The river was coming up again. The morning we left Tupén Grande the water had begun to inundate the low area on the inland side of the beach. We launched our boats and floated 10 kilometers in 28 minutes! Logs and even fairly good sized trees floated by on the current now and then throughout the day. It was another big rapid day, with San Lucas the highlight for me as we stood our raft up on end in wave after wave that crested perfectly for us. We stopped for a hike up several hundred feet to a ridge where an array of ancient tombs commanded a spectacular view of the canyon. Most of the tombs were open and empty, but it was still a somber and important visit to a past time. Another highlight of this day, our ninth day on the river, was to pass through the Narrows, a calm but fast-flowing section between sheer cliffs that was the proposed dam site for the Chadin II dam. It was one of the most impressive places on the river in terms of sheer cliff walls. The idea that some see it only as a potential for dam construction and water impoundment left a sour feeling in my stomach; the gravity of such a crime was hard to fathom.
The river continued to rise, and we weren’t able to scout any of the big rapids in the afternoon because the water covered the scouting routes. We ran Playa del Inca following Pedro’s verbal directions, and it was Joe’s favorite rapid because the waves came at us from every conceivable direction and gave us a terrific ride. Rapids filled the afternoon: the last one, Magdalena, delivering huge standing waves that left us all whooping.
Day 10 was New Year’s Eve and the high water and huge rapids continued all morning. We rafted 30 kilometers by lunch time! The biggest rapid was Lin Lin, which we scouted for a long time. A huge boulder split the flow into a chaos of waves smashing into each other from bank to bank. As I walked back to the rafts, my heart in my throat, I met a Peruvian woman and her son, rushing down the shore to secure a vantage point from which to watch us run the rapid. She pumped my hand in both of hers, grinning broadly and babbling in Spanish. I wasn’t sure, but she might have offered up a prayer on my behalf. Then she and her boy hurried off, disappearing into the bushes. Despite my pre-rapid jitters, I couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. Our running this rapid was probably the most exciting event they had experienced in a while.
The oar boats had amazingly smooth runs down the right side between a huge rock and a couple of gigantic holes, while the paddle boat took the gonzo run down the crazy wave train against the cliff face on the right shore. A huge wave nearly flipped them, sending Rachel and Jane into the river, but the crew picked them back up within a few seconds and finished the rapid. Both women were fine; one paddle was lost to the river. Just before camp, when we stopped to collect firewood, Dude floated into an eddy further downstream from the rest of the group, and found the lost paddle; a gift relinquished by the Rio Maranon with the same steadfast benevolence she had shown us during the entire trip.
We reached camp on another spectacular beach by lunch time. What was in store for us for this last afternoon of 2015 was one of the most beautiful highlights of the trip. After lunch we hiked up a creek drainage to a spectacular Eden of deep clear pools and waterfalls, stacked one upon the other up the side of a sloping granite face like a white satin ribbon studded with sparkling jewels. The granite slope on which this magical necklace lay was surrounded by lush green jungle forest, which had appeared along the river quite suddenly during the morning float. There were at least six pools connected by waterfalls, clear and warm and timeless. The view from the second pool looked out over the canyon, forest, and river, where large-winged Andean condors soared in ever-higher circles until they were just small black smudges on the cloud-studded blue sky. We swam and basked and pinched each other to make sure it was all real; we really were in the Amazon now! We lingered the rest of the afternoon. The perfect way to spend the last day of the year.
Read more entries in our ten-part series about the Rio Marañon.
To raft and/or help protect the Rio Marañon, contact SierraRios at www.sierrarios.org
