Into The Trees

Tonight at 3 AM I leave for the jungle and do not expect to come out until I reach Iquitos.  I spent the afternoon with my jungle guide Cho.  He had me buy rubber (almost knee high) boots because he wants to take me into the jungle and not always stay on the river.  I will admit, the intimidation is setting in.  We went over the trip plan and he wants to visit 4 or 5 villages along the way.  The intimidating part is that a couple of the villages are in the red zone!  On top of that, he told me that one of the villages he was held at gun point when he first entered the village but he now says they know him so he wants to keep his repore with them. I think he is tired of me asking "yes but what about gringo?" Also, I am not sure where the translation got lost, but he does not think we need a Sargent of arms type person to escort us in the red zone nor does he plan on hiring someone....  I think three of the villages are called Puerto Porvenir, Mazaroveni, and Pozo - the last one is North of Atalaya.

While at the store we bought gifts for the village leaders he plans on having me meet.  LED flashlights for the them and I bought candy for the kids (big hit at our first jungle stop last week), and we are planning to buy flip flops for the leader´s wives. We will also spend a day out of Puerto Copa to go to Santipo and meet Chos family.  I am really looking forward to meeting his family in his home town. They sincerity and simplicity of the people here is amazing.

So the plan is, we leave the hotel tonight at 3 this morning, fly to Ayacucho, 7 hour drive to San Francisco (on the death road) and spend the night in San Francisco.  Leave Monday morning to a river village called Pichori and take a long boat like the two pictures shown (not the triple boat connected together for moving large cargo across the river, just one of the 3 like those).  We will be in the long boat until we reach Atayala.  At that point we will look for another boat which Cho thinks will be a bigger boat.  He thinks it will take 3 or so days to get to Puerto Copa (a day at Santipo), two or so more days to then get to Atalaya which is the North side out of the red zone.  With the time stopping at villages, I am not sure how much that will slow us down.  We will figure out sleeping arrangements on the fly but he thinks we can do it by timing our stays in friendly villages rather than sleep on the river.

My last blog was me leaving for the upper Apurímac.  What a blast this was.  In the picture of me, that is the river to my left on the way down from the mountain pass.  The final stretch of road to the river had 25 hair pin turns.  Many consider this stretch of the river in the top ten best rivers to raft in the world.  Definitely the best river I ever rafted.  Most of the year you can only kayak.  We flipped in a level 4 rapid.  It took everything I had to navigate to safe water and was glad when Julio showed up in the kayak. On a level 5 rapid we had 4 of the 6 of us washed out of the raft.  I was one of the two who luckily managed to hold on and not go overboard. It was surreal to watch my rafting mates being tumbled in the rapids.  Everyone survived but some of them were banged up pretty bad.  We had to portage around 4 other rapids.  But this stretch of river is just one rapid after another most being level 3, 4, 5, and higher.  In all everyone had a great time and the rafting crews of Amazonas Explorer really made it a fun time and were on the spot to make it as safe as possible.

Like the lower Apurímac, the upper river has numerous waterfalls and tributaries feeding into to it.  It is easy to see why it is the main head water to the Amazon and how it got its name.  Jay and I traveled good part along side of the Urubamba river (the mother river where is the Apurímac is considered the father river) and the Urubamba is tame in comparison.  The last picture above has Salkatay mountain in the back ground (and another mountain to the left but I forget the name) - they look like clouds in the picture but in real life they were bold, covered with snow and looked like they were right in front of you.  The vastness of the landscape here just cannot be captured on a photo. The valley below is a colorful quilt like patchwork of fields and farmhouses. The size of the canyons are amazing and at our second camp sight, we had numerous condors circling overhead but in pictures they just look like sparrows. Everyone should have the Cusco area in their top 3 places to visit.  There is so much more to do, but it will have to wait for another time - if I am lucky.

My footprint picture that I took last week on the lower Apurímac is in a spot that only wind or water will change the impression.   I do not think even a wild animal could get into that part of the canyon.  OK maybe a bird - lol.  I know there is a bunch I am leaving out - need to start a journal so I can write a better blog.  Anyways, many more pictures and stories, but that will have to do for now.  I expect Internet in Atalaya so I hope to update the blog then.  Wish me luck and again thank you for following my blog.

Jay