his first attempt to sail to Cape Bojador in 1433, but was forced to return to Sagres. The contemporary belief was that the strong current of water along the coast formed eddies with much foam off the end of the cape and the water was boiling, and the people would become black if they moved beyond the cape.

It is reported that when Gil Eannes reached the shore, the water was not boiling and no one turned black. The ‘cape Bojador puzzle’ thus came to an end. The very next year, Portuguese ships sailed 350 miles south of Bojador.

Under Prince Henry’s constant patronage, the Portuguese sailors had sailed far enough south to reach the southern zone of transition between the desert and the humid country beyond. In 1473, a Portuguese ship crossed the equator without burning. This expedition successfully encountered what the Greek geographers had said earlier.

Between 1486 and 87, Bartholomew Dias sailed southward from the equator and to avoid stormy weather, he sailed far out westward away from the land and reached the coast of southern Africa at Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth). While coming back, he passed Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, and then the Cape of Good Hope.

Between 1497 and 1499, Vasco da Gama made his famous voyage across the Arabian Sea to reach Calicut on the west coast of India. He made a wide circle out into the Atlantic before turning eastward along the latitude of Cape Agulhas and voyaged along the coast of Mozambique and then sailed eastward. By the time Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon, he had sailed 24,000 miles in more than two years. In 1510, the Portuguese took Goa on the west coast of India.

In 1511, they set up a base at Malacca on the strait between Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Japan was approached in 1542. In 1557, the Portuguese leased Macao from the Chinese and in 1590 they reached Taiwan and gave it the Portuguese name, Formosa.

Undoubtedly, the geographical explorations, conducted by the Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, seemed to have collected a variety of information about the places, never visited by any European, and removed the doubts about certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean, created by the wrong notions of the earlier Greek geographers.

The voyages of Christopher Columbus during 1492-1504, across the North Atlantic Ocean also marked a turning point in the world’s history of expeditions. He was to have discovered Asia as he thought earlier about the possibility of sailing westward to Asia.

He read Ptolemy’s ‘Geography’, Cardinal Pierre d’ Ailly’s ‘Imago mundi’ and the books of Aeneas Silvius (Pope Pius II). He was familiar with the accounts of Marco Polo. But ever since he started his voyage, he carried forward with him certain wrong notions about the circumference of the Earth, and the eastward extension of the known lands of the Earth.

Columbus spent a few years in Portugal to study what was left of the institute at Sagres founded by Prince Henry in 1418. He reckoned that the east coast of Asia was located just about where the east coast of Mexico is actually located. However, his belief was strengthened when he found the southern coast of Cuba and the coast of Central America trending towards south-west, just as the coast of Asia was shown on Ptolemy’s map.

When he heard from the Indians of Central America that there were sources of gold only a short distance west and that there was another great ocean beyond, he was sure it must be the Indian Ocean. He also thought that there must be a strait connecting the Caribbean with the Indian Ocean as he witnessed the great flow of water along the northern coast of South America.

He was the first explorer to discover and make use of the wind system of the Atlantic. Columbus had known about the presence of easterly winds in the low latitudes and of westerlies in the higher latitudes.

Columbus is credited with the Treaty of Tordessilles which was agreed upon by Spain and Portugal in 1494. Under the treaty, the world was divided between these two countries, and the dividing line was to be drawn 270 leagues west of the Azores or 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. Portugal got exclusive rights over the land east of that line, Spain to the west of it.

The treaty gave Portugal a free hand in the Indian Ocean and Columbus got a free hand in the lands he discovered west of the Atlantic. The treaty of Tordessilles marked the beginning of the concept of the geometric boundary which in the nineteenth century became accepted principle for the European powers for the division of their colonial territories in Africa and elsewhere.

Magellan, or Fernao de Magalhaes, was the first European explorer to have reached eastern Asia by sailing west. His expedition began in 1518 and he sailed along the Brazilian coast, and in 1520 he found the entrance to the strait that bears Magellan’s name. It took him 30 days to pass through the 360 miles strait.

He moved in a north-westerly course for 98 days before he reached the Island of Guam. He reached the Philippines in 1521. Magellan, on a previous voyage for Portugal, had reached the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) which are east of the Philippines. Therefore, at this point he had become the first man to sail all the way around the Earth.

Certain inventions in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries further enhanced the contemporary knowledge about the Earth, as some of the major problems faced by the explorers had to be solved. To achieve perfection and accuracy, navigation was the major problem that the sailors had to be confronted with.

The preparation of the iso-thermic map by Edmund Halley who in 1699-1700 noted the magnetic variation he plotted on the map during a voyage, suggested that it was not the same for each longitude. In the sixteenth century, the cross-staff was invented.

The measurement of the Sun’s altitude by its shadow was made possible by the invention of the back- staff by John Davies. John Hadley invented the octant in 1731. The sextant, still in use, was a yet later improvement based on the principle first adopted by Davies. The British sailors are credited with the invention of the log which solved the problem concerning the measurement of speed at the sea.

This is invention solved the problem of measuring distance and direction and fixing the position on the surface of the Earth, and the determination of latitude, as it involved observations of the height of certain stars of the Sun above the horizon. These inventions, in fact, revolutionised the navigation as a result of which newer and correct ideas flourished with regard to the high seas and oceans.

In spite of some achievements in tackling the problem of perfecting the accuracy of navigation, there was more to be done because, until the longitude could be precisely determined, navigation remained dangerously inaccurate. The measurement of longitude needed some way of keeping accurate time at sea.

It was felt as early as 1522 that a dependable time piece would solve the longitude problem. It was in 1657 that Christian Huygens invented the pendulum clock, but it was no good at sea. The need for an accurate clock was felt in 1707 when an English fleet was wrecked on the Scilly Island because the navigator had a wrong estimation of longitude.

In 1714, the British Parliament offered a reward to any person or persons who could devise a pendulum clock to measure time at sea with sufficient accuracy. John Harrison is credited with the invention of a pendulum clock which proved to be so accurate that for the first time in humankind s long effort to gain useful knowledge about the Earth, an explorer could tell about its exact position.

Harrison was given the reward in 1775. By this time French and Swiss clock-makers were almost ready with their models. After this date, navigators could measure longitude with the same precision with which they could measure latitude.

One of the major consequences of the age of discoveries and invention was that of an organised cartographic revolution which occurred simultaneously both at Venica and Genoa. The need was felt to correct the works of the ancient cartographers. It was as early as 1.459 that Fra Mauro for the first time prepared a map showing the Indian Ocean open to the south, thereby breaking the Ptolemaic tradition of enclosing that ocean.

It is not known how he could come to know about an open Indian Ocean, but his map like the other maps of his time was oriented towards the south. Martin Behaim of Nuremberg was the first cartographer to have devised the world’s first globe in 1490.

He was helped by a painter named Jorge Glockendon in the preparation of the globe which was based on the small estimate of the Earth’s circumference, but it was strange enough that Columbus could never have known of Behaim’s globe.

In 1500, Juan de la Cosa prepared a map using the observations obtained from the first three voyages of Christopher Columbus and also from John Cabot’s voyage to North America. Martin Woldseemuller in 1507 produced the first world map showing America as a separate continent and not the eastern continuation of Asia.

The word America was used by him to denote the new continent. This was largely because he thought that Amerigo Vespucci had reached the new continent before Columbus or because Amerigo was definitely the first explorer to identify the newly discovered land as a separate continent.

However, for navigation, this map was not found to be more useful than other maps of this period that made use of the Portolano principle of design. Explorers had already found that when they followed any of the straight lines on these maps for long voyages, they did not arrive at expected destination. The contemporary need was for a new kind of projection which could make it possible to show the curved surface of the Earth on a flat paper or parchment.

In 1530, Peter Apian prepared a heart-shaped map of the Earth with the curved lines of latitude and longitude. But Apian’s projection was found to be defective because distance and direction on the projection appeared to be distorted.

Gerard Krema, or Gerardus Mercator, produced a graticule for the world by joining two heart-shaped projections, one for each hemisphere. Mercator is credited for his projection which he produced in 1569 for the world. This projection was the only contemporary projection/map being used for navigation in the low and middle latitudes.

Though the projection offered solution to the problems of navigation and enabled the navigators/sailors to reach the desired destination by sailing the great circle (shortest) route, it was not widely adopted probably because of it being too mathematical. The sailors who were not trained in mathematics found difficulties in believing that a short line was not the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere.

It was not until 1599 when Edward Wright produced the trigonometric tables that made it possible for other people to produce Marcator’s projection. It is also believed that in 1511, Erhard Etzlaub of Nuremberg prepared a map of Europe and Africa on the same principle as that of Mercator. It is not known whether Mercator knew about this or not.

Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp produced the Ortelius atlas—’Theatrum orbis terrarum’ in 1570. Amsterdam gradually grew up as the major centre for the publication of atlases and wall maps, especially in the seventeenth century, breaking the tradition of Venice and Genoa in the art of map making.

Nicholas Sausond’ Abbeville was the first producer of world atlases in France, and founded a ‘dynasty of cartographers’ in the seventeenth century which produced maps and atlases for over a century. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the map-makers only slowly revised their maps to include the newest information and to acknowledge the existence of gaps in their information.

The period between 1768 and 1779 was a landmark in the history of geographical thought. Erroneous idea which the Christian Europe inherited from Ptolemy during the Middle Ages after his geography was translated into Latin, stipulated the presence of a great southland which he called terra australis incognita which enclosed the Indian Ocean on the south.

Though the Arab traders had known that the Indian Ocean was open to the south and the map of Fra Mauro showed it, there were many who either did not know about the Arabic writings or disputed the travel accounts of the Arab scholars.

It was during his first voyage (1768-71) that Captain Cook found no land at about 40°S latitude. His second voyage (1772-74) finally removed the wrong notion about Ptolemy’s great southland, as he sailed as far as 71°10′ south latitude.

However, through Captain Cook it became known that there was an ice-covered land farther south, which he had been unable to reach. In 1778, Captain Cook again sailed into the Arctic Ocean through the Berring Strait, but was unable to move further because of ice-floes at 70°44′ N.

Voyages, inventions and cartographic precision and innovations seemed to have solved certain major problems regarding navigation, determination of longitude, projection, and those arising out of many erroneons concepts of Ptolemy.

But in spite of all these major achievements in an era of discoveries, the problem concerning the shape of the Earth remained to be solved. The problem was whether to accept what Isaac Newton and Christian Huygens said in 1687 that the Earth must be flattened at the poles and it must bulge at the equator.

In 1720, Jacques Cassini contrasted what Newton and Huygens said about the shape of the Earth. The French Academy decided to settle the controversy by carrying out measurements of the arc of the meridian at different latitudes.

Two such surveys were done between 1735 and 1748, and these surveys proved that the Earth was flattened at the poles and did bulge at the equator. These surveys removed the doubts created by Cassini who had challenged the mathematical concept of Newton and Huygens.

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Geography , Medieval Period , Voyages and Discoveries and the Renaissance

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3.3: European Voyages of Exploration: Intro

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The European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction

Beginning in the early fifteenth century, European states began to embark on a series of global explorations that inaugurated a new chapter in world history. Known as the Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration, this period spanned the fifteenth through the early seventeenth century, during which time European expansion to places such as the Americas, Africa, and the Far East flourished. This era is defined by figures such as Ferdinand Magellan, whose 1519–1522 expedition was the first to traverse the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and the first to circumnavigate the globe.

The European Age of Exploration developed alongside the Renaissance. Both periods in Western history acted as transitional moments between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Competition between burgeoning European empires, such as Spain and England, fueled the evolution and advancement of overseas exploration. Motivated by religion, profit, and power, the size and influence of European empires during this period expanded greatly. The effects of exploration were not only felt abroad but also within the geographic confines of Europe itself. The economic, political, and cultural effects of Europe’s beginning stages of global exploration impacted the longterm development of both European society and the entire world.

Empire and Politics

During the eighth century, the Islamic conquest of North Africa, Spain, France, and parts of the Mediterranean, effectively impeded European travel to the Far East for subsequent centuries. This led many early explorers, such as Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus, to search for new trade routes to the East. Previous travel accounts from the early expeditions of figures such as Marco Polo (during the late thirteenth century) encouraged many Europeans to search for new territories and places that would lead to the East. Ocean voyages were extremely treacherous during the beginnings of European exploration. The navigation techniques were primitive, the maps were notoriously unreliable, and the weather was unpredictable. Additionally, explorers worried about running out of supplies, rebellion on the high seas, and hostile indigenous peoples.

The Spanish and Portuguese were some of the first European states to launch overseas voyages of exploration. There were several factors that led to the Iberian place in the forefront of global exploration. The first involved its strategic geographic location, which provided easy access to venturing south toward Africa or west toward the Americas. The other, arguably more important, factor for Spain and Portugal’s leading position in overseas exploration was these countries’ acquisition and application of ancient Arabic knowledge and expertise in math, astronomy, and geography.

The principal political actors throughout the Age of Exploration were Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, England, and France. Certain European states, primarily Portugal and The Netherlands, were primarily interested in building empires based on global trade and commerce. These states established worldwide trading posts and the necessary components for developing a successful economic infrastructure. Other European powers, Spain and England in particular, decided to conquer and colonize the new territories they discovered. This was particularly evident in North and South America, where these two powers built extensive political, religious, and social infrastructure.

Economic Factors

Before the fifteenth century, European states enjoyed a long history of trade with places in the Far East, such as India and China. This trade introduced luxury goods such as cotton, silk, and spices to the European economy. New technological advancements in maritime navigation and ship construction allowed Europeans to travel farther and explore parts of the globe that were previously unknown. This, in turn, provided Europeans with an opportunity to locate luxury goods, which were in high demand, thereby eliminating Europe’s dependency on Eastern trade. In many ways, the demand for goods such as sugar, cotton, and rum fueled the expansion of European empires and their eventual use of slave labor from Africa. Europe’s demand for luxury goods greatly influenced the course of the transatlantic slave trade.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries small groups financed by private businesses carried out the first phase of European exploration. Members of the noble or merchant class typically funded these early expeditions. Over time, as it became clear that global exploration was extremely profitable, European states took on a primary role. The next phase of exploration involved voyages taken in the name of a particular empire and monarch (e.g., France or Spain). The Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal were some of the earliest states to embark on new voyages of exploration. In addition to seeking luxury goods, the Spanish empire was driven by its quest for American silver.

Science and Culture

The period of European exploration introduced the people of Europe to the existence of new cultures worldwide. Before the fifteenth century, Europeans had minimal knowledge of the people and places beyond the boundaries of Europe, particularly Africa and Asia. Before the discovery of the Americas, Europeans did not even know of its existence. Europeans presumed that the world was much smaller than it was in actuality. This led early explorers such as Columbus and Magellan to believe that finding new routes to the Far East would be much easier than it turned out to be.

Profound misconceptions about geography and the cultures of local populations would change very slowly throughout the early centuries of European exploration. By the sixteenth century, European maps started to expand their depictions and representations to include new geographic discoveries. However, due to the intense political rivalries during the period, European states guarded their geographic knowledge and findings from one another.

With the growth of the printing press during the sixteenth century, accounts of overseas travels, such as those of Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, spread to a wider audience of European readers than had previously been possible. The Age of Exploration also coincided with the development of Humanism and a growing intellectual curiosity about the natural world. The collection and study of exotic materials such as plants and animals led to a new age of scientific exploration and inquiry. These initial surveys and analyses influenced future revolutionary developments in numerous fields of science and natural history in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Religious Factors

One of the tenets of Catholicism decreed that Christianity ought to be the universal religion and faith among all mankind. The Crusades in the centuries preceding the Age of Exploration exposed Europeans to new places, people, and goods. It also reflected the zealous nature of medieval Christianity and foreshadowed the fervent missionary work that would form a major part of all early global expeditions. The pope played an important and validating role in these voyages by sanctioning and encouraging worldwide exploration. This often included the approbation of enslaving Africans and indigenous peoples. Missionaries were frequently a part of the early expeditions of Spain with the aim of bringing Christianity to the native inhabitants. Europeans typically viewed indigenous populations as barbaric heathens who could only become civilized through the adoption of Christianity.

• The age of European exploration and discovery represented a new period of global interaction and interconnectivity. As a result of technological advancements, Europeans were able to forge into new and previously undiscovered territories. They understood this to be a “New World.”
• European exploration was driven by multiple factors, including economic, political, and religious incentives. The growing desire to fulfill European demand for luxury goods, and the desire to unearth precious materials such as gold and silver, acted as a particularly crucial motivation.
• The period of European global exploration sparked the beginning phases of European empire and colonialism, which would continue to develop and intensify over the course of the next several centuries.
• As European exploration evolved and flourished, it saw the increasing oppression of native populations and the enslavement of Africans. During this period, Europeans increasingly dealt in African slaves and started the transatlantic slave trade.
• European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction. Authored by : The Saylor Foundation. Located at : https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/HIST201-3.1.1-EuropeanExplorationIntro-FINAL1.pdf . License : CC BY: Attribution

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Ancient voyages across the ocean to america.

The contents of all BMAF publications are the sole responsibility of the individual authors and therefore do not necessarily represent the views of BMAF or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Book of Mormon history in the New World begins with ocean voyages—by the Lehites, the Mulekites, and the Jaredites. For the first and last of those, the record pointedly states that the parties stocked their vessels with supplies both to use on their trip and to start life as agriculturists when they arrived in the new land (see Ether 6:4, 13; 1 Nephi 18:6, 24). Perhaps the Mulekites too brought certain natural resources.

Latter-day Saints may have wondered why virtually all secular scholars and scientists have rejected the idea that ancient sailors succeeded in voyaging from the Old World to the New. Their rejection is not just in reference to the Book of Mormon story but against all claims that seaborne migrants capable of having any significant effect breached the ocean barrier prior to Columbus, except for a few Vikings considered of no historical importance. Prevailing views by reputed experts have assumed that "primitive sailors" would have found it impossible to cross the "forbidding" oceans.1 In the 1930s one scholar even spoke of the American continents as being "hermetically sealed by two oceans."2 Such views were not so much scientific conclusions as echoes of the prevailing isolationist political doctrine of the times that refused to grant value to "foreign" people or ideas. Thus famous Maya archaeologist Sylvanus Morley opined in 1927 that there was "no vestige, no infinitesimal trace, of Old World influence . . . to detract from the [inventive] genius of our [sic] native American mind." "There is no room for foreign origins here," he went on to claim in his article entitled "Maya Civilization 100% American."3 By the end of the 20th century this absolute view had eased only insignificantly.

There was, indeed, good reason to reject the voyaging explanation as usually presented. Numerous badly informed, or at least weakly argued, theories had been offered to explain the rise of civilization in the Americas. Josiah Priest, who published a popular book three years after publication of the Book of Mormon (i.e., 1833), supposed that not only East Asians in general but also "Polynesians, Malays, Australasians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Tartars, Scandinavians, Danes, Norwegians, Welsh, and Scotch" people had colonized parts of the New World; but he gave no credible evidence for his speculations.4 Ninety years later, somewhat better supported but still unconvincing evidence for similar ideas was being published in popular works like those by G. Eliot Smith.5

The small minority of scholars who continued to claim that meaningful ancient voyages were made argued for the idea mainly on the basis of cultural parallels.6 They felt that close similarities of customs or beliefs that they pointed out could not be explained in any other way than that people carried those features with them across the waters. (However, much of the evidence that enthusiasts have cited has proven incautiously stated if not in error.) Orthodox scientists reacted against those notions with their own dogma holding that the issue had already been adequately tested and should be rejected. For instance, Gordon R. Willey, a prominent Harvard archaeologist, said in 1985 that while no other subject in American archaeology had brought about such heated discussions as the role of Old World contacts, if no "concrete evidence" could be produced in the next 50 years, proponents ought to stop talking about the question.7 Cultural parallels did not count as concrete evidence in the scholarship of people like him. The skeptics maintained that any cultural similarities between the New World and the Old were simply coincidences, explainable because, they claimed, the human mind works the same everywhere in the world, so it should not be surprising that people independently come up with similar inventions or ideas.

For years those who believed in the importance of ocean voyaging in human history ("diffusionists") tried to overwhelm this opposition by pointing out more and more, stronger and stronger, cultural parallels. A few years ago Martin H. Raish and I compiled a massive bibliography that made accessible the substance of over 5,000 books and articles concerning the diffusion issue—covering pretty much all published sources.8 But the significance of this compilation has been generally ignored and has done virtually nothing to change the minds of the traditional isolationist majority of scholars. They have frequently countered with what they considered an absolute argument against voyaging: no food plant is common to the two hemispheres. That fact alone was supposed to be "enough to offset any number of petty puzzles in arts and myths [i.e., cultural similarities]."9

By the year 2000 I had concluded that the only way to break this particular intellectual logjam was to put forward hard scientific evidence that doubters could not explain away by offhanded reference to the inventiveness of the human mind. The approach I desired could best be pursued by demonstrating that the flora and fauna of the New World had been shared with the Old World. Some useful research had already established a limited body of such evidence. These concrete biological features would be important because no one can claim that the human mind had invented the same plant on opposite sides of the ocean.10

Floral Evidence for Diffusion

Over the last four years 98 species of plants have been identified that originated in either the Old World or the New yet were also grown in pre-Columbian times in the opposite hemisphere. That distribution cannot be explained the way cultural parallels have been by inventionist-minded scholars. A plant is an objective fact that demands a physical explanation for the presence of the same species on two sides of an ocean. Yet all purely naturalistic theories fail to account for plants thousands of miles from their natural home. For example, some have supposed that seeds were carried thousands of miles by birds, or evolutionary processes have been claimed as yielding identical species in multiple locations, but these notions are never more than nonempirical speculation.11 The only rational explanation for multiple plant distributions is that people sailed across the oceans before Columbus, nurturing and transporting plants en route.

As I dug into neglected books and journals, the number of plants reported to be shared across the oceans mounted. Victor H. Mair, a specialist in Chinese literature and language at the University of Pennsylvania, took an interest in the project and invited me to prepare a paper for a conference he was organizing on "Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World." I invited my friend and colleague Carl L. Johannessen, emeritus professor of geography at the University of Oregon, who had long worked on the topic, to collaborate. By the time of the conference in May 2001, we had identified over 35 plant species for which there was what we considered conclusive proof that species had been transported between the hemispheres. By 2003, when we submitted our paper to Mair for publication in the report of the conference, the number of plant species on our conclusive list had grown to 85.12 Since then we have found still more; today the total is 98 species.13

What evidence do we consider to be "conclusive" or "decisive"? In some cases it comes from archaeology. For example, in 1966—67 Australian archaeologist Ian Glover excavated in caves on the island of Timor in Indonesia, where he discovered plant remains that included three crops of American origin: Annona (custard apple), Zea (maize), and Arachis (peanut). These dated at the latest to AD 1000 and probably well before.14 The peanuts were duplicated at two sites on the Chinese mainland that date by radiocarbon to as early as 2800 BC.15

In northern India archaeologists have recently found seeds of Phaseolus vulgaris (kidney bean), Phaseolus lunatus (lima bean), and Macroptilium lathyroides (phasey bean, a cousin of kidney and lima beans), in addition to Argemone mexicana (Mexican prickle poppy), all natives of America. The sites date from 1600 to 800 BC.v16

For other American plants, decisive evidence consists of realistic depictions in art. For example, the chile pepper is clearly depicted in a sculpture at a temple that honors the Hindu god Shiva at Tiruchirapalli, India. Chiles are also mentioned in traditional books of India dating to the sixth to eighth centuries.17 The plants also appear on a sculpted wall panel at the ruined temple near the modern temple at Prambanan, Java, dating to about AD 1000.18

An especially striking case from art involves Couroupita guianensis, called the naga lingam tree in India. This native of South America or the West Indies has been cultivated in South India "from very early times," as illustrated in a temple carving of medieval age.19 In India its unusually shaped blossom is thought to look like symbols sacred to a Hindu deity, Shiva; the flowers are still offered today at temples to Shiva.20 Interestingly, in Mesoamerica, where the tree is common, neither the blossoms nor the tree has any sacred significance. The only sensible scenario to explain these facts historically seems to be that a Hindu visitor to Mesoamerica was struck enough by the meaningful appearance (to him) of the bloom of the tree to decide to carry it to India, where it came to grow widely.

Hundreds of other India temple sculptures show voluptuous women holding upright in one hand an ear of corn (maize) while their fingers make a sacred gesture known as a mudra. Maize is, of course, an American crop plant.21 Two other American plants, the pineapple22 and the cashew nut,23 are among additional species seen in Indian art.

References to imported American plants in Asian medical, botanical, and historical documents are a further source of evidence. A Chinese document written in the Jin dynasty (AD 290—307) by a minister of state who had served as a governor in southern China lists some 80 plants that were known to him there. In the list was the sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, another American species.24 In India the chile pepper (Capsicum annuum, mentioned above) is cited in the traditional volume Siva Purana as part of a cure for tuberculosis.25 The silk cotton, or kapok, tree (Ceiba pentandra) not only originated in America but also was deeply involved in the mythology of the Maya of Yucatan, yet it is referred to in the Kurma Purana (5th century AD) and the Brahmanda Purana (10th century).26 Meanwhile, on Hainan Island, off the southern coast of China, the silk cotton tree was being cultivated and the fiber woven by local tribesmen during the Tang Dynasty (AD 600—900) according to a Chinese history.27 The pumpkin and the squash are mentioned in India in the medical text of Al-Kindi in the ninth century AD.28 At least a dozen more New World species are similarly documented historically in India and China.

Lexicons also serve to place plants on the map far from their areas of origin. This kind of data is especially abundant through study of the Sanskrit language in India. Sanskrit was the original language in which the earliest sacred Hindu texts were written in the first and second millennium BC. From around 500 BC to AD 1000, Sanskrit served as the key language of Indian sacred and civilized life in the same manner as Latin did in Europe. And like Latin in Europe for over a thousand years, Sanskrit was an inactive or "dead" language represented by the sacred texts but no longer reflecting contemporary life by adding new words. So when we find that a plant bore a Sanskrit name, we can be sure it was actually known in the country no later than AD 1000.29

For example, Asclepias curassavica (the milkweed), a species of American origin, was known in Sanskrit medicine as kakatundi.30 Moreover, at least two species of hallucinogenic datura plants (in English "thorn apple" and "jimsonweed") were used in Asia as well as in the Americas; daturas were called by no less than eight Sanskrit names, as well as one in Persian.31 Tagetes erecta, the large marigold, a Mexican native plant, bore four Sanskrit names,32 and what our gardeners know as the four-o'clock flower (Mirabilis jalapa) had four names in India as well.33 As a matter of fact, 38 different species of plants that originated in the Americas each had at least one name in Sanskrit. This observation alone demonstrates that a remarkably abundant flow of New World fauna took place into South Asia between perhaps 2000 BC and AD 1000.

The same naming phenomenon can be noted in other Old World languages. The black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, this too from the New World, was named not only in Sanskrit, Persian, and Chinese but also in Arabic.34 Elsewhere, a name for sweet potato among Chibchan speakers of Colombia and Panama precisely matches the Hawaiian name for the plant.35 Karl H. Rensch's linguistic study of names for sweet potato resulted in his proposing "that the sweet potato reached Polynesia at least twice: once via a northern route through Hawaii under the guise of *kuara/*kuala, and once via a southern route as *kumara, with Easter Island as its point of entry."36

Methods of research familiar to botanists who study the distribution of plants were also involved in our study. For example, turmeric, Curcuma longa, was originally Asiatic (it had names in Sanskrit, Chinese, Hebrew, and Arabic), and from there it spread eastward throughout many Pacific islands. So when we learn that turmeric was also grown by native people in the remote Amazon River drainage of eastern Peru, the conclusion seems inescapable—it was carried to South America, presumably from the islands, on some prehistoric voyage.37

Other evidence from distributions concerns the bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria. Some have proposed that it was capable of drifting across an ocean, although scientists are uncertain whether seeds would still grow after a months-long float to some American beach.38 But the gourd was absent from western Polynesia, although it does appear in the islands of eastern Polynesia. Obviously, the gourd did not drift from island to island all the way across the Pacific to Peru or else the species would have grown in western Polynesia as well. Yet it appeared in an archaeological site on the coast of Peru almost 5,000 years ago. The only scenario that makes sense of these facts has Asian mariners carrying gourds in their vessels from Asia or the western Pacific directly to western South America thousands of years ago.39 Later voyagers could have carried the plant to eastern Polynesia, but not farther west, from the mainland aboard vessels like the Kon Tiki raft.

Often several types of analysis, rather than a single method, combine to prove contact by sea. In our study we always demanded at least two lines of evidence before considering contact across the sea to be assured. For instance, for the peanut (see above), where the primary evidence comes from archaeology, added support comes from linguistics. Names for that nut among Native American peoples in interior South America, the area where botanists think the plant was first domesticated from the wild, compare to names for peanuts on the Indian subcontinent. South American names include (in the Tupà family of languages) mandobi, manobi, mandowi, mundubi, and munui; (in Pilagá) mandovi; (in Chiriguano) manduvi; and (in Guaranà ) manubi.40 Michael Black showed that those terms are strikingly like peanut names in India: in Sanskrit, andapi; in Hindi, munghali; and in Gujarati, mandavi.41 These lexical parallels taken together with the actual plant specimens dug up by archaeologists in Asia make clear that transoceanic voyaging was the means by which the plant and its names reached Asia. Furthermore, plant scientist Edgar Anderson concluded that "the most primitive type of peanut, the same narrow little shoestrings which are found in the Peruvian tombs, are commonly grown today, not in Peru, but in South China."42

Proof for one complex of plants involved a particularly wide array of research methods. To the amazement of some scientists and the consternation of others, chemical evidence of tobacco has been found in ancient Egyptian mummies, although tobacco was supposed to be unknown in the Old World prior to Columbus. First, fragments of tobacco were found deep in the abdominal cavity of the 3200-year-old mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II while it was being studied in a European museum. Some skeptics immediately concluded that this had to be due to modern contamination in the museum. This American plant could not possibly have been known in Egypt, they insisted. In 1992 physical scientists in Germany used sophisticated laboratory instrumentation to test nine other Egyptian mummies. They found chemical residues of tobacco, coca (another American plant, the source of cocaine), and the Asian native hashish (the source of marijuana) in the hair, soft tissues, skin, and bones of eight of the mummies. These traces included cotinine, a chemical whose presence means that the tobacco had been consumed and metabolized while the deceased person was alive. (The ninth mummy contained coca and hashish residues but not tobacco.) Dates of the corpses according to historical records from Egypt ranged from 1070 BC to AD 395,43 indicating that these drugs were continuously available to some Egyptians for no less than 1,450 years. Investigators have since found evidence of the drugs in additional mummies from Egypt.44

Equally startling has been the discovery of the same drugs in Peruvian mummies that date back to at least AD 100. Chemical analysis revealed the use of tobacco and cocaine (not surprisingly, since the former was widely used in the Americas and the latter comes from the South American plant Erythroxylon novagranatense, commonly known as coca). But hashish was also used in Peru, although it is from Asian Cannabis sativa.45 Furthermore, two species of beetles that infested Egyptian mummies—Alphitobius diaperinus and Stegobium paniceum—have also been found in mummies in Peru.46 It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that intentional voyages across an ocean were involved in these transfers.

As to motives that impelled transoceanic travelers, the utilitarian, economic viewpoint that dominates so much of our thought today would lead us to suppose that a search for new sources of food and fiber would have been the obvious reason for ancient voyagers to undertake distant, dangerous explorations. But looking carefully at our entire list of plants, we are somewhat surprised to learn that utility seems to have been less important than we would suppose. While some of the American plants were indeed useful additions to the diet or made serviceable artifacts, virtually all the transported species served medicinal functions. Perhaps just as spices were a prime motivation for Europeans of the 15th and 16th centuries to undertake arduous travel to reach the islands of Southeast Asia, pre-Columbian voyagers may have sought after cures to relieve disease or nostrums that they hoped would lengthen their life span. Then again, a sufficient motive to impel long-distance sailors may simply have been curiosity—what Mary Helms has labeled "the Ulysses factor,"47 the sheer desire to see "what is out there."

Table 1 . Plants for Which There Is Decisive Evidence of Transoceanic Carriage

Table 1 does not necessarily represent a proper sample of the plant exchanges that actually took place. Because of the in-depth knowledge of Sanskrit that the India sources provide, connections of America with India may be appear disproportionately high. If we had equally detailed knowledge about other ancient languages, the count of species in other areas might be higher. Still, this inventory of plants exchanged is already impressive, as shown in table 1.

What is true of plants is paralleled by the transoceanic carriage of fauna. Let us look first at infectious organisms, because it was long believed that the New World constituted a virtual terrestrial paradise, free from the diseases known in the Old World, until the Spaniards brought in devastating Old World microorganisms. But in the last few years that naïve picture has changed considerably. It is true that many of the epidemic plagues of Eurasia and Africa did not exist in the Americas. (Generally speaking, New World people were protected from the spread of epidemics because they tended not to dwell in densely populated cities nor with large numbers of domestic animals close at hand, as much of the Old World population did.) Still, new research is demonstrating that New World peoples "were exposed to a wide variety of diseases," including "fungi and staphylococcal and streptococcal environmental pathogens."48 At least 21 disease agents have been found to be located in both the Americas and the Old World before Columbus (see table 2), and up to 19 more may yet be shown to have been shared.

Table 2. Faunal Sources of Disease Shared in Both Hemispheres

A prime example of the kind of evidence at hand to establish transoceanic transport for such organisms is the case of the hookworm, Ancylostoma duodenale. Its relative rarity in some tropical areas of the New World and its long-term prevalence in East and Southeast Asia make the latter area the place where epidemiologists think the organism originated. At first early historians of medicine assumed that A. duodenale had been introduced into the Americas by slaves brought from Africa. Early in the 20th century, O. da Fonseca discovered the parasite in an isolated Amerindian population in the Amazon basin.49 Shortly afterward, microbiologist Samuel Darling weighed the evidence and concluded it was likely that the hookworm had reached native South American forest dwellers before Columbus arrived. If that could be proven, he observed, then the only plausible explanation for its presence in the New World would be that it arrived anciently via infected humans who had crossed the ocean.50

His confidence that the pest came by sea sprang from facts about the life cycle of this nematode worm. At a certain stage in its life cycle, it must inhabit warm, moist soil (in a climate no colder than North Carolina today). At a later point in the cycle the worms that have developed in the soil penetrate some human's body and settle in the digestive tract. Immigrants who came to the New World in slow stages via the Bering Strait would have arrived hookworm-free because the cold soil would have killed the parasite during the long trip,51 while host humans crossing by ship (in a relatively short period of time) could still carry worms upon their arrival.

The hookworm's pre-Columbian presence in America was finally established by Marvin Allison and colleagues, who in 1973 found traces of hookworms in a Peruvian mummy dated AD 700.52 In 1988 Brazilian scientists identified the same species from human remains excavated in eastern Brazil. A series of radiocarbon dates at that site placed the remains at about 7,300 years ago,53 although, given the inland remoteness of the place, the human carriers who introduced the pest from overseas must have arrived on some American coast centuries earlier than that.

This find establishes conclusively that humans crossed the ocean at a startlingly early time, for only in that way can the presence of the hookworms be explained. Scientists continue to assure us that there is no alternative explanation. L. F. Ferreira and colleagues say that "transpacific migrants from Asia by sea must be one component of the ancient American population."54 Fonseca agrees: "Shared species of parasites . . . make it inescapable that voyagers reached South America directly from Oceania or Southeast Asia."55 Ferreira and colleagues conclude the same: "We must suppose that [the human hosts for the parasite] arrived by sea."56 And A. Araújo insists, "The evidence points only to maritime contacts" for the introduction of hookworms (emphases added).57

Two key facts arise from this situation. First, A. duodenale could have arrived in America only in the bodies of humans (Asians presumably) who arrived by sea. Since all humans bear a culture, it was not just a source of illness that arrived in South America on that boat or raft, but also features of some particular Asian culture, as well as a set of genes. Second, by the sixth or fifth millennium BC, whether we can describe or conceive of them or not, ships were then available in at least one region on the western side of the Pacific and were capable of crossing or skirting the ocean, for at least one did so.

A second species, Necator americanus, is also known as hookworm and has the same life cycle. It has been found in Brazil in human remains similar in date to that of A. duodenale.58 By the same reasoning, it too arrived by a sea voyage.

Not only is the louse that infests the heads of humans (Pediculus humanus corporis) precisely the same species in mainland America and the Pacific islands,59 but the names also virtually match, at least in two languages of the Solomon Islands and the Maya of Mesoamerica.60

Some of the other diseases whose agents have recently been shown to have been in America in the pre-Columbian era include other intestinal parasites—the roundworm and the threadworm; the amoeba that causes dysentery; viruses responsible for shingles, chicken pox, and mononucleosis; a fungus that causes ringworm on the body and two others that infest human hair; disease bacteria for whooping cough, typhus fever, and the plague; and the T cell lymphotropic (retro)virus (HTLV-I).

In addition, some larger fauna made the trip directly across the ocean, surely with humans. For example, the native American turkey was known in medieval central Europe. Bones have been excavated from archaeological ruins dated to the 14th and 15th centuries (in Switzerland and Hungary), and jewelry that bears engravings of the fowl's distinctive head and the characteristic neck wattle has come from south-central Europe, dated as early as the 10th century. Moreover, two years before Columbus's first voyage, a letter was sent from Budapest to an Italian nobleman, asking him to supply a pair of the birds along with a man skilled in their care.61

In addition to the organisms for which we have decisive proof of transoceanic distribution, for another 80 species of flora and fauna there is some evidence that they too may have crossed the oceans with boat travelers. More research is needed to determine which of those, if any, to add to our "decisive evidence" list. (For tables listing the additional candidate fauna and flora, along with full documentation and data supporting the historicity of these movements across the oceans, see the publications cited in notes 12 and 13.)

Ancient Seafaring Technology

A question naturally arises as to whether vessels and nautical skills were available to account for the early voyages. Contrary to the picture we were once taught about "primitive" sailors timidly avoiding the open sea until an intrepid Columbus made a breakthrough, evidence now clearly establishes that sailors long ago ventured widely. As long ago as 50,000 bp (before the present), Australia's first settlers reached that continent across as much as 95 miles (150 km) of open sea, and the Solomon Islands were populated from 105 miles (170 km) away by 29,000 years ago.62 Balsa-log rafts (functionally they were steerable "ships," not what we think of under the term rafts) like the Kon Tiki vessel of Thor Heyerdahl were preceded by early Ecuadoran craft that sailed up and down the Pacific coast of South and Middle America apparently from 2000 BC on.63 However, they, in turn, were modeled on rafts of unknown age from China and Southeast Asia.64 Three modern replicas of pre-Columbian rafts constructed in Ecuador in the traditional form were sailed in 1974 as a fleet over 9,000 miles to Australia.65 Many other craft, some of them remarkably small and "primitive,"66 have been sailed in modern times across various ocean routes; one veteran small-craft sailor reports that "it takes a damned fool to sink a boat on the high seas."67

A Changing Paradigm

We have seen that the old view of completely separate natural and cultural histories for the Old World and the New can no longer be maintained. New research has turned that reactionary idea on its head. The historical paradigm has changed. Hereafter, students of history must start from the position that voyaging across oceans was within the capability of adventurous folks in many times and places. Numerous voyages across the oceans were completed that had substantial consequences on both sides of the world.

That being the case, historians, archaeologists, geographers, and others must not fail to look anew at the massive evidence from cultural similarities that they have long considered mere coincidental inventions easily made by the human mind.

How can those who have been considered the authoritative experts have got this aspect of history so utterly wrong? Much of the "new" evidence has actually been around in published form for quite a long time (see note 8). It has been largely ignored because dogmatically opinionated experts have so blindly defended the notion that the histories of the two hemispheres were independent, denying that there was any possibility of meaningful ocean travel.

Yet we should not be disappointed with secular scholars for lacking curiosity and open minds in regard to this topic. We Latter-day Saint students of antiquity too have allowed ourselves to be unnecessarily limited in approaching the Nephite record's account of transoceanic voyaging. Most of us have been too long stuck with the traditional notion that the scriptural account allowed only Lehites, Mulekites, and Jaredites to sail across the oceans (that is equivalent to assuming that Mormon pioneers were the only ones who crossed the plains of western North America to the Rocky Mountains and beyond). If we want fuller answers about Book of Mormon history, we ourselves need to ask potentially richer questions of the record.

Research so far has not confirmed that ships did carry Jaredites, Lehites, or Mulek and his party from Eurasia to America. But now, for the first time, we have the backing of history that those voyages were possible.

1. For a survey of thought on the topic, see Stephen C. Jett, "Before Columbus: The Question of Early Transoceanic Interinfluences," BYU Studies 33/2 (1993): 245—71.

2. Anthony F. Aveni, Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 164.

3. The Forum 78 (1927): 226—36.

4. Josiah Priest, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West (Albany, NY: Hoffman and White, 1833), iv.

5. Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, The Ancient Egyptians and the Origin of Civilization (London: Harper, 1923).

6. Man across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts, ed. Carroll L. Riley, J. Charles Kelley, Campbell W. Pennington, and Robert L. Rands (Austin & London: University of Texas Press, 1971).

7. Gordon R. Willey, "Some continuing problems in New World culture history," American Antiquity 50 (1985): 351—63.

8. John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, 2nd ed. rev., 2 vols. (Provo, UT: Research Press, 1996).

9. Herbert J. Spinden, "Origin of civilizations in Central America and Mexico," in The American Aborigines: Their Origin and Antiquity, ed. Diamond Jenness (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1933), 225.

10. See, for example, G. F. Carter, "Domesticates as artifacts," in The Human Mirror: Material and Spatial Images of Man, ed. Miles Richardson (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1974), 201—30. Many more examples from the literature are listed in Sorenson and Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas.

11. Stephen J. Gould, "In the mind of the beholder," Natural History 103/2 (1994): 23.

12. The book is entitled Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, in press 2004 at the University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, the first in a new series by the press called "Global Perspectives on History." Our paper will constitute chapter 9, "Biological evidence for pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages."

13. The fullest presentation of our material is in an electronic (CD-ROM) monograph: John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen, Scientific Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages to and from America, Sino-Platonic Papers 133 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, April 2004).

14. Ian C. Glover, "The Late Stone Age in Eastern Indonesia," World Archaeology 9/1 (1977): 43, 46.

15. Chen Wenhua, Zhongguo nongye kaogu tu lu (Nanchang, China: Jiangxi kexue jushu chubanshe, 1994), 59—60; Carl L. Johannessen and Wang Siming, "American Crop Plants in Asia before AD 1500," Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts 1 (1998): 22—24.

16. A. K. Pokharia and K. S. Saraswat, "Plant economy during Kushana period (100—300 AD) at ancient Sanghol, Punjab," Pragdhara [Journal of the U(ttar) P(radesh) State Archaeology Department] 9 (1999): 99.

17. Shakti M. Gupta, Plants in Indian Temple Art (Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1996), 49—50.

18. Johannessen and Wang Siming, "American Crop Plants," 28.

19. Gupta, Plants, 58.

20. Carl L. Johannessen, personal communication, 2001.

21. Carl L. Johannessen, "Pre-Columbian American Sunflower and Maize Images in Indian Temples: Evidence of Contract between Civilizations in India and America," in Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson, ed. Davis Bitton (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 351—90.

22. Gupta, Plants, 18.

23. Gupta, Plants, 17.

24. E. Bretschneider, Botanicon Sinicum: Notes on Chinese Botany from Native and Western Sources (London: Trübner, 1882), 38.

25. Gupta, Plants, 49.

26. Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare, trans., The Kurma Purana, Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology Series, vols. 20—21 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982), 408; The Brahmanda Purana, Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology Series, vol. 22, no. 1 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983), 179.

27. Edward H. Schafer, Shore of Pearls (Berkeley & London: University of California Press, 1970), 64.

28. Martin Levey, The Medical Formulary of Aqrabadhin of Al-Kindi, Translated with a Study of Its Materia Medica (Milwaukee: University of Wisconsisn Press, 1966), 315.

29. Thomas Burrow, The Sanskrit Language (London: Faber and Faber, 1955), 42—62, 386—7; Sures C. Banerji, Flora and Fauna in Sanskrit Literature (Calcutta: Naya Prokash, 1980), v—vii, 9—11; John L. Brockington, "Sanskrit," in The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. R. E. Asher (Oxford: Pergamon, 1994), 7:3649.

30. International Library Association, comp. and ed., Medicinal Plants Sourcebook India: A Guide to Institutions, Publications, Information Services and Other Resources (Switzerland: International Library Association; Dehra Dun, India: Nahraj Publishers, 1996), 560.

31. T. Pullaiah, Medicinal Plants in India, 2 vols. (New Delhi: Regency Publications, 2002), 1: 207; John F. Watson, Index to the Native and Scientific Names of Indian and Other Eastern Economic Plants and Products (London: India Museum, 1868), 257; Krishnarao M. Nadkarni, ed., Indian Plants and Drugs with Their Medical Properties and Uses (Madras, India: Norton, 1914; repr., Delhi: Asiatic Publishing House, 1998), 140—45.

32. International Library Association, Medicinal Plants Sourcebook, 574; Ram N. Chopra, S. L. Nayar, and I. C. Chopra, Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants (New Delhi: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1956), 239; Pullaiah, Medicinal Plants in India, 2:492.

33. Pullaiah, Medicinal Plants in India, 2:361.

34. Pullaiah, Medicinal Plants in India, 2:473; Edward G. Balfour, Cyclopedia of India, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: 1871—1873), 5:461—62; Moses Maimonides, Moses Maimonides on the Causes of Symptoms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); M. Meyerhof and G. P. Sobhy, eds., The Abridged Version of 'The Book of Simple Drugs' by Ahmad Ibn Muhammad al-Gaafiqii, by Gregorius abu'l-Farag (Barhebraeus) (Cairo: El-Ettemad, 1932 [before 1160]); Bretschneider, Botanicon Sinicum, 57—61.

35. D. H. Kelley, "*Wangkang, *kumadjang, and *Longo," Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-distance Contacts 1, nos. 1 and 2 (1998): 73.

36. Karl H. Rensch, "Polynesian plant names, linguistic analysis and ethnobotany, expectations and limitations," in Islands, Plants, and Polynesians: An Introduction to Polynesian Ethnobotany, ed. Paul A. Cox and Sandra A. Banack (Portland, OR: Dioscorides Press, 1991), 108.

37. D. E. Sopher, "Turmeric in the Color Symbolism of Southern Asia and the Pacific Islands" (master's thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1950), 62—71.

38. George F. Carter, "Plants across the Pacific," in Asia and North America: Transpacific Contacts, ed. Marian W. Smith, Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 9 (Salt Lake City: Society for American Archaeology,1953), 62—71; Wendell H. Camp, "A possible source for American pre-Columbian gourds," American Journal of Botany 41 (1954): 700—1.

39. W. Arthur Whistler, "The other Polynesian gourd," Pacific Science 44 (1990): 115—22; and "Polynesian plant introductions," in Cox and Banack, Indians, Plants, and Polynesians, 41—66.

40. Kanhoba R. Kirtikar and Baman D. Basu, Indian Medicinal Plants, 2nd ed., rev. Ethelbert Blatter, J. F. Caius, and K. S. Mhaskar (Dehra Dun, India: International Books Distributors, 1987), 754—65.

41. Michael Black, "Diffusion of Arachis hypogaea" (unpublished seminar paper, submitted to Prof. Carl Johannessen, University of Oregon, 1988; copy in Johannessen's possession).

42. Edgar Anderson, Plants, Man and Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943; 2nd ed., 1952), 167.

43. S. Balabanovea, F. Parsche, and W. Pirsig, "First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies," Naturwissenschaften 79 (1992): 358.

44. A. G. Nerlich, F. Parsche, I. Wiest, P. Schramel, and U. Löhrs, "Extensive pulmonary hemorrhage in an Egyptian mummy," Virchows Archiv 427/4 (1995): 423—29; Franz Parsche and Andreas Nerlich, "Presence of drugs in different tissues of an Egyptian mummy," Fresenius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry 352 (1995): 380—84.

45. S. Balabanova, F. Parsche, and W. Pirsig, "Drugs in cranial hair of pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies," Baessler Archiv (NF) 40 (1992); F. Parsche, S. Balabanova, and W. Wirsig, "Drugs in ancient populations," The Lancet 341 (20 February 20, 1993): 503.

46. J. M. Riddle and J. M. Vreeland, "Identification of insects associated with Peruvian mummy bundles by using scanning electron microscopy," Paleopathology Newsletter 39 (1982): 5—9. Regarding S. paniceum in predynastic Egypt and Bronze Age England, see P. C. Buckland and Eva Panagiotakopulu, "Rameses II and the tobacco beetle," Antiquity 75 (2001): 549—56; Eva Panagiotakopulu, Archaeology and Entomology in the Eastern Mediterranean. Research into the History of Insect Synanthropy in Greece and Egypt (Oxford: BAR International Series 836, 2000), 9.

47. Mary W. Helms, Ulysses' Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssey of Power, Knowledge, and Geographical Distance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).

48. Douglas H. Ubelaker, "Patterns of demographic change in the Americas," Human Biology 64 (1992): 361—79; M. L. Powell, "Health and disease in the late prehistoric Southeast," in Disease and Demography in the Americas, ed. John W. Verano and Douglas H. Ubelaker (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 41—53.

49. O. da Fonseca, Parasitismo e migrações da parastologia para o conhecimento das origins do hommem americano: Estudos de Pré-história Geral e Brasileira (São Paulo, Brasil: Instituto de Pré-história de Universidade de São Paulo, 1970).

50. Samuel T. Darling, "Observations on the geographical and ethnological distribution of hookworms," Parasitology 12/3 (1920): 217—33.

51. Fred L. Soper, "The report of a nearly pure 'Ancylostoma duodenale' infestation in native South American Indians and a discussion of its ethnological significance," American Journal of Hygiene 7 (1927): 174—84; L. F. Ferreira, A. Araújo, U. E. Confalonieri, M. Chame, and B. Ribeiro Filho, "Encontro de ovos de ancilostomideos em coprólitos humanos datados de 7,230±80 B. P. no estado de Piauà , Brasil," in Paleoparasitologia no Brasil, ed. L. F. Ferreira, A. Araújo, and U. Confalonieri (Rio de Janeiro: Programa de Educação Pública, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, 1988), 37—40.

52. Marvin J. Allison, Daniel Mendoza, and Alejandro Pezzia, "Documentation of a case of tuberculosis in pre-Columbian America," American Review of Respiratory Disease 107 (1973): 985—91.

53. Ferreira, "Encontro de ovos."

54. L. F. Ferreira, A. Araújo, and U. E. Confalonieri, "Os parasitos do homem antigo," Ciência Hoje 1/3 (November—December, 1982): 63—67.

55. Fonseca, Parasitismo e migrações.

56. Ferreira, "Encontro de ovos."

57. A. Araújo, "Paleoepidemiologia da Ancilostomose," in Paleoparasitologia no Brasil, ed. L. F. Ferreira, A. Araújo, and U. Confalonieri (Rio de Janeiro: Programa de Educação Pública, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, 1988), 144—51.

58. L. F. Ferreira, A. Araújo, and U. E. Confalonieri, "The finding of eggs and larvae of parasitic helminths in archaeological material from Unai, Minas Gerais, Brazil," Transactions, Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 74/6 (1980): 65—67.

59. L. Miller Van Blerkom, "The Evolution of Human Infectious Disease in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres" (PhD diss., University of Colorado at Boulder, 1985), 4.

60. R. L. Roys, "The Ethno-Botany of the Maya," Middle American Research Series, Publication No. 2 (New Orleans, LA: Tulane University), 341. In Mayan: "Uk. The louse found on man and quadrupeds," according to the oldest major Mayan dictionary (the Motul); W. Wilfried Schuhmacher, F. Seto, J. Villegas Seto, and Juan R. Francisco, Pacific Rim: Austronesian and Papuan Linguistic History (Bibliothek der allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft: Reihe 2, Einzeluntersuchungen und Darstellungen) (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1992), 19. From the ethnically Papuan Austronesian Buma tribe, on Vanikoro, eastern Solomon Islands: "uka" [last vowel is a schwa] = louse, and from Austronesian-speaking Ontong Java (in the western Solomons), "uku = louse."

61. Sándor Bökönyi and Dénes Jánossy, "Adatok a pulyka kolumbusz ellötti Európai elöfordulás ához," Aquila: A Magyar Ornithologiai Központ Folyóirata 65 (1953): 265—69 (Budapest).

v62. Clive Gamble, Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonization (Phoenix Mill, England: Alan Sutton; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 214—30.

63. P. Norton,"El señorio de Salangone y la liga de mercaderes: el cartel spondylus-balsa," in Arqueologà a y etnohistoria del sur de Colombia y norte del Ecuador, comp. J. Alcina Franch and S. Moreno Yánez (Miscelanea Antropológica Ecuatoriana, Monográfico 6, y Boletà n de los Museos del Banco Central del Ecuador 6) (Cayambe, Ecuador: Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1987); Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-Djen, Trans-Pacific Echoes and Resonances: Listening Once Again (Singapore and Philadelphia: World Scientific, 1985), 48—49.

64. Clinton R. Edwards, Aboriginal Watercraft on the Pacific Coast of South America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965); "New World perspectives on pre-European voyaging in the Pacific," in Early Chinese Art and Its Possible Influence in the Pacific Basin: A Symposium Arranged by the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York City, August 21—25, 1967, ed. Noel Barnard in collaboration with Douglas Fraser, vol. 3, Oceania and the Americas (New York: Intercultural Arts Press, 1969), 843—87.

65. Vital Alsar, La Balsa; The Longest Raft Voyage in History (New York: Reader's Digest Press/E. P. Dutton, 1973); Pacific Challenge (La Jolla, CA: Concord Films [dba ALTI Publishers]), 1974, an 84-minute video.

66. Charles A. Borden, Sea Quest: Global Blue-Water Adventuring in Small Craft (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1967); Alan J. Villiers, Wild Ocean: The Story of the North Atlantic and the Men Who Sailed It (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957).

67. Hannes Lindemann, Alone at Sea, ed. J. Stuart (New York: Random House, 1957).

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Districts [ edit ]

Central Moscow districts [ edit ]

Outlying districts [ edit ], understand [ edit ].

Moscow is the financial and political centre of Russia and the countries formerly comprising the Soviet Union. It has a population of around 13 million and an area of 2,511 square kilometres (970 sq mi) after an expansion in 2012. One-tenth of all Russian citizens live in the Moscow metropolitan area. Moscow is the second most populous city in Europe, after Istanbul , and has the most populous metropolitan area in Europe, with some 21 million residents. Moscow is in the UTC+3 time zone; there is no daylight saving time.

Many years since the break up of the Soviet Union, the economy has improved, and the modern era has brought upon a wide variety of construction projects, modern architecture and newer transport systems replacing the derelict ones during Soviet times.

Geography [ edit ]

Moscow is a large metropolis on the Moskva River, which bends its way through the city. The historical center is on the northern bank of the river. The other major waterway is the Yauza River, which flows into the Moskva east of the Kremlin.

Much of Moscow's geography is defined by the 3 'Ring Roads' that circle the city at various distances from the centre, roughly following the outline of the walls that used to surround Moscow. With Red Square and the Kremlin forming the very centre, the innermost ring road is the Boulevard Ring ( Bulvarnoye Koltso ), built in the 1820s where the 16th century walls used to be. It runs from the Christ the Savior Cathedral in south-west central Moscow, to the mouth of the Yauza in south-east central Moscow.

The next ring road, the Garden Ring ( Sadovoe Koltso ), derives its name from the fact that landowners near the road in Tsarist times were obligated to maintain gardens to make the road attractive. In Soviet times, the road was widened, and there are now no gardens there.

The Third Ring Road, completed in 2004, is not much use for tourists but is a heavily used motorway which absorbs a bit of Moscow's traffic. It roughly follows the outline of Kamer-Kollezhsky val , the customs boundary of Moscow in the 18th – early 20th century. The outer edge of Moscow is largely defined by the Moscow Ring Road (widely known by its abbreviation: MKAD-Moskovskaya kolcevaya avto doroga), a motorway which is 108 km (67 mi) long and encircles the entire city (similar to London's M25 and Paris' Périphérique ).

Climate [ edit ]

The climate of Moscow features warm summers and long, cold winters.

Get in [ edit ]

See Russia#Get in for visa requirements to Russia.

By train [ edit ]

Moscow is a railway hub, with connections to all parts of Russia and far into Europe and Asia. Due to its hub status, Moscow's train stations are often crowded; trains are the usual form of intercity transport for most Russians. The stations have a reputation for being unsafe but paradoxically the threat of terrorism has improved things: security gates, policing and surveillance deter the casual thugs and villains. Guard your valuables and yourself as you would in any big city.

All long-distance trains are operated by Russian Railways and its subsidiaries, except for a few international trains with other operators. Tickets can be bought at stations or online . For domestic trains, you can show the ticket officer your online boarding pass; however, international trains require a printed ticket. There are usually ticket counters with English-speaking personnel - they may be marked as such, or the clerk may direct you to another counter if they can't cope with your English. See Russia#By train 2 for more details on travelling in Russia by train.

From Europe [ edit ]

All trains from Europe halted since 2020

Train stations in Moscow [ edit ]

Moscow has 10 train stations, 9 of which are near metro stations close to the center of Moscow. Be sure to note the station from which your train is departing, which will be indicated on the ticket, or online . Three stations ( Leningradsky , Yaroslavsky , and Kazansky ) are on one huge square, informally known as the "Three Stations' Square". A running joke among Moscow taxi drivers since the Soviet times is to be able to pick up a fare from one of them to the other, taking the unwary tourist on an elaborate ride in circles. Be prepared for enormous queues trying to enter or exit the Metro at peak times, as people are getting off or on the commuter trains.

By car [ edit ]

Many entry points to Moscow over the Ring Road and into the city feature rotating roadblocks, where teams of traffic police may stop a vehicle, especially if it is not featuring Moscow plates. You may be stopped and questioned but you'll be allowed to proceed if you have all the proper documents.

Foreign cars, especially expensive cars, might attract unwelcome attention, and there is cumbersome paperwork involved to enter Russia by car.

By boat [ edit ]

There is no scheduled passenger service to Moscow by boat; however, cruise ships do provide service to the Northern River Terminal, on the Moscow Canal near the Khimki Reservoir. The pier is not convenient to the city and it can take over 2 hours to reach the city centre by car.

A system of navigable channels and locks connects the Moskva River with the Volga River, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea , White Sea, the Azov, the Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea. In the Soviet times this allowed the official propaganda to refer to Moscow as "a port on the five seas".

By bicycle [ edit ]

Moscow is the easternmost destination of the EuroVelo cycling routes . Eurovelo Route 2 , the Capitals Route, is a 5,500 km (3,400 mi) route starting in Galway , Ireland , passing through Dublin , London , Berlin , Warsaw and Minsk before terminating in Moscow.

By metro [ edit ]

The Metro is open from 05:30-01:00. Station entrances are closed at 01:00, and at this time the last trains depart from all of the termini stations. After 01:00, many locals will enter the train station using the exits, which are still open. Service on the ring line runs until 01:30, although entrances are closed at 01:00. The down escalators are also shut off at 01:00.

There is signage in the Metro stations in English and the Latin alphabet, but these signs are not everywhere. Each train carriage has a map in Latin script and there is one near the entrance to each station. Note the direction of the train before you alight. It is worth printing a map of the metro system in both Cyrillic and Latin letters to take with you.

All trains in the system have free WiFi onboard, but you will need to have a Russian phone number to get the authorization code to access the WiFi. Some of the older train cars are not climate controlled.

2 or 3 stations may be connected as transfer points but will each have a different name. There are 2 stations called Smolenskaya and 2 stations called Arbatskaya , but the station pairs are not connected to each other despite having the same name. Some of the stations are very deep underground, and transfer times between certain metro lines can take a lot of time. In the city centre, it can save time to go directly to the above-ground entrance of the line you want to take rather than to enter at a connecting station and transfer underground. On the escalators, stand on the right and walk on the left except for peak hours, when standing on the left side is also allowed.

Some of the train stations include beautiful architecture and it is worth taking a guided tour of the metro system. The most interesting stations in terms of decor are Komsomolskaya (ring line), Novoslobodskaya (ring line), Kievskaya (ring line), Kropotkinskaya (Line #1 - red), Kievskaya (Line #3 - dark blue), Arbatskaya (Line #3 - dark blue), Ploschad' Revolyutsii (Line #3 - dark blue), Mayakovskaya (Line #2 - dark green). Also look at the architecture of the ground entrance building of Arbatskaya (Line #4 - light blue) and Krasnye Vorota (Line #1 - red). History buffs may appreciate that Metro Line #1 (red) has the oldest stations, opened in 1935.

The Vorobyovy Gory Metro Station on Line #1 (red) is unique in that it is on a bridge crossing the Moscow River. This bridge also carries auto traffic road on another level. There is a beautiful view through the transparent sides of the station. A great observing point around Moscow is located nearby on Vorobyovy hills, next to the main building of Lomonosov Moscow State University.

There are a couple of unique trains operating through the system and you will be lucky if you get to ride them. Aquarelle (Watercolor) is a train that includes an art gallery. The train operates daily on Line #3 (dark blue). The Sokolniki Retro Train is a train modeled after the original 1930s trains and it occasionally is placed into service, usually around a major anniversary of the metro system.

The metro is relatively safe, although pickpockets are a problem, as they are in any environment where a lot of people are pressed together. Opportunistic petty crime, such as snatching someone's mobile phone and jumping out just as the doors are closing, is also commonplace. Take the usual precautions at night when gangs of inebriated teenagers may look for an excuse to beat someone up. There is no train guard or conductor, so the first car near the driver may be the safest. Every car is equipped with an intercom to the driver's cabin; they are beige boxes with a grill and a black button near doors, and mostly work, unless visibly vandalized.

By tram [ edit ]

There are several tram routes, although trams are not common in the city centre.

By monorail [ edit ]

Moscow Monorail is a 4.7 km (2.9 mi) monorail line with 6 stations. It is slower, less frequent, and has shorter operating hours when compared with the metro (every 30 min, 08:00-20:00). However, the view is picturesque. It is useful to get to the Ostankino Tower, or to get to the VDNKh exhibition centre from Metro Line #9 (silver). Interchanges between Moscow Metro and Monorail is free, no additional fee will be charged.

By hop-on-hop-off bus [ edit ]

The hop-on-hop-off bus is a convenient way for tourists to see the major sights quickly and efficiently. The buses feature English-speaking guides to answer any questions. A 1 day pass costs $24 for adults and $15 for children.

See [ edit ]

Do [ edit ].

Moscow has many attractions, but many of them are not friendly to a non-Russian-speaker. English-language newspapers like The Moscow Times , Element [dead link] , Moscow News and others can help to navigate towards English-language friendly attractions and services.

Circuses [ edit ]

Theatres [ edit ].

• Bolshoi Theatre , one of the oldest and best known ballet and opera companies in the world.

Learn [ edit ]

Moscow remains the educational center of Russia and the former USSR. There are 222 institutes of higher education, including 60 state universities & 90 colleges. Some of these offer a wide-spectrum of programs, but most are centered around a specific field. This is a hold-over from the days of the USSR, when Sovietwide there were only a handful of wide-spectrum "universities" and a large number of narrow-specialization "institutes" (mostly in Moscow & St.Petersburg). Moscow offers some of the best business/management, science, & arts schools in the world. Moscow is also a popular destination for foreign students to learn Russian.

Work [ edit ]

You will need a work visa which is not an easy process. The visa needs to be arranged well in advance of traveling. It is possible to work in Moscow, you just need to find a good company to support you. The main obstacle for many foreigners will be a mandatory Russian language exam required to obtain a work permit.

Shopping malls [ edit ]

Large shopping malls are common near metro stations.

Tipping [ edit ]

For information on tipping in restaurants, see Russia#Eat .

Ethnic food [ edit ]

Authentic ethnic food from countries of the nearby Caucasus ( Azerbaijan , Georgia , Armenia ) is common in Moscow. Japanese food, including sushi, rolls, tempura, and steakhouses are very popular in Moscow. Other Asian cuisines including Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese are becoming increasingly more common.

Budget [ edit ]

Street food [ edit ].

Free-standing kiosks serving sausages, meat pies, or kebobs are plentiful, although the origins of the meat served is questionable and the food has been known to occasionally make people sick.

Muscovites are also fond of their ice cream, consumed in any weather, even in the dead of winter, cheap and usually of superior quality; kiosks can be found all over the center and near all Metro stations.

Foodcourts 2.0 [ edit ]

This term is used in articles by local food critics: since 2016, several special food courts were opened with independent and small food chains, for those people who get bored of McDonald's-like food. They offer a wider choice of cuisines.

Clubs [ edit ]

Nightlife in Moscow is bustling, intense and exciting. It starts quite late; it's common for the headliners to start at 02:00-02:00. Most noticeable are areas near Solyanka street and Krasniy Oktyabr' place. At summer time a lot of clubs opening open-air terraces called "verandas". Most of clubs in Moscow are very picky of who they let in, so make sure you have a positive attitude and dress up if you are going to a fancy club.

Gazgolder [dead link] (not far from Kremlin) is among the best.

Cafes [ edit ]

Moscow has several café chains with great coffee including Coffeemania and Coffee Bean [dead link] . Moscow also has a good selection of tea saloons. High-quality infusion teas such as Newby, are widely available in cafes, both in packets and loose.

Asking to add boiling water to the tea you ordered earlier is a practice that some cafes don't welcome, but normally it's acceptable.

Sleep [ edit ]

Stay safe [ edit ].

Moscow enjoys a relatively low crime rate.

Drunk people are the most likely sources of problems. In the past years, lots of policemen were corrupt, and it was best to avoid them. Nowadays Moscow has a Tourist Police force, whose officers are able to speak foreign languages and help tourists. Police officers are equipped with body-cameras.

It is preferable to avoid some parts of the outer districts of Moscow, especially in the south. Some of those areas are notorious for gopniks (drunkards notorious for muggings and starting fights with strangers, and will do so seemingly unprovoked), who normally hang out in sparse residential areas and in industrial zones. The same problems can be witnessed in the surrounding regions and in other Russian cities as well.

While traveling in Moscow, as in the rest of Russia, you should always have your passport with you. If you look non-white, your papers may get checked more often than otherwise. The police may demand to see your papers to check if you have been registered within 7 business days of your arrival into Moscow. Always remember that if you stay in a hotel then you are automatically registered and will be handed a confirmation paper at a time of check-in, so don't worry in this case. The police are usually looking for migrants from Central Asia and unless you fit this profile, you are unlikely to be questioned.

Women should take caution walking alone late at night since they may receive unwanted attention from drunk men. Women should also stay clear of large companies of men in front of bars, restaurants, etc. It is best to walk with a friend if possible.

Streets can become very slippery in winter. Wear shoes or, even better, boots with decent grip to prevent twisted ankles. Ice patches can be hard to spot. A waterproof raincoat is also sensible.

Traffic is poorly handled, and vehicle accident rates are very high.

If you need help with translation, ask students or pupils: younger people are more likely to be able to help you than the older generations.

Connect [ edit ]

For information on using telephones and buying SIM cards in Russia, see Russia#Connect .

Mobile Internet is quite affordable in Russia, but you have to buy Russian SIM-card first.

Wireless Internet [ edit ]

Moscow Metro has Wi-Fi in all trains. It is ad-supported.

Mosgortrans has Wi-Fi spots on every bus, trolleybus and tram. Also sometimes you can find Wi-Fi spot on a public transport stop.

Beeline Wi-Fi [dead link] operates the largest network of both paid and free Wi-Fi access points. If there is a charge, you can pay online via credit card.

There is a large network of free Wi-Fi hotspots in the city centre; check your device in the middle of a busy area and you may find one.

Many cafes and restaurants offer Wi-Fi - ask for password. Most bookstores offer free Wi-Fi, including "Dom Knigi" on New Arbat Street or "Respublika" bookstore on Tverskaya near Mayakovskaya Metro Station.

Some establishments that offer free Wi-Fi may require you to verify an authorization code sent to a Russian phone number before gaining access, but for the most part, foreign numbers also work as of 2016.

Cope [ edit ]

Embassies [ edit ].

Moscow is one of the global diplomatic capitals, competing with Berlin , Brussels , Beijing , Paris , London , Tokyo and Washington D.C. . Most of the world's countries have their embassies in the city.

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Put-in tours

Original tour agency in moscow and st petersburg..

Onboard a Soviet van!

Welcome to Russia!

We are Sergey and Simon, a Russian and a Frenchman, both  passionate about Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and classic cars. Together, we have created Put-in tours. Our goal is to help you experience Russian culture off the beaten path. Join us onboard our classic Soviet van and let’s get rolling!

In Moscow we offer you a city tour to discover most of the city in an original way as well as a night tour to admire the lights. Our pubcrawl is ideal to explore Moscow’s night-life and have fun. If you are craving to discover Russian culture, come impress your senses during our monastery diner or join our 100% Russian Banya Excursion . The latest will also bring you to Sergiyev Posad and it’s famous monastery!

For the most extreme travellers, our shooting tour will deliver your daily dose of adrenaline whereas our tank excursion will let you ride a real tank and shoot a bazooka.

We also offer help to receive your visa , safe and multilingual airport transfers , as well as organisation services for team-building events or bachelor parties .

All our excursions (but the monastery diner) happen onboard our Soviet military vans and can be covered by our  professionnal photographer or videographer.

In Saint Petersburg

We welcome you in Saint Petersburg onboard our Soviet van to discover the imperial city with our city tour and night tour .

Continue your discovery in style! The adrenaline lovers will like our shooting tour  which brings 3 Russian weapons to the tip of your trigger finger.

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At Put-in tours, we put you in our classic Soviet vans to go explore Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Russian culture off the beaten path. Discover our Moscow city guided tour, visit Moscow by night, join our banya & Sergiyev Posad excursion, visit and dine in one of Moscow's oldest monastery or even Luzhniki stadium, before you party on our famous pubcrawl! Original and atypical tours : Shoot AK47 and a bazooka after riding on a tank with our tank & bazooka excursion ! Extreme tours: Fly a fighter jet in Moscow onboard a L-29 or L-39 aircraft!

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Moscow Tours & Travel Packages 2024/2025

Our 60 most popular moscow trips. compare tour itineraries from 45 tour companies. 308 reviews. 4.7/5 avg rating., popular moscow tours.

St Petersburg & Moscow in Style - Winter

• Explore the majestic St Petersburg & Moscow on private city tours
• Admire the rich Russian history, art and architecture
• Travel to Moscow on a highspeed train
• Enjoy the local cuisine in stylish restaurants

Lower Volga Voyage

• Visit magnificent Red Square and Kremlin and examine the collection at theKremlin’s State Armory.
• Experience Russia’s diverse musical traditions at lively folk music performances
• Explore Volgograd, the site of the decisive battle of World War II’s eastern front

Volga Dream Russian River Cruise

St Petersburg & Moscow in Style - Summer

White Russian - 7 days

• Discover Moscow's UNESCO-listed Red Square, home to spectacular St Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum and the historic GUM Department store
• Explore the grounds of Moscow's mighty Kremlin, with its numerous governmentbuildings, gold-domed cathedrals and the giant tsar bell
• Celebrate New Year's Eve in Moscow!
• Take in the highlights of St Petersburg including a guided tour of the exquisite Church on Spilled Blood, Peter & Paul Fortress and Cathedral
• Take a guided tour of the remarkable Hermitage Museum at the Winter Palace

Vodka Shot - 6 days

• Explore the beautiful city of St Petersburg, including the exquisite Church on Spilled Blood, Peter & Paul Fortress and Nevsky Prospekt
• Marvel at the dazzling array of art and exhibits in the world-famous Hermitage Museum, at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg
• Discover a lavish residence of the tsars on a day trip to Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo (winter: mid-October to April) or Peterhof Palace and gardens (summer: May to mid-October)
• Take in the highlights of the capital on a walking tour, visiting Moscow's famous Red Square, home to the historic GUM Department Store, Lenin’s Mausoleum and spectacular St Basil’s Cathedral
• Take a guided tour of the Moscow Kremlin, Russia’s political power house. Stroll around the grounds of this fortified complex, visit the Kremlin's cathedrals and see the mighty Tsar Bell

Route of the Romanovs - 10 days

• Learn about the last days of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg, visiting the sites where Tsar Nicolas II and his family were assassinated and buried
• Straddle two continents at the famous obelisk Europe/Asia border marker in Yekaterinburg
• Experience the Trans-Siberian railway on an overnight train journey from Moscow to Yekaterinburg

New Year's in Moscow - 9 days

• Visit Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo on Christmas Day and marvel at the incredible Amber Room
• Spend a night in Novgorod, an ancient city by the Volkhov River - explore the kremlin, cathedral and other sights and enjoy a traditional Russian banya (sauna)

All Moscow , expedition cruises, self guided adventures and vacation packages. Find the best guided and expert planned vacation and holiday packages. Read more about Moscow

Small Group Moscow Tours

Back in the USSR - 7 days

Russian Revolution - 9 days

• Visit historic Novgorod, an ancient city which straddles the Volkhov River. Explore the attractive riverside kremlin and experience a traditional Russian banya (sauna)

The Snowball - 6 days

• Visit Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo and marvel at the incredible Amber Room

Mood for Moscow - 4 days

• Head underground to visit a Stalinist-era Soviet Bunker on an optional excursion
• Stroll to the vibrant Izmailovo Market, which lies behind the walls of an ancient Kremlin, and shop for an array of souvenirs

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Moscow reviews & ratings, capitals of the north.

some hotels could have been better

It was jam packed with every place I wanted to go and see. I especially love my photo of us setting out on the night time river cruise in St Petersburg and the Peter...

I really did not buy much and what I did buy was small gifts for others .

Johanna-Marie

Good hotels, some better than others. Interesting itinerary

Too rushed. Optional tour rather too short

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