You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="1377" ns="0" title="Ad-Aware" />
      <page pageid="1386" ns="0" title="Curriculum Vitae" />
      <page pageid="1389" ns="0" title="Freelance Links" />
      <page pageid="1388" ns="0" title="Freelance Sites" />
      <page pageid="1375" ns="0" title="Links 20070630" />
      <page pageid="1387" ns="0" title="Links 20070815" />
      <page pageid="1381" ns="12" title="Help:Discussion" />
      <page pageid="1378" ns="12" title="Help:Edit article" />
      <page pageid="1391" ns="14" title="Categorie:Freelance" />
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>