Imagining Machu Picchu.(identity)

HERE, IN LIMA, seated in the back seat of a mini-bus, we are listening to Maria: a plump, outspoken Peruvian, who is spruiking to us over her shoulder. They are mostly criminals," she says, flapping her script at the traffic surrounding us. "Criminals with driving licences."

Our guide points to a bird-spattered statue and brings the mike up close to her lips again. "We love heroes in this country," she says. "If you die in some weird way or get beaten in battle you become a hero." When the bus pulls up opposite a majestic building, she laughs. "That is the Palacio de Justice. But there is no justice in there. It is only a name. Forget you saw it."

It strikes me, as Maria's monologue runs onwards, that the genre known as magic realism, made famous by South American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, may in fact have originated in the cryptic outpourings of Mafia and her fellow guides. She glances at her script occasionally, but what she says seems to consist largely of footnotes to the text and her own unscripted asides. Perhaps there is something in the air in this part of the world that excites the imagination and nourishes the storyteller's art.

But now the bus has moved on and, for a moment, the script takes over. "Lima was founded in 1535 by Francisco Pizarro," she intones. "For many years it was the principal stronghold of the Spanish in South America and is now the largest city in the Central Andes. We will stop here. There is some kind of demonstration going on over there. Don't ask me what it's about."

We park in the main square, well away from the placards and police dogs. Maria leads us through the Centro Historico. We admire the magnificent old post office and assemble outside the imposing Presidential palace. Maria points out the Peruvian flag and the multi-coloured flag fluttering behind it. "Some recent creation by the people of Cuzco who are claiming a special identity," she informs us. "No one knows what they'll think up next."

We move on to the old railway station bearing the prominently displayed name "Ferrocarril Central". Mafia explains that the word beneath the central sign, "Desamparados", means "The helpless". She shrugs and holds her hands apart. She has no idea what the word is doing there. It is simply one of many unfathomable Peruvian mysteries. "Watch out for that ramp," she warns. "It is for use by the disabled and by those who will be disabled if they use it."

Maria presses on to the Convento de San Francisco. There, in the dim interior, she stops, in front of a headless torso; a saintly figure carrying its head in the crook of its arm. "Saint Leon," Mafia declares. "He was beheaded."