The 2001 Country Life Travel Guide (Published December 20, 2000)

Had we not that morning witnessed Lima’s central square filling angry crowds as news of rigged polls whipped up the fervour of Peru’s general election, we might hardly have noticed the sound like gunfire that reverberated through San Francisco’s Baroque cloisters. A sit was we froze, wondering how we would ever make it to the airport though the armed conflict that by now doubtless raged outside.

It was only as we continued our tour of the Convent that the source of the noise revealed itself in a mound of splintered shards. A great coffer of painted ceiling had succumbed to exhaustion after four centuries and lay across the tiled floor where we had been standing shortly before. There was no gunfire. Outside, the crows swelled peacefully.

The episode served to remind us that part of the thrill of travelling in a country like Peru is the drama of the unexpected. It reassured us that, despite certain political instabilities, the sort of dangers anticipated by the nervous visitor today are generally unfounded. For all his controversial methods, President Fujimori crushed the Shining Path and revitalised Peru's economy. Now the infraestructure is developing for a new, discerning breed of traveler to discover what is, for the most part, an unexplored country.

Our first glimpse of the Andes came soon after we had climbed off the sultry coast of Lima and were heading out over a corrugated sierra of lake-strewn mountains. After an exhilarating hour or so, we descended to a seemingly impenetrable bowl of civilisation, 11,000ft above sea level. The city of Cuzco spills out over the contours of its plateau in the shape of a puma, so we are told, although the form of this sacred mountain lion of the Incas is difficult to discern today. At its jaws, the temple fortress of Sacsayhuaman rears its megalithic walls, two rivers converge at its tail. A Spanish conquistador described this city as "the greatest and finest ever seen in the country or anywhere in the Indies….it ids so beautiful and has such fine buildings that it would be remarkable even in Spain ", and surely, despite repeated earthquakes, it remains the flower of the Spanish colonial Renaissance in the Americas. But Cusco derives its particular character from its origins as the great capital of the Inca heartland. Beneath its undulating sea of clay tiles, peppered with shapely pediments, baroque domes and belfries, low, whitewashed buildings with elaborately carved porticoes rest, quite literally, upon walls of Cyclopean scale.

Nowhere is there a finer example of this Inca masonry than at the fabled Qoricancha Temple of the Sun which, stripped of its sheets of solid gold, was incorporated by the conquistadors into he walls and cloisters of Santo Domingo. Like many, I was obligued to retire to bed immediately upon arrival in Cuzco, owing to a ferocious, altitude-included headache. But soon, soothed by cups of coca tea, I ventured out into the thin air to explore the cobbled streets.

These descend in steep, straight lines to the arcaded cathedral square and throng with stocky, felt-hatted Indians, the raven –haired descendants of Incas. At every turn, the mestizo culture of the Andes is vivid and alive, making our own, ancient blends of Roman and Saxon, or Norse an Celtic blood seem weak and long- forgotten. Plaited women in multicolored skirt send small groups of llamas scurrying down the alleys, or squat at makeshift stalls selling textiles and knitwear, their babies hitched into blanket papooses on their backs.

Venture into the cathedral of 1559, or its magnificent Jesuit rival of some 12 years later, or into the flanking churches of El Triunfo- Cusco´s oldest, of 1536 and the 18th- century Jesus Maria, and the intoxicating mix of cultures is intensified. Behind enormous studded doors, vast gift and mirrored altapieces line the walls, tier upon tier barley-sugar columns adorned with life-size saints in real clothes. These glittering, if somewhat indigestible, temples of colonial Baroque are the repository of a distinctive local school of painters and craftsmen, their indigenous style mixed with Flemish and Italian. Christs and saints resemble Quechua Indians, St Ignatius Loyola marries an Inca princess, a plate of guinea pig—delicacy of Inca feasts and still eaten today—is served at the Last Supper. The Curious blend of cultures emerges, too, in the costumes and pagan/catholic rituals of religious ceremonies and processions, and in the wild Dance of the Geese. This was performed for us one evening during a Peruavian dinner of alpaca steak, washed down by the popular local cocktail, Pisco Sour.

The late 16th century seminary of San Antonio Abad provides an enviable base for a visit to Cuzco. Converted into the Hotel Monasterio, it is a place where modern comforts have been integrated without destroying the quiet, contemplative atmosphere or the beautiful austerity of the architecture. Rooms open off a series of interlocking cloisters on different levels, connected by grand stairways and floor of polished stone. The lofty drawing room and richly decorated 17th century chapel are hung with huge oil paintings in ornate frames, property of the archbishop who owns the building and still uses the chapel. Rise early enough, and you will hear Gregorian chant floating through the cloisters, luring you towards the rectory, where only the remarkable range of breakfast fare spread out on vast tables breaks the monastic spell.

Many happy days could be spent exploring the pastoral arcadia of the Sacred Valley, legendary grain bowl of the Incas. This network of lush valleys beyond the eucalyptus groves of Cuzco is still intensively farmed, stepped and seamed almost to the hilltops with lush emerald patches of corn and quinoa.

Adobe villages spill down slopes, their tiled roofs resembling ploughed furrows, timber doors coffered or panelled in the Spanish style. And though the main valley in a grey-green sweep, the sacred Urubamba flows towards the Amazon.

The small town of Pisac has a Sunday market which transforms central square into a riot of colour, while on the on the hillside above you can observe the sober power and engineering skills of the Incas at one of the most impressive if the region’s many archaeological sites, few of which are frequented by tourists.

But the ultimate attainment for most travellers to Peru is, of course, Machu Picchu. This abandoned Inca outpost, hemmed in by a mountain fastness of rugged peaks, was discovered hidden in the jungle only in 1911, and although it has become Peru’s most famous site, it remains virtually inaccessible except by train or foot. Our journey, which began at dawn, was itself and adventure. The train left Cuzco in a series of switchback ascents, shunting up through a sleeping shanty town to still greater heights. Soon, however, we began to descend, swinging through a fertile plain, and then nosing our way along a tree-clouded ravine carved by the raging Urubamba.

Here, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, the train derailed. This, in the event, was a minor incident which we witnessed from the hill above, having shortly before disembarked to complete the last section of the journey on foot, following the Inca Trail. Soon we plunged into a dripping cloud forest, fern-laden and shimmering with butterflies, hummingbirds, and myriad chrome-blu. Andean finches. Avoiding the tourist trap of Aguas Calientes, we first glimpsed Machu Picchu from its Intipunku, or sun gate, high on the crest above. Next morning, we stole out at dawn to watch light flood over the stepped bulwarks of this roofless city, which seemed to float like an ark above its mist-filled canyon. Searching the forbidding skyline in vain for the "soaring, chasm-drinking condor of the Andes", we could hear only the distant roar of the Urubamba, hooking its way round the sgurr of Wayna Picchu in the gorge far below.

We wondered at the secret of these Titan terraces and temples. To what end did the Incas build and then abandon this granite outpost, reached only by precipitous, mountain tracks?

How did they engineer their stepped and ordered geometry of precisely keyed polygonal blocks and trapezoidal openings? It would be difficult to find a starker contrast to the perpendicular gothic that was flourishing in England as Machu Picchu was being built, in the 15th century. It is an unforgettable place that leaves one caught in the spell of this little –known civilisation of astrologers and sun-worshipers, teased by so many unanswered questions and perpetuating myths.