LIMA

We go for Pisco Sours with Bruno, at el Catedral del Pisco. Where the pisco sours cost three times the standard price and you're paying for tradition. Bruno tells us, in his laid-back fashion, that there are three countries in Peru. The Altiplano, the Coast and the Jungle. And the three don't really mix.

This is before we went travelling. On our travels we saw something of the Altiplano and something of the Coast. Perhaps we touched on the jungle, as Machu Picchu is located between the mountains and the jungle. The differences between the zones were remarkable. Geography shapes your disposition. The hardships of the mountains feel a long way away down on the coastal plain, where distances are easier to cover and the air is easier to breathe.

Garcilaso's history of the Incas documents the warlike tendencies which underpinned their dominance. Every couple of years the resident Inca is off on a new campaign. Indeed, from his account, it seems as though one of the reasons for the empire's demise was that it had conquered about as much as it could, its lands extending from Southern Colombia down to Argentina and Chile. As a result the conflict became internal, with Atahualpa, the bastard upstart, revolting against his brother. The Incas had so many enemies within the empire that the seeds for its collapse were already sown. All the Spanish had to do was take advantage. Today the "Inca" profile is the one that is used to sum up pre-Colombian history, but the truth is that their empire was short-lived and there were a host of other populous tribes and civilisations within their territories.

In addition to the three zones of Peru which Bruno named, there's a fourth which is Lima itself, which existed in something of a bubble through the guerrilla wars of the late C20th. In addition to this there's the eternal division, reflected in the actors' opinion that this is a racist country, between the indigenous population and that of Spanish descent.

The solution to these divisions appears to have been a conscious decision to embrace diversity. The City museum celebrates Lima's African, Japanese, Chinese and European roots. In a land which has always thrown disparate peoples up against one another, for reasons of geography, class or history, the early C21st, post-modern narrative promoting society's differences functions perfectly as a strategy for the development of a national identity.

Peru's current pragmatism with regard to its history and its diversity is perhaps best summed up by the fate of the statue of Pizarro, now to be found tucked away by the banks of the Rio Rimac. Paul explained that it used to be in a major square. A prominent reminder of all that has come to pass. When it was there, vendors used to sell eggs for people to throw at it. Rotten eggs cost more. Pizarro was a target for an anger which had not subsided in over 500 years. Now, they've moved him out of the limelight. He is easy to miss, hidden away next to a footbridge. There was no sign of any egg throwing on either him or his fearsome steed.

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