LIMA: El Infierno

In the end, it all comes down to Ryan Giggs. Wherever you are in the world, whatever team the taxi driver supports, you can always explain that you're Welsh with that name, thanks to the international language of football.

I'd been keen to go and see a match in South America since we arrived in April - but somehow we were never in the right place at the right time. Until we got to Lima. Few people actually look forward to coming here - it has a pretty bad reputation amongst backpackers for petty theft and pollution. True enough, a constant grey fug hangs over the city, and large menacing birds of prey swoop over its sea front. The biggest tourist attraction are the human skulls and bones on display in the catacooms of San Francisco monastary....

Enticing, eh?

Thankfully our hostel was in a nice part of town, and came complete with a friendly chocolate Labrador called Bingo. The owner was an even friendlier Peruvian called Pierro, whose gregariousness extended to getting us on the guest list for a gig at a nearby club on Saturday night. All was well, until we realised that the after-show party was also being held at the hostel, on the roof of our room.

But anyway, back to the football. Our date was with Alianza Lima - according to FIFA rankings officially the 248th best team in the world. Almost inevitably their stadium was in a bad bit of town that required an escort to come with us from the hostel. Our pre-match drink was in a caged bar with riot police in view. In the south stand, under a banner marked El Infierno, around six thousand hardcore fans spent the entire match bouncing, singing and pumping their fists, regardless of events on the pitch.

Which is just as well, as much of the actual game was a bit dull - a lot like watching Cardiff City on a cold wet Wednesday night in fact. After 79 minutes of wasted possession, substitute Juan Carlos Fernandez finally found the back of the net to give Alianza a 1-0 victory, and make the riot police's job a little easier that evening. And at the final whistle, we were safe to make our way back home to Bingo, and tell more taxi drivers about our friend Ryan Giggs.