LIMA

I'm visiting Lima for one of its many theatre festivals. Although I don't officially belong to any group, I'm accepted as an honorary Uruguayan for the duration. I get the free lunches and get to stay in the Sheraton, which acts as a landmark in the city.

As soon as we arrive in Lima we walk straight into an earthquake rehearsal. The sirens go off and the airport is shut down. Everyone heads for the big yellow S which is painted in a ring on the ground in the carpark. The S stands for Seismic. The rehearsal lasts about five minutes. Everyone mills around happily. No-one falls through the floor.

These large S's are all over Lima and all over Peru. Bruno, the affable festival organiser, shows me the Earthquake app on his iphone. There was an earthquake of factor 5 point something last night, somewhere not so far away. The Limenos seem to embrace the spirit of the earthquake with a fatalistic pride. One day it will strike. It makes their city special. Later, when we go to stay in our friend Paul's house, I notice a handy instruction poster fixed above the lift. Always have a rucksack to hand, ready for the event. The rucksack should contain basic foodstuffs, drinking water and medication. When we head down to the seafront at Barranco, there's a clearly marked Tsunami evacuation route. The only trouble is that it starts at the bottom of a cliff. Which provides a slightly Darwinian edge. When the Tsunami arrives, the fittest might make it to the top and safety in time. The rest will perish.

Lima's City Museum is atypical. Rather than having presentations in showcases of pottery etc, it's a multi-media event, featuring holograms, projections and recreations of the inside of an ancient pyramid. The most striking moment comes when you're offered a comfy seat and invited to sit back and watch a day from 1746. You know what's going to happen, but it still comes as a shock when the lights start to flicker and the earth doesn't so much move as kick you in the backside. Repeatedly. C observed as we wobbled out: of course you're going to believe that nature has its gods lurking within it if you experience an earthquake. The earth is alive and it's not afraid to tell us who's boss.

Later, when we visit Macchu Pichu the guide tells us that there's something remarkable about the Inca architecture: it's anti-seismic. Designed to withstand earthquakes. Looking at the stones you can believe it. In Cuzco's Temple of the Sun, another guide shows us what happened after the 1950 terremoto. The Dominicans had built a church on top of the Inca ruins. The church collapsed. The ruins remained.

...