Stop or I'll tattoo you!

Honduras is not an untypical example of Central America. Along with its poverty comes the violence. It has more than its fair share of gangs of tattooed young men, whom, if you believe the Honduran government, cut a murderous swathe across the country and its poorer inhabitants’ lives.

Predominantly found in the two main cities, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, the groups known as Mara, are made up of young men existing on the fringes of society and almost always outside the law. The names of the gangs hark back to the streets where they were formed in Los Angeles. The quasi-religious sounding Mara Salvatrucha (sometimes known as MS 9 or 13) with its main base in El Salvador, and long standing rival the Mara 18, are considered by the lettered classes to be a blight on Honduran life. Increasingly, they have grown into organisations with an international reach. In a special feature, La Prensa describes how the MS have now turned up in the poorer barrios of Madrid and Barcelona.

The Mara arrived in Honduras after being expelled by the US government in the 1980s and ’90s following a series of prisoner release and deportation programs. With less than saintly pasts in the US and with nothing much to set themselves up in Honduras, they naturally took to crime to survive. This usually meant the grubby-end of organised crime like extortion, drugs and prostitution rackets, all enforced by the terror of an automatic weapon.

More recently they have moved up a notch and are heavily involved in car stealing syndicates. Over the border in El Salvador, where the MS is stronger, it is estimated that 80% of cars driven there were stolen from the US.

In the Eighties, during the civil war, the country was literally awash with guns and so they and the Mara made natural companions. Soon they had a foothold in the poorer barrios of San Pedro Sula where a lot of them had landed. While gun violence is endemic in certain parts of the main industrial city and the capital, it is sometimes exported to quieter parts of Honduras including the Copan Valley. People here say that if there is a big shooting in San Pedro Sula, it is time to lock the doors and stay inside for a few days. Once a Mara has killed someone, they say, they head to the country and look to lay low with friends or family until the heat has dissipated. But, within days of holing up in one of the mountain towns, boredom sets in and fuelled by drink and drugs let loose with a few deathly volleys of their own. The big fear is that like El Salvador, the Mara will start to move some of their operations out of the city and appear in the fields, harassing farmers and stealing their crops.

The government’s current response to the gangs is one of zero tolerance. Shoot first and ask questions of the dead man’s family later is the usual way of dealing with the troublesome young men. In fact, under new laws enacted in 2004, if anyone looks like a gang member they can be arrested on sight. Usually that means tattoos. The gang members don’t do themselves many favours however. The traditional way of tattooing the arms is with a list of the people you have either lost from your gang or those you have killed from another. This mano duro (strong hand) approach by the government is known prosaically as Honduras Seguro (Honduras Secure) Phase 1 and modelled on the zero tolerance policies of New York in the Nineties.

Amnesty International complain though that not only are the government policies repressive but are no different in principal to the gangs own murderous methods. They noted in a report published in late 2004 that frequent shootings by police and private death squads of gang members, many no more than children themselves, go unpunished. While I was in Honduras, 51 gang members were shot by prison authorities at a jail in northern Honduras, in what the establishment describe with ony a hint of tongue-in-cheek as a "foiled attempt at mass escape."

Notwithstanding the fact that grinding poverty and the tattooed symbols of their membership often trap these young people into a life of crime, sympathy has to be with law abiding Hondurans at all levels of society. Not only are many poor communities in the big cities fearful of the Mara, but powerful people who might ordinarily be immune to the violence get caught up in its wave. The current President, Ricardo Madura’s own son was kidnapped and murdered by gang members in 1997.

It is said that there are only two ways a gang member can leave the Mara, either for God or their mum. Some members are so desperate to escape they resort to throwing battery acid over their tattooed bodies. It’s no surprise really. A Mara tattoo is quite often a death sentence one way or another. Either a rival gang member gets you or if they don’t the police and prison authorities will. Rehabilitation is also not a word much used in Honduran society. But, the church is doing its bit to help. It has instigated a new program of tattoo removal. For 25 lempiras (about 80pence) a gang member can have a tattoo erased by laser. The problem is that most long standing gang members are completely covered with tattoos and having them removed leaves small trace lines where the ink used to be.

Right now there doesn’t seem to be much of a way forward. The sad fact is that in Honduras even now it is much easier to get a machine gun than an education.

My kingdom for a chicken (bus)

Chicken Buses are the legendary mode of transport in Guatemala. Vintage era US school buses repainted in gaudy hue they ply the roads throughout the country delivering people to where they want to go. Why are they called chicken buses? Well, apparently it was on account that along with people these buses were also notorious for conveying chickens to their destination as well.

Today a chicken bus will be our transport of choice for the three and half hour journey from the former capital of Guatemala, Antigua to Chichicastenango (Chichi) and a visit to its remarkable native market. This is fun traveling. You get to meet lots of people, and I mean lots. It's colourful and cheap. In fact it is so cheap, it would be more expensive to take the number 8 bus from Asda superstore to Tower Ramparts, than the winding 70 mile route from Antigua to Chichi.

Its six thirty in the morning when we find our transport at the rugged bus station on the wrong side of town. It's best to do these things early in Guatemala. My tummy is rumbling and the bus is already beginning to fill up. So we hop on. It's quite a long thing with bank seats either side of a skinny aisle. Things don’t kick off awfully well with the locals. We park ourselves behind a couple chatting spiritedly. She is eating what looks like a baked potato with a chunky salsa topping. Curious, I lean over and ask her politely what it is that she is eating. She recoils suddenly and turns her back on me like I've just asked if she wouldn’t mind if I took a peak down her blouse at her capacious bosom. Obviously getting between a baked potato and a Guatemalan is strictly verboten. Her husband informs me, a little stiffly I thought, that it was called a Chichuta. I am none the wiser, nor any less hungry.

The seats are not comfortable, and by my reckoning they would uncomfortably seat two medium sized Americans. Which roughly equates to three Paul Daniels. Before you can say "budge over chum", each bank seat has at least three local occupants and in some cases many more. Before long though I am standing, having let a family of five sit down on the seat we occupied. Vera and I are squashed, crunched and budged till we don’t notice how uncomfortable it is any more.

The last time I was in this close a proximity with so many other people was the first game of the 1979 season, when I and 29,000 other hooligans (we were all called hooligans in the 70's) packed the old bike sheds at Portman Road to watch Bobby Robsons wonder team take on league champions Notts Forest. It's one game I remember vividly, not because of the score line; unusually for ITFC of that era we lost the game 1-0, but for the fact that for the entire game my feet, thanks to the crush of fans around me, did not once come into contact with the West Stand terraces. Suspended anticipation you might call it. But I digress.

Laying on mum´s lap is a babe in arms which after a decent interval wakes up and commences to stare at me with a blank but determined expression for what seems like ages. Not one to take such a blatantly direct challenge go unanswered, I decide to stare back. After all these brand new humans need to be shown what's what. This battle of wits continues for some more minutes, until eventually the game is up. I look away.

Looking around the bus now I focus in on the numerous signs declaiming the faith which supports drivers and passengers alike in this devout country. This particular bus sports the slogan, “Jesus es mi piloto nada me pasaran”. This roughly translates as “Jesus is my pilot and nothing shall pass me”. This driver is devoted to his task because he pushes this thirty year old bus like Jesus is the Pilot and God is the Pit Lane boss. His lap times were remarkable as was his driving. We shave a whole hour off the anticipated journey time.

I don’t want to sleep. There is just too much happening. People come and go. At one point we are inundated with Mayan women dressed in a kaleidoscope of colours. Everywhere you looked, it was long black hair and bright Mayan costumes. Vera's blonde locks and our drab traveler’s outfits were the only break in the uniformity. I did a count and in the space of those two and half hours more than 150 people clambered on and off the bus. There was only one disappointment. Not one chicken got on.

Burp once for God twice for you know who

Coca Cola has been called many things. The multinational company would prefer we think of it as the “Real thing”. Well in one small corner of Mexico the sugary drink has taken on some quite unreal qualities.

We are in the highlands of Southern Mexico. To be exact, the state of Chiapas. It is one of the strongholds of the infamous Zapatista rebels who made headlines in the mid 1990s when they stormed into the town of San Christobal Las Casas and held it hostage while they talked turkey with the government. Today, Vera and I have come to a small town; about ten minutes drive from San Christobal. It is called Chamula and we are here to visit the so-called burping church.

Approaching the predominant building in the town, San Juan Chamula looms up out of a large parade ground. It once held a Mayan Ball court, but that was broken up by the Spanish to build the church in the 1500s. To all intents and purposes it looks quite usual in the Central American sense. In other words, it is anything but. Though the façade is predominantly white and the form pretty traditional it is decorated in the colours of the rainbow. False windows are painted either bottle green or royal blue, and the mouldings which decorate the side pillars a riot of primary colours.

Nothing though quite prepares you for the onslaught to the senses once you enter. It feels ancient, primeval even and utterly sensual. San Juan Chamula is on the surface a Catholic church, but scratch the surface and it is nothing of the sort. This is a place where Shamans come to appease the Gods and heal the Mayan congregants. It contains many crosses but no pews or chairs; more candles than an Elton John concert and everyone is in the process of being acquainted with something called Posh.

A full time Vatican-ordained priest hasn’t taken a mass in this church for centuries. At least not since the Mayans decided they could dispense with the services of the incumbent prelate and massacred him and his brotherly entourage. Unsurprisingly, the Pope doesn’t recognize this particular wayward child of the church. San Jaun Chamula is what anthropologists describe as an example of Catholic-animist syncretism. To you and me its religious pick and mix.

The eyes take a while to adjust to the gloom and general fug of the church. It is not easy to see from one side of the church to other, what with the candle smoke and the incense burners going full bore. People sit in groups chatting or chanting in front of their favourite saint. There are at least fifty or so major and minor saints- wax effigies - lined up against the walls in glass cases ready to hear pleas from the people. Nowadays the Mayan faithful might pray to Pan Antonio de Padua to help protect their poultry or San Sebastian Pastor to cure their sheep of scabies or some such curse, and trust in the result. But it wasn’t always the case. In times past if a saint was deemed to have failed the people, he was turned around and made to face the wall. Some even had the indignity of having their wax hands cut off. Only in recent times have these bad saints been redeemed and properly clothed, but still they get short shrift from some followers.

The floor of the church is covered in fresh pine needles and scattered in groups of ten or so, people converse directly with God. One of the reasons the priests were shown the door, so to speak, was that the local Mayans felt like they needed to get more one-on-one time with God. Once a year though, a priest arrives from San Christobal and conducts baptisms. This must be a slightly nerve wracking ordeal, considering that his congregation has quite a bit of previous. Often there is a queue out into the square waiting for his services, so he at least must have been forgiven. When it’s all over he is back to San Christobal faster than you can say there’s an Opus Dei under the bed. It’s what you might call a dunk and run exercise.

Families often spend a whole day with the saints, packing a picnic for the duration. They light different coloured candles on the floor and so begins the purification ceremony. A chicken is quite often the unwitting party to the ceremony. It will inevitably leave the church with a broken neck.

More unwitting is the Coca Cola Corporation. Everywhere I look sits the familiar shaped bottle of sugar water. Its familiar result on drinking it, ie a loud rumbling burp has its holy uses. By belching the worshippers believe the bad spirits can be released from the body. More sacred still is the Posh (Pox in Mayan). Made of distilled sugar cane juice, Posh is spat about the body of the person it is designed to assist and protect. As a purifying agent it’s a knockout. Being something in the region of 180 proof, there would be more chance of something surviving on Mercury than a malevolent force upsetting the worshippers daily activities.

All the while loud explosions reverberate around the square outside as fireworks are let off by Chamulan Major Domos, a kind of indigenous bodyguard dressed in dirty white sheep’s wool tabards. Some were so loud they rattled your chest. An Israeli who had joined us on the bus to Chamula asked me in all innocence what the, “bombings were all about?” I replied: “Fun, I suppose”. The truth is stranger. The Mayans believe that the only way to put a smile on the face of the saints is to let off very loud explosive devices. The bigger the bang the bigger the smile.

What with the explosions and the fumes, the strange chanting and the Posh going everywhere, I couldn’t have felt more like an alien if I had just arrived from Alpha Centauri and asked who was in charge. To make myself feel a little less like I shouldn’t be there I walked over to the Virgin Mary and crossed myself. Just in case.

Eventually it was time to leave, and stepping out of the church I am met simultaneously by both a blinding light which naturally occurs when you step out of a medieval cave-like room into the open air and what appears to be yet another round of incoming mortar fire from the men in those furry white tabards. I am sure one of them laughs as I flinch horrendously like I’m suffering a touch of Tourettes today. Are they trying to tell me something? If they were I take the hint and we decide to get on a bus back to Christobal Las Casas and to a sense of normality. Surrealism has its limits even if it is sponsored by Coca Cola.

Which way North?

We are contemplating our next move from Peru. It would either be a flight to somewhere in Central America or a long bus ride through the badlands of Colombia and an indeterminate wait in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast and a subsequent hitch on a sailing yacht to Panama.

We ummed and ahhed over the choices for a number of days. Flights to Central from South America are extortionate. A three hour trip costs £600. On the other hand Colombia’s highlands are among the most beautiful in South America. Cartagena, where we would have to hang around for a few days (or weeks if we were unlucky) is described as jewel in the crown of Colonial cities. We are also aware of the Colombians reputation for friendliness and good humour

But it also has another more unwelcome reputation.

Colombia is officially the most murderous nation on earth. The official statistics are bald but illuminating. According to the UN, 0.63 per 1,000 people are killed every year. To put it in perspective if you were to fit 30,000 Colombians into Portman Road, and told them to stay there for a year, hopefully watching Magic Jim continue do his stuff, nineteen or twenty would leave feet first in a box. Multiply this by the number of stadia around the UK and you have a premier-sized Kill-Bill environment.

To put it another way every day 77 Colombians leave this earth in a violent fashion. It isn’t always crime on local people. A couple of years ago some travelers were kidnapped by Marxist Guerrillas and held for a few hours. Having said all that though, the likelihood of being kidnapped or killed in Colombia is as remote as ITFC selling a player for what he is worth. Overall though when a country sports such statistics you wonder whether your time in Colombia will likely be spent with one eye cast over a shoulder.

I thought that I should perhaps be fair and spend a few minutes looking at the kill statistics of the other countries I could fly to. El Salvador by comparison has only 9 murders a day within its borders- most of those are gang member related. But, due to its small population that still makes it the most dangerous country in Central America. Guatemala City, which is the most useful stopping point for us, is not much better. In 2004, 1,600 murders were committed in this city of 3 million. And, as I recall from my previous visit last year it has a decidedly menacing atmosphere about the place. So after a couple days scooting round the agencies looking for a cheap(ish) flight and coming up short, Colombia was looking like a favourite.

We finally made our decision. We fly to Mexico.

Last Tango in Peru

I spot him as he is ridding himself of his trousers. We are returning from dinner and crossing the main plaza of Ica, the town we are in for the night. People, lots of them, sit higgledy piggledy in a rough square. They laugh nervously as his pants hit the floor. And, then I notice he is wearing something else. A black dress with skinny shoulder straps falls obediently over the space left by his trousers.

He is astoundingly short, probably 4ft 10in in his heels. Which, I can now see, are a pair of court shoes, snow white in colour.

Another thing as well. He is the spitting image of Maradonna.

Surrounded by an increasingly voluble crowd he jabbers away excitedly as he continues his metamorphosis into a petite lady. I presume this is street art of sorts and, tugging Vera by the sleeve, suggest we loiter on the edge of the crowd and see what this diminutive man/woman decides to do next.

The next involves me. Peruvians are not a tall people as a rule, but I am. He spies me easily over the edge of the crowd and decides he has his fall guy. “Hey Gringo. Como esta? Habla Espanol?” he shouts, simultaneously shoving two football socks down the top of his dress. “Yes. A little”, I reply warily. Like a fox terrier he has darted through the crowd and hauled me back into the square before I know what is going on.

Juan is strong for a chick, muscular as well.

I quickly realize by his modus operandi that I am part of a begging routine which has been dressed up like a cabaret act. Peru, along with most of South America, is full of orations to begging. It usually combines a speech with the offering of a sweet or two from a large bag. Ostensibly you are paying for the sweet, but usually at quite a markup over a shop price.

It happens in public places and especially on buses. Someone gets on, stands in the aisle, clears their throat and launches into a loud speech on why they need the money. Sometimes it is saccharine-loadedwith a woe is me type sentiment. Sometimes it is incomprehensible due to the orator having had too many sherbets of his own. But occasionally the routine is humorous and entertaining. That person usually shifts his whole bag of sweets smartish and sprints off to the next audience. This was what Juan was doing right now. Distributing his two big bags of sweets while delivering cruel but very funny commentary - according to the snorts of laughter coming from the crowd - on the gringo standing in the middle of the square. In return for his promise to make me look stupid they pay a soles (5p) for a sweet. His task is not terribly difficult though. I stand there like a lone Pine Tree among a forest of Bonsai.

I understand less than a quarter of what he says, but his delivery is such that I laugh anyway. Some of it though I get perfectly well. At one point he looks at me and then at Vera towering above her neighbours. “Is there any Indian in her?” he asks with a quizzical eyebrow. “No,” I reply, confused by his line of questioning. “Well, would she like some,” he says winking and squeezing his imaginary bosom between his arms.

It gets weird now. I am dancing with Juan. Hooked up like a couple of Come Dancing freaks it feels outright odd. I am dancing with a man who looks like Maradonna but dressed as Marilyn Monroe and who is short enough to be able to lick my belly button without bending down.

He and the crowd, and Vera, are having great fun. I am not so sure.

The denouement is no less other-worldly. While he flies around the human square, directing jibes my way, he fingers a set of martial arts fighting sticks- the ones attached with a small chain. Bruce Lee would have flung them about his shoulders in a very menacing style.

I had the sudden premonition that we were about to reenact a scene from a Quentin Tarantino film. It all fitted together. Juan was decidedly spacy, a cross dresser to boot and was clomping around in high heels brandishing Kung Fu equipment. It was then that he explained what he wanted me to do. When the music started again I was to listen carefully for my cue and when that moment arrived I was to bring the two sticks, attached by a chain, up to my mouth and sing the words “Wee Wee Wah”.

“Nothing else,” I ask him, in a beseeching kind of way. “Nada mas”, he says and winks in a sinister fashion once more.

It is at times like this you can either cringe and fiddle with the bottom of your shirt and basically fail the test, or turn up the volume and give it everything you’ve got. Juan sidles up to me with his sticks and my opportunity has come. I don’t let him or his adoring audience down. For some reason my “Wee wee wah” comes out in a loud falsetto voice which I don’t recognize as my own.

That seems to do the trick. The crowd creates merry hell. They stamp the floor and laugh like a pack of hyenas. The good people of Ica have got what they hoped all along. An improbably lanky gringo making a right tit of himself. Thank goodness it´s too dark for them to see my blushes.

Suddenly and mercifully it is all over. I get a brutal hug from Juan. We wave goodbye to our hundred or so new friends and make our way back across the square towards our hostel and bed.

In Search of the Condor Moment Part 2

Paul told us that the Ancient Andeans believe that when they see a Condor, it flies to see Viracocha or God. Acclaimed as world’s largest flying bird it possibly gets its religious sobriquet because of an ability to soar for as much as 200km on one wing flap in search of prey. With a wingspan of anywhere up to 11 ft it can weigh as much as a decent-sized blood hound.

These mythical birds´ habits are almost unknown. The one thing that is known is that their numbers are dwindling, to such an extent that in Venezuela they were officially declared extinct in 1965. I hadn’t appreciated this fact before I revisited South America and presumed they were as common as an overflowing builder´s skip. My only previous knowledge of them came from an advertisement in the 1970s highlighting the meditative value of smoking pipe tobacco with the same name as the giant creature. Its catch phrase, adjoined to an image of the majestic bird in full flight, is one which most older readers would recognize. A sublime moment accompanied by an unctuous self satisfied smile of the pipe smoker, transformed itself into a "Condor moment¨.

The walking was arduous to say the least. Our 30km route to Choquequirao required us to descend a 1,000m into a sharply gouged canyon then up the same height to reach the ruins. The return was the same but in reverse (obviously). It was hot and very dusty in the valleys and scorching in places. Mosquitos attack us like miniature vampires. We itch and scratch continuously. Our only respite were the glorious views of the snow-capped mountains which separates the coastal lands from the jungles of Eastern Peru and Brazil beyond.

Bird life was making itelf known. Colibri Thalassinus (native Hummingbirds) buzzed and bobbed their way around us sticking their bendy beaks into the white trumpet flowers hanging from the trees. Paul´s shouts of “look!”, followed by the birds name echo around the valley. He continually scans the skies for a Condor. We join in and become more excited. Conversation was sparse. Walking, puffing and panting put a stop to anything remotely conversational. When we did get talking it was usually with a hiatus as Paul attempted- usually unsuccesfully- to grapple with the English language´s peculiar fondness for dipthongs and for a French speaker, the deadly silent consonant. One example: I; “Wow, what heat!” He; “What, frappe?” “No. Heat,” say I. “Oh, Mange?”, says he.

“ No, no, no. You know, oh hell what´s the Spanish? Calor”.

“ Oh! ´Eeet. Yes it is very ´ot!” It went on like this for the next four days.

Making it up the last lung busting hill on the second day we are assaulted with the most glorious of views. We feel like explorers circa 1910. Choquequirao. It looked raw and unsullied. No people, just a soundless wind whisking around the ancient piles of stones. Rows and rows of huge agricultural terraces, much bigger than those at Machu Pichhu, are the base of this site and they are more impressive than we can imagine. We stagger up the last incline, past large stone houses standing nude without their original thatched roofs, and make for a circular flat-topped hill. This was once a ceremonial site, and it feels like it as well. We sit down on one side of the hill overloking the vast expanse of space between us and the Apurimac River which thunders along a thousand metres below. We have almost forgotten the terrible itching. In between catching our breath over the views and drinking in the almost reverential atmosphere of this place we pick distractedly at our scabs. Our legs look like they had been machine gunned by a mosquito firing squad.

Then, suddenly mayhem ensues. It´s as if we had been transported to an Iron Maiden concert. Arms wave, people go mad and noise erupts. Vera sees it first. She screams and I see her dive into her bag for her camera. Paul is on his feet, yelling something and then runs full pelt along the ridge of the hill. A Condor. Its wings with long, black finger-like feathers twitch in the late afternoon sky as it makes its way around the ruins. It has come up from the valley below and flown right over our heads. It is no more than 5 metres above us. A russet red head cranes from side to side as it seeks its prey. Its white underbelly gleams as it turns towards the setting sun. It seems totally oblivious to the bedlam being played out below. Our close up audience with the creature is gone almost as quickly as it came. Within seconds it is the size of a pigeon and a minute later a black dot framed against the blanket green slopes of Choquequirao. That evening we bask in the afterglow of our sighting. We laugh at our crazed reaction and I tell them of the Condor advertisement. Paul thought on this for a while and finally said: “ Well, ´eet was the one of the best moments I have ever ´ad.”

In Search of the Condor Moment Part 1

Birds. The Andes is chock full of them. All shapes sizes and colours. With names as varied and weird as an episode of Lost, they defy imagination, and can only be an in-joke conjured up by a few birders clustered round their hides on a slow day at Minsmere. Take for example, the Andean Cock of the Rock or the Buff Throated Foliage Gleaner. Or what about the Horned Screamer and my personal favourite the Giant Cowbird- one skyward eye was kept on permanent alert for these things, can you imagine the damage they could do? There are over 1800 species in the country, which acording to my reliable birder book represents 18.5% of all species on the planet. But by the end my first full week in Peru there was only one bird on my mind. Vultur Gryphus-The Andean Condor.

It hadn’t started out like that though. Rocks, ancient ruins and ceremonial sacrifices were the focus of our tour of the stamping grounds of the Incas. Anyone who comes to Peru will end up in Cusco; the starting point for a trek into the surrounding Andean cordillera in search of fabled lost cities and golden cradles of Pre-Columbian civilizations.

Then we met Paul.

It was the first morning of the trip to Choquequirao. Half expecting our tour guide to forget us having already sucked the US$150 tour fee from us up front, we are overjoyed when he and his cook crank round the corner in a wheezy white taxi. Corruption and tourist scammery are unfortunately rife in Peru. Horror stories of drunken guides leaving the group high and dry abound. Vera´s view was if it is any better than a total disaster then let´s break out the bubbly.

We had studiously avoided the urge to walk the famous Inca trail to Macchu Pichu, taking the train instead. It has long since lost its reputation as a pathway to some sort of South American Shangri-la. It more resembles the daily struggle along Oxford Street on a busy Monday morning. Also, ruins are not my thing as a rule. In fact they leave me somewhat frigid. But, Macchu Pichhu is still a special place, though by the look of the place it might be mistaken for a Disneyland for rock tourists. For example, taking photos of the ruins is tricky. It is a relatively small place and with so many people looking to capture the “money shot” toes were likely to be trodden on. So a kind of photo etiquette is required if fist fights aren´t to break out. Which in effect means a dash into the shot a quick shout of “Can you just wait a moment please!”, click and run. Its not a particularly relaxing place.

Choquequirao on the other hand is unspoilt and relatively unvisited. Like the famous “Lost City of the Incas” Machu Picchu, Choquequirao is perched on a high ridge overlooking one of the two great rivers, that rush onward to the Amazon. First visited and described to the western world by a French explorer during the eighteenth century, its offical tourist board title is “Cradle of Gold” but prefering the Edgar Rice Burrows treatment all these sites seem to get I like the unofficial and more romantic “Last Refuge of the Incas”. It got this name because it was the last Incan city to fall to the marauding Spanish Conquerers in the mid 1530s. Remoteness and inaccessibility have discouraged visitors ever since. It was estimated that fewer than 150 outsiders had viewed the site before 1994 when a French archeological team took over the uncovering of the ruins. Wherever we were on the trail to this remarkable place we saw no more than four or five foreigners a day.

Paul was our only paying companion on the hike. A young Frenchman, endowed with impossibly gangly legs he winds himself into the car, tucks them under his chin at the same time shoving out a long-fingered hand, says “Hi. I´m Paul Turc pleased to meet you.” His infectious, almost naive good humour and obscure English pronunciations were to sustain us all over the next four days. But what drove him forwards on this particular journey was his deadly desire to get a glimpse of an Andean Condor. By the time we had reached Choquequirao it was our mission as well.

Divine Assistance Required

I am back in Latin America once again, a year in fact since I was last here. Having spent two months working on an aid project in Honduras and enjoying the best and most rewarding couple of months of my life, wild llamas couldn’t have stopped me heading back to see the results. However, I have decided that a some R&R either side of digging trenches and erecting standpipes won’t go amiss.

My plane lands in Lima, Peru. Waiting there for me is another reason for returning. Vera.

I first met her when we worked on a horse ranch in outback Western Australia. That was five months ago and notwithstanding a couple of side trips to Portman Road we had decided that meeting in Peru in May would be good for both of us. She wanted to see Macchu Pichhu and I wanted to introduce her to the aid projects in Honduras.

The language is one area which needs a little remedial work though. My agricultural Spanish (literally) was effectively put in a box while I was away. It’s amazing though how quickly the lingo returns once you start needing things. Words that would have stumped me in Suffolk, slide off the tongue now like honey off a spoon. In fact once I started talking to people in the shops, words that I thought were lost forever suddenly reappear in the middle of a sentence. Not always the right word or in the right part of the sentence I grant you, but the folks get my drift.

Also, the remorseless onslaught of English carries on unabated so it seems. As I walked down the street in a working quarter of Lima I am confronted by signs which display the wares of plumbers, still comfortingly displayed as Fontoneria. But I now see appended the new term Gasfitero. I half expect to see the words Corgi Registrando written in smaller type underneath.

I am quickly reminded this is a South American country. Having hiked my way through a dozen streets attempting to sell me hardware and plumbing supplies I am finally standing in the Plaza de Armas, the heartbeat of the capital. It is jam packed on all sides with colonial era public buildings with finicky balustrades and elegant arches. As I stand on the opposite side of the square from the imposing lemon coloured twin towers of the Cathedral, I watch the people scurry home from work. As they approach the big wooden doors of the church they cross themselves elaborately.

Tomorrow I head off for Cusco and Machhu Pichhu where I will join up with Vera. After that our real journey begins northwards up the coast and somehow we have to make it to Honduras. The ways of getting there are numerous, most of them involve a rip-off flight which will cost an arm and a leg. The alternative is a tricky and potentially dangerous sea crossing from Colombia to Panama. As I pack my bags for the flight to Cusco, I think about the thorny issue of how to get to Central America. It dawns on me that maybe I should have applied for some insurance at the Cathedral as well.