Shortly after crossing the border into Peru on Saturday 23 June our Mitsubishi L-200 4x4 was stopped at a Customs post and we were inside attending to the paperwork when suddenly the ground started shaking violently. Tall lamp posts were snapping off at the top and pavements were cracking.

Everyone rushed out of the buildings and every possible burglar alarm, car alarm etc was going off, adding to the air of general panic.

The movement was very violent and lasted for, in my estimation, at least a minute. (Pat, rather unkindly, said afterwards that it was the only time I had actually made the earth move for her!) The quake, we learned later, was 7.6 on the Richter scale. We were 150 to 200 km from the epicentre, and had just left Tacna, where much damage occurred.

We completed our paperwork - all the books and papers in the office were strewn all over the floor - and moved off. In a few minutes we came to a stretch of road which had literally split, spilling the Armco at one side into the valley and leaving the other side of the road a foot lower with a six inch gap.

Each time we came to a ravine in the road we had to pick our way carefully, though, as the road was covered in large rocks - some of them must have weighed several tons.

On the outskirts of a village we came down an incline to a bridge to find the way impassable. The bridge was split in several places both across and through the middle of the road. There was a small farm track to the right, and we asked a local if we could get round by using this - he thought so. We turned down the track for about 2 km, and suddenly realised that what had been an interesting adventure to us was a tragedy for the local people. The small houses, which to British eyes are no more than sheds, were no match for a 7.6 earthquake and the majority were quite severely damaged or even flattened.

We came across what had once been one of these small houses, now just a heap of rubble, and in it was a man lying twisted surrounded by debris. His leg was obviously broken. We did what we could to help with emergency first aid, cutting away his trouser leg and cleaning the wound with antiseptic wipes before wrapping it with a clean (Inca Trail) T-shirt.

He was covered in dust and obviously quite shocked and in pain. We covered him with a warm anorak - night was beginning to fall and the temperatures drop quite dramatically when the sun disappears - left him with some water and biscuits, and set off back to the broken bridge, hoping to find help.

At the bridge we found a policeman and to our relief he seemed to grasp the need for quick action and set off in the direction of the 'house'.

I then walked across the bridge and decided that by following a zigzag path the Mitsubishi would be able to cross at slow speed and with care. This we duly did, with the help and encouragement of the local people. At one point the carriageway was leaning at what must have been 20°, but we made it.

The roads from there were increasingly full of rubble and rocks from the landslips. Some of the rocks were as big as a small house, but we managed to pick our way through and eventually reached the small town of Moquegua. This was blacked out, but most of the population were out on the streets. We couldn't see the full extent of the damage, as by now night had fallen.

About 6km out of the town we reached a blockage which finally defeated us. There were massive rocks across the road and not enough width to get through. We did consider dismantling two sections of Armco and using the road edge, but thought better of it.

So we turned back to the town to try and find a hotel. At another blockage which we were squeezing through, we were waved down: two people on a motorbike had fallen, and would we take the woman to hospital? We managed to find room in the back of the Mitzi. It soon became obvious that her main problem was not the injury from falling off the bike, but that she was on her way to hosptial anyway because she was pregnant. Although quite distressed, she was able to tell us the way, and when we arrived at the chaotic scene at the hosptial, which was full of people wanting treatment, we were waved thorough the gates and she was wheeled away in a wheelchair.

We then returned to the town and managed to find a hotel on the outskirts which had electricity and was able to give us a meal. During the meal we experienced another tremor and everything shook. The manager rushed into the dining room and said OK to stay where we were, but if he shouted we were to get out immediately.

The next morning we were up at 6.30am hoping that the road towards Puno had been cleared, and we were able to make slow progress along the semi blocked roads for two hours. However, on reaching the top of a pass, we were confronted with a queue of lorries. We made our way slowly to the front. The problem was a complete blockage in a narrow ravine. There were literally hundreds of people there, lorry drivers and bus passengers.

On the other side of the blockage was a queue of 40 or 50 vehicles which had been there all night: they had built a huge ramp over the blockage using stones. We were just in time to see the first vehicle, a huge 40 ton lorry, bang, crash and sway across it to huge cheers from the crowd.

We waited there for about one and a half hours while vehicles made their way over the ramp, often with great difficulty, some taking 5 or 10 minutes to negotiate the obstacle.

It was obvious that the plan was to clear the massive backlog of waiting vehicles, all of which had been there for 12 to 18 hours, many without food or water, before our turn; but we managed to convince the policeman in charge to let us through and with difficulty made out way past the 1km of waiting vehicles, using the verges and bouncing over rocks.

Now we only had another six hours difficult motoring to Puno and a good meal and a nice warm bed. But our thoughts were with the many homeless people we had seen in Moquegua and the outlying districts. People all seemed to be facing up to their problems in a philosophical manner: they had so little to begin with and now they had nothing. Very thought-provoking to Pat and myself, enjoying their beautiful country but knowing that in another two months we would be back in England, living in a style that they could only imagine.

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