Nicole de Cartagena

The adventure, in its beginnings

I was born in a big impressive park, lost in a small village of Normandy, France… From my childhood, the nature fed my insatiable thirst to know the world. And the world, for me, a small girl a little different from the others by my dreams and my thoughts, was the distance, the unknown grounds. One especially attracted all my desires: Peru.

When I became a teacher of Spanish, in France, I start to carry out my dream in 1969, at the time of a first voyage to Peru, in a purpose of writing my MA, travel of which I never had to get over… So, I came back here the following year, in 1970 and practically every year afterwards, with my husband, Herbert, met in Cusco, the son of one of the greatest French guides, Jeannette de Cartagena.

In search of Paititi of the Incas… The first expeditions and our publications

With Herbert we published in 1977 by Robert Laffont Editions: Sur la Piste des Incas, a very successful book, which contributed surely to the development of tourism in Peru.

Animated by a spirit of adventure and exploration of the past, we left France for some periods in 1977 for a lot of expeditions in search of Paititi, a city (according to the oral tradition) lost in the Peruvian Rain Forest, which let us to discover in 1979 the inca site of Mameria, located in the Amazonia and to live with the Machiguengas, an ethnic group of the forest, a relation which personally has impressed all my life.

From this experience, another book was published in 1981: Paititi dernier refuge des Incas, again by Robert Laffont Editions, signed by Herbert and me.

As far as I can go back in the time, I have always written and I have always liked and wished to write.

Our two children, Olivier and Chaska, fed into the double culture, have been nourished by these reports of expeditions, going even with us in certain cases. Thus in 1987, we undertook with them Val de Reuil (Normandy)-Athens by foot and by bike, an incredible adventure of 3040 km! There would be so much to say about it!...

A new life...

After many lectures held in France with Herbert, expositions, articles of newspapers (Géo 1995), something inavoidable happens: we leave everything behind us, over there, on the other side of the ocean and we take residence in Cusco. And thus a few years later, without never having thought it before, I become official guide of tourism. A logical result, but not thought nor even imagined...

Peru seems to me more and more intimate: the region of Cusco, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa and its Colca Canyon, The Nasca Lines, Chan Chan, Cajamarca, Amazonia, Inca Trail, Salkantay, then Bolivia with its salted Lake of Uyuni, its mines of Potosí, Tiawanako…

The beginning of this new millenium sees two other publications: Cusco Land of the Incas, in French, Spanish and English, by Bartolomé de Las Casas Editions and Objectif Aventure Pérou, by Flammarion Editions, Paris, which lets the reader become actor of his own voyage, a new perception directed towards the adventure and the knowledge. Other books are in preparation.

At the moment :

At last, in 2004, it is the birth of Puka Nina, a tourism agency that Olivier (my son) and I, we founded and which name means in quechua: the Red Light, the blazing fire of the sun and of the resplendent Andes, a whole program for an agency which wants to be original, respectful at the same time of the past and the nature, in a country impressed by a plethora of civilizations and a diversity of ecological levels comparable with not any part of the world. A whole program, indeed, that we give with pleasure and passion, for the knowledge of this marvellous Andean country of the end of the world: Peru.

Herbert Cartagena

I was born in Cusco, in this "navel of the world" so dear in the whole world... My childhood, with he presence of my five brothers and sisters, has been yet lonely and very early I felt the need to avoid a certain conformism, to learn everything from myself, to make my own experiences, which I got on in part...

I left very early my home to know the world... And then, Nicole arrived at Cusco and I got together with her in France, for the worst or for the best... France, I had dreamed of it for a long time: my childhood had passed with the stories of my mother, a French woman born in Normandy who would become later, when she followed her husband, my father, the first French-speaking guide of Cusco, the mama Jeannette, as they called her here.

And with Nicole, passionate also about adventure, we were well under way!

With her, indeed, we published in 1977 at Robert Laffont Editions: Sur la Piste des Incas, a very successful book, which contributed surely to the development of tourism in Peru...

Animated by a spirit of adventure and exploration of the past, we left France for some periods in 1977 for a lot of expeditions in search of Paititi, a city (according to the oral tradition) lost in the Peruvian Rain Forest, which let us to discover in 1979 the inca site of Mameria, located in the Amazonia and to live with the Machiguengas, an ethnic group of the forest, a relation which has impressed us a lot.

From this experience, another book was published in 1981: Paititi dernier refuge des Incas, again at Robert Laffont Editions, signed by Nicole and me.

Our two children, Olivier and Chaska, fed into the double culture, have been nourished by these reports of expeditions, going even with us in certain cases.

Thus in 1987, we undertook with them Val de Reuil (Normandy)-Athens, an incredible adventure of 3040 km, in which I was a walker and that ended in the Acropolis, a day of august of 1987…

After many lectures held in France with Nicole, expositions, articles of newspapers (Géo 1995), something inavoidable happens: we leave everything behind us, over there, on the other side of the ocean and we take residence in Cusco.

These Peruvian years have constituted for me a time of reflection, of maturation. Practising several occupations at the same time (model maker of inca vestiges mainly, tour conductor of groups, chief of works in the building...), I was likely, in addition, to be able to consume my amount of adventure while taking part in expeditions of archaeological research of a certain Thierry Jamin, another crazy of mysteries and interrogations... As crazy as I, impassioned for our researches, he had launched in his turn into the track of Paititi.

Now, I form part of the staff of Puka Nina and I am very glad of it! We have done so many things together with Nicole that for the first time I had felt somehow a little set aside, through force of circumstance, from the common path... And I am happy to take part in an active way in the life of Puka Nina, especially in the sector transport, which I will lead.

Mónica Pamela Chacón Farfán

Mónica Pamela, accountant as a profession, was born on January 6, 1980. She has lived a great part of her life with her family, while moving of a place to another according to the work of her parents, of her many friends... She was glad to make her secondary in the city of Cusco, where the closest links of friendship have been forged, with the sport, among others the basketball, where she took part in various championships. It is in the beautiful cities of the north that she began to carry out her higher education in the career of accountancy and finances. She always has appreciated the conferences and the exposures which treated economic and administrative matters, sometimes by exposing herself in the social conventions or events, always with the avant-garde of the laws and all that pertained to her career. As she liked the languages and in particular the quechua, she hopes one day to better herself in the latter without leaving to- side her attraction for the typical dances of the country, such as the wayno and the saya.
Accountancy shows in an ordered way a whole quite particular process, but it is not for that that one neglects the emotional side and the kindness which one can have for a new visitor. It is clearly understood that cordiality never should be neglected , and that it is always necessary to keep a space to welcome...