WINCHESTER traveller John Pilkington survived a hair-raising encounter in Peru when he was mistaken for a terrorist.

He was threatened with machetes and nearly shot when villagers surrounded his tent on a mountainside in the Andes.

John, a former Hampshire County Council planner, of Culverwell Gardens, was camping by a river when he was awoken by a commotion outside his tent.

In a letter from Peru to the Daily Echo, he wrote: "Men were shouting, a torch was flashed, then rocks hit the canvas and the tent collapsed.

"I scrambled out just in time. Eight rough-looking men tightened their grip on rifles and machetes and formed a circle around me. They were a vigilante patrol from a village being threatened by one of the last remnants of the Shining Path, the mountain-based group which terroised Peru in the late 1980s.

"Assuming me to be one of these extremists, the villagers were ready to shoot until I hurriedly explained that I was just following the Inca road to Cusco.

"It seemed a flimsy excuse for a 'gringo' to be camping on their mountainside, but eventually they were satisfied and, to my relief, melted away into the night.

"It was a heart-stopping incident. I was extremely lucky that these quick-witted men grasped who I was and accepted that I meant them no harm. Next morning I called at their village, La Grama, and over glasses of aguardiente we exchanged embarrassed apologies.

"Terrorism in Peru is limited nowadays to just a few pockets in the Andean provinces, but I blundered into one of these and must make sure I reach Cusco without doing so again."

John left last year to follow the historic Inca road along the Andes. He is due to return home this year, broadcast on radio and write a book about his journey.

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