Source of the Amazon

From the Colca Canyon we rushed back to the luxury of the thermal baths at our smart hotel for two more nights.  A bonus was the presence of the Cripps, an English family from Cusco, who have a boy, Oliver, in the same class as Titus, and two other children.  We had had introductions to them from two different friends in England but this was the first opportunity to spend time with them.  The children romped around together in the pool and about the hotel, giving the adults time to talk.  On one day Zu, Martha and I went with Paul to an extraordinary pre-Inca fort perched above the Canyon, leaving Titus with Carol, his wife, and the other children.

On the way back to Cusco we took in ‘the source of the Amazon’.  We went with Eloy, a mountain guide, whom Paul Cripps had recommended.  We needed him, Paul said, because when you got up high the road disappeared and you had to know which rock to turn left at.  Eloy appeared at our hotel – now a cheaper one in Chivay - after an overnight bus journey from Arequipa and joined us for breakfast.  The boys and Martha were presenting me with home-made cards and I quickly had to explain that it was my 50^th birthday.

The road was far rougher than we expected and our poor car was soon bumping and scraping up it.  We made very slow progress.  Paul had said that the 26 km should take us about two hours but I think we took four.  The problem was not only the roughness of the road but also the thinness of the air: our engine began to lack the puff necessary to get up the steeper bits.  We were glad of Eloy, who coaxed us along and did tell us where to turn when the road ran out.  It was stark and beautiful country and it felt odd to be crossing it in a car.

(Video by Titus)

Eventually our wheels were defeated by what looks now an innocuous little slope and we had to take to our legs.  This was quite a relief as we had all had enough of being lurched around and we knew we would enjoy the arrival more if we had exercised our muscles.  After about 40 minutes we approached a boulder-strewn bank beneath a cliff.  Above it was the ice cap of Nevado Mismi (5597m). As we clambered along the bank the boys picked up icicles to suck.  Eventually we came to a point where water squirted dramatically out of the cliff face.  Beside it were some plaques and a cross.  We had arrived.  We marked our arrival in the modern way – with lots of photos – and we filled a bottle with water so as to be able to make Amazon tea later.  It was a beautiful spot and it was hard to imagine that that sparkling, cold, clear water would turn into the lazy, muddy Amazon and disgorge into the Atlantic over 4,000 miles away. 

Frank at 50

As we walked back to the car Zu found a large feather.  To his absolute delight Eloy identified it as coming from a juvenile condor.  This, of course, put Titus into something of a spin as they are quite competitive about feather-collecting.  Zu, to be fair, probably deserved this trophy more.  He spends hours walking off paths to look for feathers.

We had hoped to be back at the ‘main’ road in the early afternoon but the sun had almost set by the time we got down.  We had to abandon our plan to go and camp in ‘Tres Canyones’ , a spectacular valley slightly off the beaten track, and instead we took Eloy back to Chivay – where he announced he was going back to Arequipa on the overnight bus – and reinstated ourselves at our hotel.  We thought we would go out to the best restaurant in town to celebrate my birthday but that turned out to be a mock-Irish pub which played rock music a little too loud.

On the way back to Cusco we stopped at Kanamarca, some beautifully restored and extensive pre-Inca ruins.  There we had lunch and brewed up our Amazon tea.  Although it was Sunday we had the place completely to ourselves.  It made our decision to buy a car feel a little less absurd.

Frank brewing Amazon tea.

Colca Canyon

For the boy’s half-term we set off for a week in the Colca Canyon area, about eight hours from Cusco.  This was the first major outing for our car.  We left on the Friday afternoon and spent the night in the best hotel we could find in Sicuani, about 2.5 hours away.  We would not go back to it.  Zu was pretty ill and though he survived the journey, he fell asleep as soon as we arrived.  I stayed with him while Martha and Titus went out and found what they said was a surprisingly good supper.

Saturday, was Zu’s 10th birthday.  He was marginally better but still had the runs.  We had a long but beautiful drive, mostly on dirt roads over endless, empty green hills, with mountains in the distance.  After a couple of hours we passed through Yauri, a surprisingly large and ugly town, and then an enormous copper mine, which has scarred thousands of acres. (Local people’s protests against this mine have since started to escalate and the other day two or three protesters were shot and killed. Mining and its proceeds are a hot potato in Peru at the moment.) Later we stopped at some amazing ‘stone forests’ where we found a couple of snakes sunning themselves on the rocks.  Zu said this ‘made’ his birthday.  Just below a dam we found the road bridge had been washed away but there was another way round using the base of the dam.

In honour of Zu we had arranged to stay in a smart hotel in the Colca valley.  By the afternoon we were wandering down to their thermal pools in our white towelling gowns. These pools are fed by hot springs and are mixed with river water to different temperatures.  We lounged around for hours until our hands and feet were disgustingly wrinkly. The boys, who like a little hotel luxury, were thrilled with it all.

The following day, after the boys had had time to get sunburnt in the pools, we set off for condors and the Canyon itself.  On the way we had a flat tyre but the jack and spare all seemed to work fine and it did not hold us up much.  It was another spectacular dirt road, winding along the left side of the canyon which was satisfyingly deep. In the evening we went to look for condors at a viewpoint – Cruz del Condor – which we had to ourselves.  We saw five or six and watched them come circling majestically in, but none came particularly close. 

 We stayed the night in Cabanaconde, a sleepy town, where the streets were full of donkeys bringing in the maize harvest. The next day we returned for the morning viewing from Cruz del Condor.  This time the place was crawling with mini-bus groups.  Though the light was clearer the condor viewing was little better.  At one point a large bird circled overhead and we could hear all the cameras firing away.  “It’s a Variable Hawk” said Zu to me.  The cry went up – “It’s just a hawk” – and the cameras went down.

From Cabanaconde we marched down into the canyon for two nights. We had thought we would need to take our tent and camping equipment and hire a man with a mule to carry it all.  However, at supper the night before, a nice Belgian girl – who ran a hostel and a charity with her husband – had told us that it was totally unnecessary; there were plenty of hostels in the valley.  The walk down was on a good path which made for pleasant walking and we could see next day’s path quite clearly.  However, by the bridge,  some 1100m below, we were glad to stop descending.   At the bridge was posted a guard, who asked for our tickets.  “What tickets?” we asked a little disingenuously.  They charge about US$25 per head for entry to the Canyon area. We thought we had got away with it and were very surprised to be caught out at this remote point.  The guard also surprised me by telling us we were the 60^th and 61^st adults to cross that day. 

Sitting with the guard was a lady.  When I asked them if they knew of a place to stay in San Juan de Chucho, the first village, she said ‘Yes, as it happens I saw you coming and came down to see if you needed somewhere to stay.’  She said it in such an unassuming way that we fell in with her and allowed her to lead us to her hostal.  It was comfortable enough and we shared it with a charming French baker, his wife and their guide, two French girls who were camping, and a mixed group of English-speaking backpackers with their guide.

The next day’s walk along the Canyon was easy enough. At the top of the only climb we found a man selling all the usual refreshments together with local fruits – the climate of the canyon allows them to grow semi-tropical varieties.  We tucked into grenadillas.  From there on the path was flat or downhill and we romped along enticed by the thought of... swimming pools. One of the attractions of the descent into the canyon is Sangalle or ‘the oasis’.  Here an ample supply of clean, fresh water gushes from the rocks (not the river) and has been channelled by the hostals into swimming pools painted the standard sky blue.  The day before we had been able to see them while descending and now, in the heat of the day and the dust, the thought of them was delicious.  It was hard to stop the boys running all the way down.

We arrived at the oasis and settled on our hostal – and swimming pool – in time for a swim before lunch.  It was all a little surreal: the pool and the scenery felt like five star luxury yet the rooms and food were definitely low end.   The place filled up round lunch time as more walkers arrived, including our French friends. We began to be very glad we had arrived early, not least because sun went down shortly after 3.00 pm.  We passed the long wait until supper throwing stones at targets (little towers of stones) down by the river and playing cards.

We wanted to set off early for the 1200m climb up since we knew it there would be no escaping the sun but after breakfast we had to wait for the mule man – we had arranged to have our packs carried up for us.  Having rendezvoused with him we started to plod up the steep zig-zag path.  To our surprise we all found the going pretty easy, though I did tell a diversionary story.  After an hour and a half we passed our French friends who had left at 5am.  He was slightly overweight and she, at around 40, was pregnant for the first time, so they were taking it easy. An hour later we found a couple of ladies selling refreshments – we were at the top.  We felt very pleased with ourselves and our smugness was only encouraged when a young English couple appeared from below, both riding horses.  They said they had a bus to catch.  We celebrated by having a second breakfast in the Belgians’ cafe and two more nights in our luxury hotel with the thermal pools.