THE CRUZ del Sur bus frees itself at last from the dense early morning Lima traffic. We are on the great Pan-American highway that begins at Prudhoe, Alaska and ends in the remote city of Ushuaia on the southern tip of Argentina. It is described as "a system so vast, so incomplete it is not so much a road as an idea of Pan-Americanism itself".
Nevertheless, the rolling waves of the Pacific ocean on my right and hazy views of the distant Andes on the left gives the road an identity as well as a reality. Between these two vistas lies an arid desert that hugs the eastern region of this continent from northern Peru to the vineyards of Chile, north of Santiago.
Underground water from the melting snows of the Andes would occasionally give visual green relief to the barren landscape.
The destination of the bus was the white city of Arequipa on the Andean slopes of Southern Peru, but my destination was the historic city of Ayacucho high in the Peruvian Andes. Pisco, a town four hours south of Lima, was my proposed pit stop.
Pisco made the headlines last August when tremors from an earthquake hit the town on a quiet Wednesday afternoon. I was unprepared for the scale of the destruction that I saw. Streets without buildings, a town without hospitals, schools or churches. Families are living in tents on the sites of former homes. Two large white tents catering for the sick and a blue tent for the faithful are on a space where the San Clemente Cathedral had formerly dominated the main plaza. The premature ringing of the cathedral bells during a funeral service signalled the beginning of the end for the town that had given its name to the national drink.
Raymundo Flores Garcia, a tourist guide, described the two-and-a-half minutes that had changed so many lives. He had just joined his wife, Maria, for the evening meal in their small kitchen. Their daughter and granddaughter were in another room. It was 18.42 on a Wednesday evening when the first of two tremors shook the house. Tremors are a regular occurrence in Pisco, but this was different and the irregular ringing of the cathedral bells confirmed it.
Within minutes a dust cloud covered the town and the house that had taken 12 years to complete was irrevocably damaged. With the front door jammed and cracks in the walls large enough to admit the choking dust, the family waited in terror before being rescued. The Flores were luckier than most. Most of those attending Mass in the cathedral died or were seriously injured.
Eighty thousand inhabitants had lost their homes and almost 600 people in the immediate region died. An unknown number were injured, its main hospital reduced to rubble and serious damage to the Pan-American highway prevented help reaching the dead and injured.
In the late 1980s I took a train from Lima to the cold and bleak town of Huancayo in the Andes. Heavily armed police rode shotgun on a train that needed 69 switch- backs and would pass through the world's highest station at La Galerato (4,781 metres). White-coated officials supplied oxygen to those with breathing difficulties. The train ride was the bonus, but the historic town of Ayacucho was my goal. However, the presence of the guerrilla force, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), which was founded in Ayacucho, forced my return to Lima at that time. The movement's founder, Prof Abimael Guzman, is now incarcerated in a high-security prison in Lima. Across the city in another prison, the former president, Alberto Fujimori, who had waged all-out war against Shining Path, awaits trial on charges of kidnapping, murder and corruption. But such is the way of South America's politics.
Human Rights Watch estimates that 69,280 people died in the killing fields of Peru, with Shining Path responsible for the deaths of more than half.
My bus journey to Ayacucho was a spectacular climb to a dizzying 3,000 metres. The bottle of pisco I had brought to ease the discomfort of a long journey was largely forgotten. Known as the city of the churches, it seemed an unlikely place to spawn a terrorist organisation like Shining Path.
The oldest known evidence of human habitation, which corresponds to the paleolithic period (15,000 BC) has been found in Ayacucho. Here also great civilisations were formed, from the Huarpas to the Incas. In 1539, following the defeat of the Incas, the conquistador Francisco Pizzaro named the town San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga. In 1824, Huamanga played a crucial role in Peruvian and South America independence, sealing it with the Battle of Ayacucho.
To commemorate the victory Simon Bolivar changed the name of Huamanga to Ayacucho. Perhaps Shining Path should have paid more attention to history and allowed me enjoy this extraordinary and wonderful region 20 years earlier.