Features

One minute the view is of the greens and browns of a countryside filleted and spatchcocked across the horizon, viewed from a 4,500m vantage point that quite literally takes your breath away (even if you could corral enough oxygen for a decent lungful in the first place).

The next, that very horizon is mugged by the greedy little rocky fingers of a gorge that rises up out of nowhere, gobbling up the forward view in a series of tunnels and crevasses that leave nothing but a streak of sky in a 150ft-wide slash above the car.

As we enter the Andes proper, here in darkest Peru, the sounds start to reflect back on themselves and change - and so does the mood.

The Ferrari we are driving starts to feel both very small and nowhere near tall enough. Looking on the bright side, at least traffic is light.

Of course, when the road has turned into a ledge with delusions of grandeur, seven feet of rock-strewn shelf carved into the side of a mountain with little thought for either health or safety, you wouldn't expect traffic volumes to be heavy. Too many precipitous tonnes of rocks to fall on your head for one thing.

To the right is a 1,000-foot, near vertical drop into an undoubtedly uncomfortable mangled-up death on the jagged rocks of the valley floor; to the left a sheer rock face that offers no comfort, or even much scope for a panicky last scrabble for salvation.

We've swapped third-world spec tarmac for a selection of fist-sized rocks, granite-bedded ruts deep enough to eat suspension, and moon dust.

The next 150km of our journey will involve only car-crippling off-road driving, and even though this knife-in-the-back countryside would provide an excellent test for something like a Range Rover - ride height and four-by-four traction being the real winners - we're going to tackle it in a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano.

I know, I know. That last bit sounds like a joke, right? Well, no. As part of its Panamerica 20,000 challenge, Ferrari is taking two 599s from the tail to the top of the Americas, and our leg traverses the spectacular terrain of the Andes (yep, the Andes).

If driving the 599 is an event in itself, then doing so the length of Peru and across the Andes into Ecuador must rate pretty highly on the list of things to do. Personally, I'm having trouble concentrating.

One reason being that I'm less concerned about the dodgy road than the Ferrari's ability to actually get to the other end without being eviscerated by a piece of Peruvian rock.