“So, let’s get this straight. Lima has tanks on the streets?” It was late, the last bus had long since departed and this, I suspected, was a ruse designed to get a few extra dollars the sleepy tourists coming straight out of Jorge Chavez International by scaring them with false tales. “Sod it, I’m not going to your mate’s hostel, let’s go anyway,” I gestured, with a little help from my guide-book glossary.

And so we went on to the streets, and so my scepticism was proved unfounded. Peruvians don’t joke about their civil unrest, it turned out, and the country had just plunged into a particularly feisty phase of it. The Plaza de Armas (each town has one) sat resplendent in nocturnal illumination; spoiled only by the several hundred tonnes of military hardware sprawled about, cluttering it all up. Happy smiling people were most notable by their absence, and steely-eyed tank commanders had taken their place. I slunk into the nearest hostel, feeling abashed.

Reality was brought into sharper focus by an equally dishevelled gringo, shaken from the journey he had just endured. As he leant over the hostel’s balcony, inhaling a cigarette with all the joy of a deep sea diver sucking back sweet air after a spell in the inky depths, I sidled up. “So, what’s going on?” Apparently farmers, teachers and civil servants had barricaded the roads out of mountainous eastern Peru, making travelling in the area into an exercise in dodging rocks. His bus had not managed to miss them all.

Throughout the eighties the country had, like many of its South American neighbours, something of a problem with a left-wing rebel movement. The Peruvian variety is the so-called Shining Path, but after a devastating campaign of violence they were dealt a supposedly lethal blow when their leader Abimael Guzmán was imprisoned in 1992. The group’s activities ceased, but the government is still quick to point to such organisations at the first signs of rural unrest. And as disquiet spread to the cities, the tanks were brought out.

Huaraz, by contrast, was carefree and quiet. A small town high in the Andean Cordillera, people come here to climb. By day, the skies are the deepest blue and at night you can see every star in the galaxy, unimpeded by lowland smog. The locals are too busy coping with the thin air to bother rioting and although man cannot survive on (thin) air alone, when the views are as good as they are here, who cares about a few more Nuevo Soles in the pension pot?

Being young and fit (and slightly smug) we thought it would be great to do a bit of ice climbing. Without at least a week of altitude acclimatisation, this was a big mistake. Ideally, I'd rather not have spent my 19th birthday vomiting mashed avocado sandwiches over a glacier at well over five-thousand metres. Upon returning to our hostel, I decided that it was time for some ground-level based adventures. The hostel was delightful, seemingly more like an overcrowded gathering at your grandma’s house than a backpackers. The owners even spontaneously concocted a birthday cake for me – a towering, cream-covered thing – on hearing of the week’s traumas.

Unfortunately, physical problems of the intestinal variety were to become a feature our travels. Now, it is neither big nor clever to discuss such issues at length, but sufficed to say that this explained the whistlestop nature of our jaunt around the south of the country, and our eventual retreat back to the altitude that I had come to fear. Following the call of gap year nihilism, we headed to Mecca, or Cuzco, as it is more properly known. From this entertaining town, a destination in its own right, the point of most visits is to head to the Incan “lost city” of Machu Picchu.

We decided to trek it, and awaking on the fourth day there was only the final race to the “Sun Gate” left. The pain of the aptly named Dead Woman’s Pass and endless days spent battling the clouds and the cobbles for glimpses of outposts of the Incan empire all faded as were impelled towards this mystical panorama. The idea is that you get there before the new day’s first shafts of sunlight strike the city’s stone, revealing it in a glorious technicolour that late risers will never see. And although the effort nearly kills you, it’s worth it as you gaze over the majestic mountainside, slightly delirious in anticipation and surrounded by your new found trek-buddies.

It’s still a fair few miles until you stroll through the city walls, so you get there just as the first batches of bus-tourers arrive. The key at this point is to you gesture meaningfully at the week’s provisions strapped to your back, emphasising the size of your burden in contrast to the day tripper’s inadequate fanny pack.

And as you descend the long road to the town of Aguas Calientes happy in the knowledge that you did it the “proper way”, all that awaits is the air-conditioned comfort of the tourist train to lull you to sleep on your way back to civilisation.

Going there:

Give back on your gap year by working in the village of Cusco on village development in partnership with NGOs, local craftsmen and teachers in local schools. Programs vary in focus, but three weeks will run you around £750, where you stay in housing provided by Madventure, the gap year company specialising in Peruvian service projects.

Conserve the Amazon, specifically its coastal turtle populations while seeing exotic wildlife such as elusive pink dolphins. You'll spenmd fpir weeks volunteering and £1299. The price includes accommodation, internal flights and meals prepared tent-side in the field.

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