The idea.
In October 2013 I was fortunate to meet my friend Santiago Ibañes to paddle the Zambezi. Among exciting runs down the river and bar talks the idea was born, along with our friend Andrew Matthews, we´ll realize a trip down the rivers of Peru.
Santi, our peruvian papichulo.As in every bar talk we never put a concrete date to our new adventure, however we won’t forget about it. Andrew and Santiago began exploring in southern Chile and Argentina with Mirko Moreno and Evan Smith, who end up completing the group that traveled to Peru.
In his way north in mid-April, the group passes through the city of Mendoza, where after packing my camping and river gear, I joined the "whitewater convoy." All we were in the mood to get to Peru but ahead were thousands of miles to our goal.
As kayakers we fulfill our duty to help a good friend in common and Argentine kayak legend Diego Valseschi harvesting grapes for his wine called "Challenge". From Calafate, we took a small leap to Purmamarca where we spent the night.
Although we had a slow start in our odyssey, the day Purmamarca-Mejía certainly put everything into balance again, leaving us at 4 am on the beach and on Peruvian soil.
Breakfast in Mejía next to the waves.
We need to stretch the body, decided to enjoy the morning with some kayak surfing and a "Pilsen" (a Peruvian beer brands) and start driving to Arequipa past noon. That night we would rest in Arequipa where Santi´s family hospitality offered shower and a mattress, the first of the trip and a nice change from our thin insulating.
After a good breakfast we say goodbye to our hosts and take direction Arequipa to Cusco, where we would be host by Leo Gonzales who also help with the logistics of kayaking on the Apurimac River.
Leo is the son of Chando, who is one of the pioneers of rafting in Peru, is also nationally recognized as one of the best rock climbers and a great kayaker and adventurer.
All enlisted with Leo, the next morning would start very early (5:00 a.m.) as our intention was to descend the Apurimac river in a single day. Arise of an exciting day, first day of kayaking and nothing more and nothing less than the famous Apurimac River, also once known as the world's deepest canyon. Of course, no expedition in Peru would be complete without his "chicken soup" or “lomito saltado" all with rice and matte muña to start the day.
Ph: Breakfast, peruvian style
We lowered the 3400 msnm suffocating Cusco at about 1800 msnm, the vegetation has mutated significantly revealing more and more green into a semi-Amazonian jungle. Our goal, the Apurimac river known as the source of the Amazon, although new studies argue that the Marañon river is the longest in the Amazon watershed.
The first sighting of the river is striking a brown snake that zigzags between the towering Andes. But I remembered by the photos of the river that was crystal color; Immediately remembered that we were the first people entering the river this season and that the levels were at the limit for the commencement of commercial rafting.
The group had grown to 6 members Daniel Rondon, prominent peruvian kayaker, Jean Marco Vellutino Peruvian legen and Alavaro Ibañes brother of Santi.
Put in and to paddle, we begin with a quiet class III section for half hour and the more we went into the canyon things got more serious. Large granite boulders deposited on the riverbed create beautiful navigable mazes and terrible dangers as "undercuts" and “siphons".
We soon reach "Portage", one of the class VI rapids in these water levels, the fury and speed that this rapid moves between rocks and just lets you imagine the show and demonstration of power when loading its total flow about 10 times larger.
Portage would not be the only rapid that would make us walk on this first visit, names like "Purgatory" and “Dolor de Muela" would kill our extremist spiritt and gave way to our survival instinct again becoming mere mortals loading our boats on the banks.
We made a quick stop for a snack and continue downstream, we completed our descent in just under 6 hours and if anything left me surprised was the style of big water the Apurimac had at these levels, there were some waves, rapids and obstacles resembled those of the Zambezi river in Africa.
First river REMADO !!! .... Thanks Apurimac.
The team trough the canyon. Ph: Mirko Moreno
Santa Teresa.
The next day we got up and the same group headed to Santa Teresa. This is located at the N / E of the sacred city of Machu Picchu, the rivers in the area were explored for the first time six year ago by Diego Valseschi and Jean Marco and since then has become Jean Marco personal paradise who buy land and started a business to be near to these rivers.
On the way to Santa Teresa we stopped at the river Lucumayo with the intention of rowing, but the fact that we were only 2 hours of light convinced us otherwise and ended up driving all the way to our goal.
Already installed in "Cola de Mono”, canopy of Jean Marco, started to explore two rivers in the area, the Sacsara be our first taste of what we would call a typical "non Stop Peruano" a quality that would be repeated in many rivers .
Rio Sacsara
The rivers in the jungle have a continuity that I had rarely seen, a few minutes into it and i could feel my forearms lactic because of the hard physical work being done. The days we had spent in the car without doing more than driving, we could feel it.
In one of the thousands curves of the river i spotted the red helmet of Evan and paying more attention I see that Evan is actually clinging to the river right wall with no way out. Manage to stop on the left bank just opposite Evan´s and I see that Mirko is on the right bank about 15 meters down stream. By using sign language will communicate to Evan he had to swim to the position of Mirko, he didn´t like it one bit, and then to top it cross the river with the help of a rope, to where his boat and oar have been rescue by Daniel and Andrew.
The river take out was just at camp "Cola de Mono" where we ate a small lunch and loaded the boats to our next river Santa Teresa.
Santa Teresa is the river that six years ago Jean Marco and Diego use to access this area, today we would run the lower section of the river ending just 2 kilometers from its mouth on the Urubamba River.
Rio Santa Teresa
The style of fast waters and small eddys remain but the Santa Teresa was carrying a larger amount of water, which have contributed to sharper lines. Also the size of the rocks had increased which left us with a "boulder garden" riddled with magnificent "Boofs".
About two hours descent left us a few miles from the camp where we went looking for our dinner and a dip on the "Hot Tube" prepared by Mirko, "THE GOOD LIFE".
Rio Lucumayo
We got up early in the morning with more adventure hunger, the refusal of Lucumayo river two days ago had left us with "pica". We pack all, this time Leo and Jean Marco could not join us.
We drove about 2 hours to the entrance to the river and realized that the water level had dropped dramatically and its color had changed from an angry brown to a grayish blue. This does not put us off! The plan was to wait for Santi with all our equipment while he returned from a car drop off, this took about 40 minutes after which we were already seated and ready to push our boats within the next adventure.
The first kilometers on Lucumayo were a little hard on our boats, but as we move the water was becoming more gray while the canyon grows. In one of the many hits Mirko´s Pyranha boat breaks and forces him to leave and face a good climb to the route.
We were in the last eddy before entering the box canyon section on the Lucumayo when Santi warned "this is the last exit before this gets pretty intense," Evan feeling yesterdays swim decided to go out so it was just the 4 of us Santi, Andrew, Dani and me.
Entering the canyon had a eddy left from where we could see the first rapid but did not distinguish well the end, we returned to the boat and went in pairs, Santi and Andrew first Dani and I then, coming to the end of of the rapid there was a hole that had a tongue on the right that left us practically in the eddy, the second and last of the rapid, from there it looked like the walls shook and the water danced wall to wall creating various terminal holes but leaving a clear path marked. For a moment the cannon opened giving us a moment of peace and time to catch our breath. On the second canyon was impressive to feel the change of the river as a tributary coming from the right increases the rate at least a third, you could feel the increased of pressure in the water, but only for a second to give birth to the third canyon a little shorter and with less intensity than his brothers.
Adrenaline run on us a good time while we were looking for Evan, as Mirko had received a ride to the vehicle and was waiting for us. Another successful day!
Rio Alto Santa Teresa
Today we woke up wanting more adventure and decided to drive up to the headwaters of the Santa Teresa river, only to run into a canyon section of the river where we found it prudent not to start. We retracing our footsteps stopped at the beach section where Santi, Andrew, Danny and Jean Marco began what would be the second descent in this area, the first on these high water levels. Moving slowly between eddys the team made his way through the section without any problems, successfully completing their mission. That night at camp sharing photos and videos made me envied the great adventure that the group had won, luckily it didm´t take much to convince them to return to the same spot the next morning.
Back in the water there was no time to hesitate, the river could barely been see behind the horizon line, that spoke to his powerful gradient, in between of all this rapids a mega rapid that only Dani and Santi dominated applying their strengths and abilities. The canyon closed becoming more narrow, making the entire river became a "Boof" about 2 mts. The right side was an inverted smile and the center and right a fairly simple jump if it were not for the siphon and the “undercut" rock which was just a few meters downstream.
Fishing some peruvian "Troute" Only Dani and I were left to run, as we had been taking pictures for the rest of the group. Dani told me he would try to run center / right lane and left while I settled my helmet. Watching him disappear immediately saw the change of expression on the face of Mirko who was taking pictures, without hesitation took my rescue rope and ran along the shore until the “boof" site. Arriving I could not see Dani, but just a second later his boat emerged from the deepest part of the recycling and manage to roll, while he was in normal position and paddling vigorously back made eye contact and asked for the rope. I launched the rope and Dani just takes it before going up side down again, in this position I strongly pull him out of the recycling where he emerged victorious. A tense moment which again ended in laughter around the fire. After that the rest was a cinch.
Last day in Santa Teresa
Rainy and cold was our last morning in Santa Teresa, had talked the day before the Urubamba river paddling soaked but our teams finished convincing us that it was better to start our way back to Arequipa where we awaited the Cotahuasi and Colca River.
Perú parte I
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