I've never been backpacking so it was with great interest that I found myself, by default, a temporary member of this strange club on a recent holiday to Peru.

Hooking up with a group of gap-year travellers while taking Spanish classes in Cusco, I was alarmed to find myself - a holidaymaker on a sissy two-week jaunt - an object of pity. How could I possibly do justice to this spiritual and beautiful country in such a short space of time? And the sorrow was almost tangible when I announced that, no, I wasn't going to have time to walk the gruelling Inca Trail to Machu Picchu while carrying an enormous pack on my back, in the rain, sleeping in a leaky tent and sharing a camp toilet with 800 others. I was, in fact, going to take a day trip on the tourist train.

And, yes, my heart did sink as I boarded that train and heard a well-dressed American woman declaim to her ashen-faced husband (and the rest of the carriage): 'If you're getting cramps, that means you have to go.'

Maybe by missing sunrise over Machu Picchu I was missing the point. But as we chugged into the Inca city at lunchtime I was surprised to find it almost empty. Only when I bumped into a backpacker who had made the dawn pilgrim age did it all make sense. 'You should have seen it here at 6am - it was like Piccadilly Circus,' he said. You see, watching the sun rise over Machu Picchu has become The Thing To Do. And it dawned on me that most of these travellers are as locked into a set itinerary as the most regimented Saga Holidays group, only the Saga group are prob ably doing less damage to the environment by arriving on the naff tourist train and are spending more money when they get there.

For it's time also to debunk the myth that backpackers reach parts of the local economy that other tourists don't. Many treat travelling as a kind of game: how to spend as much time as possible in one place while spending as little money as possible and growing the silliest beard.

I recall being rooted to the spot with embarrassment while a bearded buddy haggled over the price of a bag of cocoa leaves in a market. The sum in question? 15p. 'Come here again and I'll cut your throat,' said the vendor in Spanish as his customer walked off congratulating himself on not being ripped off.

On a visit to the Inca ruins of Sacsayhuaman we bumped into a Quechua indian. We grilled him for an hour about the site, his beliefs, his colourful clothes. We took his photograph and tried on his hat. He then had the audacity to try and sell us a ceramic pot.

'Oh, here we go,' groaned one of my companions, the subtext being: 'How dare he ruin the authenticity of our encounter by trying to turn this into a sordid commercial transaction?' So I bought the pot.

To their dismay, I also bought a CD of panpipe music from the group playing their hearts out in the pizza restaurant. And I bought a silly, pointy Peruvian hat which I will never wear. By the end of the week my credibility was zero.

But ask the locals whether they would prefer a group of backpackers loitering in the plaza for six weeks, braiding each other's hair while eking out one bottle of Cusqueña beer, or the commando-style tourism raids of the tour groups - 'Right, into the market, spend as many dollars as possible, back on the bus by 4pm.' I know which I would choose.