| The Publishers fail to buy the idea, but you have already sold it to yourself. A
continent is in the headlines, yet somehow the full story seems missing. You feel an urge
to get behind those headlines as an eyewitness to the process of democratic shake-up. Television, or the Internet, can not satisfy the compulsive traveller, and to cure your constant craving for culture, you can also trace the course the conquistadors made on the continent five hundred years before. Columbus might have beaten you to the Americas, but there is still scope to be adventurous, and to feel afloat in the sea of chance; with luck the compass and faith the sextant. South America is so far removed from England, and as the publishers say: Our interest in Latin America is slight. Besides, the Brits and other Europeans continue to head for Oz, and the Asia stopover: to the hill tribes in Chiang Mai, and their daughters in Patpong, to the moon parties on the glorious beaches at Goa and the relative cheapness of India, and to the tempting fake brand shopping in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Columbus might have beaten you to the Americas, but there is still scope to be adventurous, and to feel afloat in the sea of chance; with luck the compass and faith the sextant.
There is so much more to come from this continent of contrasts, but for the moment I will have to leave you with a view of Peru, and of course the obligatory word of caution!
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