Round The World With A Purple Pillow

Busted is playing a little loudly, but there is still thought space for philosophy: pigeons are latino sexual politics in a plaza. Male pigeons are Jimmy in bird clothing as they waddle round fountains warbling vainly at disinterested females. Puffed out necks and perseverance are nothing beside the cutting turns of the ladies, as they act out the more effective version of a human Í'm Norwegian and married and don't understand.' Definitely learnt many secret arts this morning as I sat on a bench and watched the Peruvian version of Trafalglar Square, with yellow ice cream vendors and moss men as lion substitutes.

The second piece of enlightenment this week has been blinding: sometimes, the Lonely Planet lies. That smiling blonde Cambridge archaeologist with a profile on page two seems to have sacrificed reality for the sake of fitting her special feature into the right sized box. It is true that the page looked neat but I'm not sure text boxes should come before travel advice. Pachacamac was an unintentional adventure. The colectivo that was supposed to take me 45 minutes, 20p and to the entrance of majestic temples ambled through shanty towns sprawling up the mountains round Lima for several hours. I was confident that the 'conductor´hanging out the window had understood I needed to be told when we approached las ruinas, so stayed transfixed to the sweaty window whilst ignoring the attempts of the person behind to sell me an individual strawberry scented sweet for 50p. The view was a geography text book. People really live inside cardboard and have their babies in storage crates labelled ´Hospital of the baby Jesus´ and put signs outside their shacks advertising haircuts, dentistry, cheap batteries.

Finally the bus emptied and the driver pointed through the dust to a mountain, telling me the ruins were aca. I could sort of see them, but what was clearer was the suburb of the shanty town, where cardboard had deteriorated to broken windbreakers and people half heartedly sorting through rubbish. Excellent place to be sola, with white skin and a day bag. Opting for the fastest route out, an overpriced motorised rickshaw ride seemed the answer. It was definitely an answer. Three soles, a sandy fake tigerskin seat and a view through to the road. Like a playstation game we avoided lethal potholes and skidded onto the desert to avoid the wheels of trucks.

Pachacamac appeared and so did the naked prairie dogs. I'm restraining myslf from calling them hyenas because I really don't think they were, but if I had to describe a hyena I'd describe them. Pink, scabbed, vicious and grinning through their snarls. My rabies injections flashed through my mind. A pound later they calmed down and I waited for the Inca majesty to filter through the heat haze (I was wearing suncream this time). It did and it was incredible; the South American version of Babylon with its worn steps and arches and fewer bats.

The trek back to the entrance was fraught with the fear of a hyena substitute appearing, but in fact was blessed. A bottle of Inca Kola down - what else could you drink in those surroundings? The medicinal taste is irrelevant - and I met an ex-Wimbledon tennis player and his wife. And their tourist friend from Hawaii. The result was a lift home, practically to my door. So that was it: a sticky plastic bus ride along the edge of the third world through to an air conditioned jeep with complimentary chewing gum.

Buttered donkey or no buttered donkey, life in Lima carries on. Reunited with my luggage, my teeth are clean and my Spanish is a little less jet-lagged but none of my friends are awake. Yesterday I was a stupid gringa and was sunburnt. I now have the shape of my tiki emblazoned in white across my collarbones; I should have listened harder to that Baz Luhrmann song. Today I feel like a properish backpacker because despite the fact I can´t match the cerveza downing skills of these people I have had my first stone cold shower without water pressure in a bright orange room. Refreshing is the conclusion I´ve had to come to, now the ice-cream headache has died down.

Llamas are still eluding me, other than on the overpriced keyrings owl-nosed men keep trying to sell me, which is sad, but central Miraflores was very nice yesterday. Despite the fact it is distinctly uncultured and globalised of me to admit it, Peruvian supermarkets are amazing. You can pretty much eat an entire meal for free as every aisle has a different lady with a different hat on desperate for you to try their product. Purple sandwiches and coconut drinking yoghurt saved me some soles although I did narrowly avoid the salmon-scented crackers. There were jugglers, too, which is quite a lot of effort to go to to convince people to invest in sausages.

The nuns were praying in a box outside an orange church, which means I've now officially obeyd one piece of advice: find the nuns. I'll know where to go to claim sanctuary. Jimmy appeared in a green t-shirt at a zebra crossing and refused to accept that I don't speak Spanish or English or that I have a boyfriend or that I don't have an msn. The nuns looked tempting as he carried on talking and walking and no-one from the hostel magically appeared to rescue me. It seems that in some situations outright deafness is the way to go. What a stupid name.

Papaya juice is very nice, by the way. It's cheap and tastes tropical and is definitely a step up from Inca Kola - which I wish I liked because it is such a great idea, but yellow food colouring and 500ml of sugar go somewhere in the deterent stakes. I should move on from here today. I think I'll do something archaeological and with another brilliant name - Pachacamac, if spelling serves - and maybe then brave my first ever 22 hour bus journey. Hmm.

Last night I thought Lima smelt like Barbados but right now I'm inhaling disinfectant. I'm checked out but still here and a man is cleaning the dining room. How much of a sad tourist does this make me? It's twelve o'clock and I'm in Peru but I'm trying to work out the right keys to give me an apostrophe rather than on the hunt for Paddington. Or culture. Although this room is quite nice: full of Aztec designed table clothes, lined with windows which are actually mirrors and ending in a walled patio full of ridiculously green leaves. I can't work out if they're fake, but I think the point of them is to give shade to the fading Virgin Mary so it probably wouldn't be very tactful to try and work it out.

I'm exercising positive thought right now, as I'm relying on Jorge Chavez Internacional to live up to its renovated standard and give me back my luggage. It was one of those evenings I knew was going to happen as I sprinted through Miami and tried to ask sweating and suspicious Floridian customs officials for useful advice. The flight was late, the BA guide to filling in immigration forms didn't mention that they could only be in blue biro, and D51 is a long way from anywhere. All the time the little huddle of people clutching squares of white visa waivers negotiated stairways and escalators and elevators looking for the elusive gate (I guess we can thank Miami airport for the continuing freedom from DVT), there seemed something improbable about the idea our luggage could be transferred fast enough to catch the flight. But you try to trust you're worng about that kind of thing when you have ten minutes left and a row of Subways, Bagel Shops and Southern Fried Chicken shacks rather than D51 and a gangway to your seat.

D51 did appear, behind an advert for the upcoming Section D of Miami Intetnational and the flight did happen, happily. It was really quite fun. I sat next to a guy about to be assisting at a publicity shoot for Pisco, this special brandy, who didn't like chocolate cake or George Bush and who managed to accidentally attract the very special attention of Franco, our steward. Franco seemed to appear roughly every ten minutes (and that's quite a lot on a five hour flight) with another napkin biro-ed over with a map of his town or his number...or his website, or, indeed, a free mini bottle of gin (but that wasn't biro-ed onto a napkin). I thought it sounded a bit like an ice-cream -'Franco&Brian's'- but probably Brian didn't see it quite like that.

The improbability of Miami was confirmed once I had watched the same cling-wrapped red suitcase parade around the carousel at least eight times and all the other baggage had gone. And also once it was half past midnight. Luckily the way people have a tendency to leave airports once they have their bags meant that a little crowd of Londoners was left staring forlornly at the carousel entrance flap and wondering what to do. There is something very comforting about the way English people pronounce London - possibly the way the 'o's go flat - so we grouped together to talk about the difficulties of packing lightly when you couldn't rely on the weather and to maintain our upper lips. Hmm. Then we queued up to be given forms and then queued up to give them in and then queued up to fill in a new form and then queued up to give them back and then queued up to talk to a person in midnight-quality Spanish. The forms were mostly neon blue, like the bathroom I had last night. The outcome was a group taxi ride and a phone call during breakfast this morning, where I managed to gather my maleta would be delivered at dos de la tarde so I hope my ears weren't hallucinating. If that's possible.

Must go and wait properly. The queue for the free internet mounts.