High on the Andean Altiplano, Juliet Clough has her breath taken away by the track event of a lifetime

by Juliet Clough. The Daily Telegraph, London, 20 March 1999

I had woken that morning on the tiny island of Suasi near the north shore of Lake Titicaca. Martha Giraldo inherited the island from her grandmother; and the little nature reserve she was building - its stone lodge grass-thatched and entirely solar-powered - reflected a new trend in Peruvian tourism. Backpackers are all very well, but Peru is increasingly baiting its hooks with gorgeous lures for the better-heeled. Suasi, where we ate lake fish and drank good Chilean wine and sat about admiring Martha's rose garden, represented quality escapism, a place where the environmentally conscious could veg out in comfort.

Wrested from this idyll at 4.30am by the need to catch the Puno-Cuzco train, my Peruvian friend Marisol and I crossed the northern tip of Lake Titicaca, westwards, in one of the new motor launches available for hire. The surface of the lake, a bronze mirror held up to seemingly endless sky, reflected drifts of black ibis, the points of white fishing sails, and a fringing of pink flamingos standing among the reeds.

Three hours later, as tassels of waterweed began to reach up through the clear depths to touch our own reflection, it became evident that we would run aground and out of time long before reaching harbour. Locked into a trance-like state by lack of sleep, the pressures of altitude and the heady beauty of morning on the highest navigable lake in the world, I could not have cared less.

My companions, however - Marisol, Martha, driver, guide and boat owner alike - were made of sterner stuff. On being told in Juliaca, 25 miles down the line from Puno, that our train had left an hour ago, they announced that we would catch up with it at the next station, Pucara.

And so began the Great Train Journey that almost never was. We hurtled along beside the railway tracks through potholes big enough to shelter whole families of piglets. We hung, Keystone Copwise, out of the minibus's windows for a first glimpse of the fugitive train. Outside, stills from a documentary of rural life flashed by: a shepherdess under a tree, more flamingos, a woman weaving in a farm courtyard. Even the political party symbols, chalked on bare rock faces, seemed Arcadian: pan pipes, a woolly hat with earflaps, a crossed-out spade.

As Pucara hove in sight, so at last did our quarry, apparently putting on an unsporting burst of speed. Would we converge? We overtook a lorry on the near side to hurl ourselves and luggage, seconds too late, out of the minibus and on to the platform. If ever a train had a smug note to its whistle, drowning our imploring shrieks as it pulled out, that one did.

But suddenly a carriage door flew open, causing shouts from the guard, a clatter of police boots and a shuddering halt. "These are latecomers of my party," announced a Swedish tour guide from the footplate, with Olympian disregard for truth. We fell in, gratefully, at his feet.

In the world catalogue of great train journeys, the Puno-Cuzco railway comes pretty near the top. Literally. If the scenery does not take your breath away, the altitude will. The railway, built by the British in 1907 as part of a network designed partly with the alpaca wool trade in mind, is a key part of the Arequipa-Colca, Titicaca, Cuzco triangle - the beat for almost every first-time traveller in southern Peru. The railway crosses the Andes, leaving the sparse grasslands around Lake Titicaca, and heaves itself over the 14,000ft La Raya pass before dropping to the lush greenery of the Vilcanota valley. At an average altitude of 11,500ft, this is one of the world's highest as well as most spectacular train rides.

When I got my breath back, it was to find a vision swaying daintily by my elbow. Standard-class travel means the company of roving chickens and Quechua-speaking card players; middle-class means wall-to-wall rucksacks. Travel Inka class and you get reclining plush seats, grubby red tablecloths and wannabe air hostesses.

The vision and her colleagues wore scarlet, brass-buttoned, micro-mini dresses with plastic gauntlets to protect snowy cuffs. They tottered along the Pullman coaches, genteelly balancing trays of coca tea or brandy-based pisco sours, both trusted panaceas for most of the problems of travel in Peru. On 4in heels, this appeared no mean feat. Despite the pancake flatness of the passing Andean plateau, the bumpiness of the track sent peaches and pisco sours flying heavenwards. By journey's end, we and the elderly Swedes had all become adept fielders.

The Altiplano stretched towards dun-coloured hills, clad in the odd patch of polylepis, said to be the highest-growing tree in the world. Most of the forest vanished long ago, felled as fuel by the conquering Spanish. Mixed herds of cows, sheep and llamas grazed the sparse ichu grass, their bowler-hatted minders spinning as they watched. From far across the horizon, a black dog streaked towards the train, trying to round us all up before falling back exhausted.

At the next station, Ayavari, the first group of the day's many vendors held alpaca gloves, bananas and statuettes of Santa Rosa up to our windows, to catch the only passing trade of the day. A little band played hopefully from the platform, the sounds of pan pipes, hand drums and a tin guitar fading as we forged on.

Arrival time in Cuzco would depend entirely on who was driving and what kind of engine we had, said our Swedish saviour, Per Gunnar. "Best bet is the driver known as La Flecha Verde, the Green Arrow. Worst bet is El Sapo, the Toad. Today, it's Vel- asquez, who is somewhere in between."

Before last year, Gunnar went on, the timetable used to be even more haphazard, with 10pm arrivals and long waits in freezing, unlit carriages par for the course. "Once, we waited for 75 minutes in Juliaca while the driver looked for oil at the right price," he said.

The engines, like the drivers, also came in various sizes. "They put the smaller ones on from Puno to Juliaca. Quite often they swap when they meet halfway." Gunnar disappeared to consult Velasquez, returning with reassuring news. "Today, ours is the 352, which is OK."

And OK it was. At the watershed, La Raya, we stopped in a fork of snowcapped mountains for photographs of the sign announcing a summit altitude of 14,166ft. Here, a drop of water, spilled to the left of the train, would eventually find its way through Lake Titicaca to the Pacific. Splashed on the right side of the tracks, it would head for the Amazon and the Atlantic.

Soon we were working our way downhill into the green embrace of the Vilcanota valley. The countryside began to look positively French, its tile-roofed villages tucked into the loops of the poplar-fringed river. We had reached Sicuani, well over halfway, before we met the oncoming Cuzco-Puno train. Gunnar had clearly posed a challenge to Velasquez's manhood.

Seven hours spent making caterpillar tracks across the high Andes had provided valuable chill-out time; space in a packed week of travel infinitely more varied, rich and stylish than anything I had ever envisaged. The orange thread of the train had linked two very different aspects of southern Peru: the serenity and solitude of Lake Titicaca with the Inca splendours, Spanish glitter and Kathmandu-style tourism of Cuzco.

Ahead of us lay the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and the jungle - a whole set of other hills to climb.

Factfile

Juliet Clough travelled as the guest of Aracari Travel (00511 2426673). A tailor-made, 15-day tour including the train journey, all flights, transfers, accommodation, most meals and experienced English-speaking guides, costs from £2,950 per person. Iberia Airlines (0171 830 0011) operates four flights a week from London Heathrow to Lima via Madrid.

Guidebook choice: 'Peru Handbook' (Footprint, £11.99), 'Peru: The Rough Guide' (£10.99), 'Insight Guide: Peru' (£16.99).