Rio Marañon #9: The Jungle and Tutumberos
January 1, 2016 was our last day in the Grand Canyon of the Marañon. The original plan was to take out at Puerta Malleta, which we reached by mid-day, but we were three days early because of the high water levels. So we got a bonus added to our trip. We had time to float across the expansive Baguas valley and to spend a day in the true jungle of the Pongos section of the Rio Marañon. The Pongos jungle section has just recently been offered for rafting trips by SierraRios. In fact, just a day’s float beyond where we would end our trip, the tribes are still unfriendly to rafters, equating them with the engineering and study groups sent down to research dam sites. The tribes downstream were so angry that they were threatening to kill rafters that floated into their territory. On the sections of the Rio Marañon where we have floated, it has taken a great amount of work by SierraRios (especially Rocky Contos and Pedro Peña) to overcome the locals’ distrust of people in rafts and to convince them that we are on their side against the dams. The Baguas valley is broad and braided. It took a day and a half to cross it. Sometimes we would lose sight of each other for an hour at a time if we took different braided channels from one another. On the morning of January 3, the Rio Marañon was joined by two more rivers with similar volume to its own 20,000-30,000 cfs, and then the entire combined river squeezed into a narrow, jungle-lined canyon. The transition to full Amazonian jungle was dramatic and abrupt. The canyon walls were covered with thick vegetation, and we saw bright yellow and black Oropendula birds and their pendulous nests in the trees along the shore. A series of exciting rapids were normally encountered in this section of river (especially in September and October), but with the higher summer water levels of three rivers combined pushing through the canyon, most of the rapids were completely submerged. We floated serenely over rapid after rapid, viewing banana farms carved into the steep slopes of the canyon. Our one major rapid was scoutable and straight forward, providing huge standing waves including a set that gave sucker punches from both sides of the raft. We reached our destination by mid-day—the village of Tutumberos, home of the Awahun tribe. It was a rare sunny day in the jungle. We pulled our rafts into the eddy next to a small rocky beach shaded by huge trees and thick vegetation. Our host was Zecharias (clearly his western name), who was the leader of the dam resistance group for the village. He wore shorts, a t-shirt and a white plastic cowboy-hat-shaped helmet that could be strapped on for rafting. I am guessing his hat was a gift from another rafting group. Several of us wondered where we could get one like it—it was pretty cool. Zecharias was welcoming and very friendly, and led us through the jungle into his village and up the steep slope to his home, which was little more than a large palapa with a shack next to it. He introduced his wife, who shook our hands, and then they set up a long table outdoors among the chickens, where they fed us the traditional boiled chicken and rice lunch that we were becoming familiar with. We were grateful for the food and the hospitality, knowing that it took great effort to prepare, and that they had sacrificed their own chickens to the cause. SierraRios had paid the village for the meal, and each village we stopped at received a donation from part of our trip price. Zecharias brought out a large banner that read “Rio Marañon, vive sin represos” which means ‘live without dams’, and we all took a photo with the banner. We spent the afternoon wandering through the village, swimming at the local swimming hole, and striking up a soccer game between our young men and the village men and boys. That evening, the village kids came down to our camp on the beach. Steve held court on his red cataraft with a crowd of them, showing them gear and playing with them in the universal language of smiles and giggles that needs no translation. The kids hung around and watched Glen’s cook crew make spaghetti for dinner, clearly hoping to get the leftovers. We were glad to oblige them, but there was a small drawback. The cook crew had mistakenly used a can of salsa instead of spaghetti sauce, so the dinner was very spicy. When the leftovers were offered to the kids, they served themselves big plates full and sat down hungrily to eat. Within seconds, cries of “Agua! Agua!” echoed around the beach as the kids fanned their mouths, soon dissolving into fits of laughter. Pedro spent much of our visit talking to representatives of the resistance against the dams. He told us later that he was trying to set up a meeting between the different tribes along this part of the river, to unit them against the dams. The tribes bickered amongst themselves and that is why some of those further downstream wouldn’t let rafting trips pass through. By the time we left Tutumberos the next morning, Pedro had forged a meeting in the regional center, Celendin, for a couple of days later.That night, the chorus of jungle insect life was deafening. It was important not to leave your flash light on when you got into your tent or a large segment of the insect population would join you inside. And these were true jungle insects in the Amazonian tradition—inches long! I wondered how so many bugs could be out at night when I hadn’t seen any of them during the day. It was kind of creepy. But once inside our tent, insects vanquished, I slept well and deeply, serenaded by their song and comforted by the abundance of
Rio Marañon #8: Pools and Waterfalls
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
Rio Marañon #7: The Pachamanca
We hiked from our camp on the beach back to the village at Tupén Grande for the evening festivities, which were to include the cooking of a traditional pachamanca. When we arrived, the town square was alive with villagers, done with their day of work and ready to enjoy the relative coolness of the evening. The evening was a celebration of sorts for the villagers because family members who went to school or worked in Lima or other cities were home for the Christmas and New Year’s holiday. An adult volleyball game and a soccer game were in full swing. The younger kids were still playing with the slack line and some were sledding down a dirt pile on a plastic oil container. They reminded me of kids sliding down a snow-covered hill at home—ah, the creativity of children. When the games ended, a group of men gathered in front to the store to tell stories and drink sugar cane whiskey, while others chatted in small groups around the square. As darkness fell, we began to wonder about the cooking event of the evening—the pachamanca. Pedro said he had been told that the process would start soon, but it was already almost dark and the fire hadn’t even been started yet. He shrugged his shoulders in exasperation; he had done all he could do. After it was full dark, a group of men finally started the fire in an earthen pit about three feet deep and three feet across at one end of the square. The man in charge had come home for the holiday from Lima, where he was the chef in his own restaurant. We learned that making a pachamanca was becoming a lost tradition, and many in the village didn’t know how to do it. So Rocky, at SierraRios, was encouraging the villagers to re-learn this tradition and giving them a way to earn money with that knowledge by preparing a pachamanca for tourist visitors like our group. Soon a large fire was roaring in the pit. It was a warm evening, so people kept well back from the heat from the flames. More wood was added and burned down until the fire was reduced to a large bed of glowing coals. Then many flat rocks that had been soaked in water were added to heat in the coals. When the rocks were hot enough, the building of the Pachamanca began, and we and the villagers gathered round to watch. First, our chef shoveled most of the hot rocks out of the pit, leaving a fairly thin layer in the bottom of the pit on top of the coals. Then he began to add potatoes and sweet potatoes, which the women had brought in big round tubs. He made a circle of potatoes around the perimeter of the pit on top of the hot rocks and placed more hot rocks to fill in the circle and cover the potatoes. Then he added chicken and pork, which he had prepared earlier and marinated in spices. The meat sizzled as he laid it out flat over the hot rocks. Then more villagers came with banana leaves, which the chef laid over the top of the meat layer, completely sealing the food into the pit. More hot rocks were laid over the banana leaves. To ensure a tight seal, the chef laid plastic gunny sacks on next and several men began shoveling dirt onto the gunny sacks. The gunny sacks, the one concession to modern materials, would make it easier and cleaner to remove the dirt once the cooking was done. Our chef stomped the dirt thoroughly and tightly over the surface of the pit, blocking every potential air hole and sealing the pit carefully and completely. The pachamanca would take about an hour and a half to cook. By this time it was nearly 9:00 pm, and we were getting tired after our long day of rapid running and playing with the villagers. It was going to be a very late meal, and some of our group gave up and went back to camp to go to bed. A few of us stayed and napped on the dirt ledges around the perimeter of the square. At 10:30 pm, the chef and his helpers removed the gunny sacks and their load of dirt, peeled back the banana leaves and removed the rocks and the steaming food. As the paying guests, our group was fed first, and wow! What a wonderful meal; not just because it was late and we were all very hungry, but because it was perfectly cooked. We were truly impressed. The spices from the meat had infused the vegetables with flavor, and the meat itself was tender and delicious. Our hosts seemed pleased, and I was anxious to see them dig into the food, too. We thanked them profusely for their work and expertise and for sharing this special tradition with us, and once we had finished eating, we said our goodnights, so that they could continue their party and enjoy their meal, too. We hiked back to camp in the dark, and fell gratefully into our beds. What an experience, and what a very long day. Tomorrow we would float on downstream. I drifted off feeling deeply satisfied and grateful for such a positive experience with the amazing people of Tupén Grande. 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
Rio Marañon #6: Tupén Grande
We had spent the first half of the day blasting through huge standing waves in rapid after rapid. Thrilled and exhilarated, we arrived mid-day at a broad beach on the right shore, our camp for the night. Our goal: to visit Tupén Grande, a village that would be flooded and destroyed by the construction of Chadin II dam. Besides the fantastic rapids in this section of the river, the canyon is stunning: steep-walled, and studded with both lush green trees and tree-sized cactus. Once we tied up our boats, we followed Pedro toward the village. Climbing up over a berm at the back of the beach, we picked our way across a coca and fruit farm, up another slope and onto a narrow path. The path wound downstream between fields, irrigation ditches and the occasional house for the next 10 minutes or so, when I realized that this wasn’t just a rural approach to the village; this was part of the village—it threaded its way along the river in a long narrow line. We walked between houses with large white painted letters scrawled across their walls: “No A Chadin II!” they screamed, one after another. Once the painted messages began, they appeared on nearly every building. There was no mistaking the strength of the resistance here. Tupén Grande sits on an old hacienda, which was given back to the people after a socialist revolution in the 1990s. The old hacienda building was now occupied by families of farmers, and drying meat hung on clothes lines strung across the courtyard. The walls were falling down in places, but that seemed to be of no concern. Twenty minutes from the boats we arrived in the village center, an earthen square surrounded by low earthen buildings, where we met the family who would host us for lunch. SierraRios had contracted with this family to make us all a meal, and they were busy with the task. Guinea pigs ran freely through the kitchen, the floor of which was a foot or so lower than outside so they couldn’t escape. Guinea pigs are common in Peruvian kitchens, both a sort of pet and a food source. A fat yellow puppy with soft floppy ears won the attention of many in the group, outcompeting its tired-looking parents for their admiration. Behind the house we found a pile of chicken feathers that signaled the demise of our main entrée. Water trickled down a ditch, through a short length of garden hose and into a large, metal tub—the water supply for the house. Wandering back up to the square, a few of us met the head of the resistance movement, or “ronde”, who also owned the village store. He welcomed us warmly, and shared a shot of sugar cane whiskey with us. We sat with him awhile and Ben and Will translated as he spoke about the determination of the village to resist the Chadin II dam. It became clear to us that this was a place empowered. Feeding their sense of empowerment was a recent significant success. Through their determined resistance, they had won a postponement of the Chadin II project. The dam company office in Balsas, two days upstream, had closed. But we had seen the office at Balsas and looked through its windows. It was not a permanent closure. Desks and chairs and posters and maps were all still there. All it would take to start up again would be to unlock the door. It was generally considered that after the election in April, the dam company would probably be back. The villagers at Tupén Grande knew that they had won a battle, not the war. But their success had made them all the more determined to fight on. Soon we were called to lunch. The village was quiet, perhaps because it was the heat of the day, or because the majority of the residents were off working in their fields. We sat down at a long table set up in the shaded corridor outside our host family’s kitchen, and ate boiled chicken, rice and lentils, with fresh watermelon for dessert and homemade lemonade made with boiled water. It was the standard meal we had at every village we ate in along the way—hearty if not imaginative. The dogs slunk around under the table, waiting to catch our scraps, and our friendly hosts smiled and chatted as we ate. After our meal, several of our crew started up a soccer game with some of the young boys of the village, using a soccer ball we brought as a gift for the village school. They played gamely in the heat of the midday sun, while a donkey tied between the goal posts dodged their repeated goal attempts. The village boys beat the Americans handily, as we expected they would. Pedro also set up a slack line tightrope between some trees for the younger kids to play on, and Ben and Ethan played with them for quite a while. Ethan tried to climb a coconut tree for our host family to cut down some coconuts, but his technique wasn’t quite right, and all he managed to get was a scraped chest and sore hands. The young son of our host family, probably 12 years old, shimmied up the tree and cut the coconuts free using a machete with expert skill, and we were treated to fresh coconut milk. We visited and rested until mid-afternoon, and then walked back to set up our camp on the beach. Several of our group were already back at the beach when we arrived. And so were several of the villagers and their kids. Before long, some of the kids were climbing in and out of kayaks and rafts, donning helmets and lifejackets, and getting their photos taken by our group members. Kids and rafters alike had a blast. We would return up the winding path in the evening, when the villagers were scheduled to make us a traditional
Rio Marañon #5: Rapids and Eddies
A truly free flowing river has a unique character. Those of us from the United States have seldom experienced a living river without dams, because almost every river in the United States has at least one dam on it. Intellectually, I knew there was a difference, but to experience it was a rare and wonderful treat. A free flowing river has a life of its own. It breathes, it speaks, it has moods. The Rio Marañon has a distinct personality, that I enjoyed getting to know. I felt as if our presence in the company of this river was at its pleasure; the minute it didn’t want us there any more, we would be expelled. But the river was in an indulging mood while we were there. It was powerful yet playful, dynamic yet forgiving. Like the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona, the river has miles of relative calm and continuous stunning scenery. Life moves at the river’s pace, which is deceiving, because although it may be calm and serene, a glance at the shore will show you that the boats are moving along at a good clip. We were there at the beginning of the rainy season, the equivalent of June in the northern hemisphere, and the river rose as our trip progressed. Each day we seemed to effortlessly cover more and more mileage. On December 30, for example, we floated ten kilometers in 28 minutes! An inevitable feature of all rivers at one time or another is upstream winds, and we had a few afternoons when the wind was rather fierce. But the current flowed so strongly that if we sank our oar blades into it, our rafts would be carried downstream despite the blowing gale. For me, after years of running rivers, that was a unique experience. But the Rio Marañon also has many rapids, and those rapids stand in stark and powerful contrast to its calmer sections. On other large volume rivers I have experienced, there is usually an area where most of the current concentrates to form a smooth tongue at the rapid’s entrance. While scouting a rapid, you locate that tongue and begin making your plan to negotiate the rapid based on where most of the current is going. Often, a defined wave train is present where the waves build and break downstream, one following the next. But the Rio Marañon was different. Not one of the rapids had a smooth tongue of current to orient us. Instead, we were greeted by a maelstrom of waves from bank to bank, building and breaking in every direction—from either shore and at every angle all at the same time. The goal of the scout became to find the gigantic recirculating holes, walls and other obstacles that must be avoided at all costs, and then chart a course downstream, taking the waves as they came. The running of the rapid was a chaos of crashing waves, hitting the boat from every side; the aim was to hit the biggest ones straight and brace for the others. And for me, it was all about riding the bow and high-siding every wave I could. We often stood our 16-foot raft up on end as we rode over the crest of one wave and accelerated down into the trough behind it, only to be broadsided by another wave at the bottom before riding up another wave in a different direction. What a ride!! The lack of coherent behavior of the waves was exhilarating, and I had the distinct feeling that the river was playing with us like a cat batting at a mouse. The power of the water was intense, and yet it let us go, spluttering and whooping and unscathed every time. Perhaps the river knew we were on its side, and wanted to show us its best face. I know I am being anthropomorphic, giving the river a personality and imbuing it with intention toward us, but there is something about a river that feels like a living entity, and as humans we seek to interact with and understand that life by drawing parallels between its existence and our own. Beyond the anthropomorphism, there are many characteristics of the river that defined its ‘personality’. Besides the unique character of its rapids, the river level rose and lowered several times during our two-week trip. After a few days on the river, it began to get siltier and we began to see tree trunks and other debris riding the current with us. Several times we saw sand banks along the shore give way into the current carrying entire trees with them. Several nights at camp the river rose or dropped several feet. The river became increasingly silty and gray-brown, but not sandy; there was no scratchy grit to it, just a smooth siltiness. Another feature that I can’t remember noticing elsewhere was that we could often hear rocks rolling along the bottom of the river. There was the hiss of the silt in the current, but also good sized rocks clacking into each other as they rolled along the riverbed—a fascinating sound. And then there were the eddies. As the river rose, the eddies boiled. By boiling, I’m referring to their action, not their temperature. The river was cool but not cold throughout the trip. But the eddies changed character as the river came up. As one might expect, the eddy currents swirled upstream along the shores stronger and stronger as the water level rose, and it was hard to escape their grasp once they took hold of a raft or kayak. But that was not the only way they changed. In addition to currents that ran upstream on the surface of the water, the eddies also developed vertical currents that pushed up from the river bottom, seeming to boil up in massive domes in one place, then sucking back down in whirlpools in others. Our boats danced and pirouetted along the seams of these contradictory currents
Rio Marañon #4: Buying a Paddle
Joe and the boys and I have a tradition that started on our first overseas trip as a family. That trip was to Tanzania when Ben was 11 and Ethan was 8. We spent New Year’s at the coast, just a few days after the 2004 tsunami that devastated southern Asia. The wave arrived on Tanzania as an extra high tide—a relative nonevent—just a day or two before we got there. But Ethan found a wooden paddle on the beach that had washed up with the Tsunami debris, and we brought it home with us. So began our paddle collection. We have obtained a paddle on every overseas trip since. We usually purchase the paddle from a local family. It is a win-win situation because the family gets a lot more for their paddle than they paid for it, and we get a unique paddle for our collection. We have a paddle from The Mekong River in Vietnam, Lake Titicaca in Peru, the Ecuadorian jungle, and Lake Chama in Ethiopia, in addition to our Tanzanian paddle. We usually enlist the help of our local guide in the search for the paddle. At first the reaction is one of “are you serious?!”, but then the guide really gets into the spirit and searches for the right person to buy a paddle from and convinces them to sell their paddle. There is always a good story involved. The search for a paddle on the Rio Marañon followed a similar trajectory as usual. Pedro wasn’t sure what to think at first, but once he realized we were serious, he began to see the opportunity selling a paddle would be for a poor local family. The day after Christmas, at the farm next to our campsite, was our chance. Most of our group walked up to the farm house after breakfast to meet the family. The farmer and his wife were hosting grandchildren from the city ranging in age from about three to perhaps nine or ten. They welcomed the lot of us into their small dirt-floored home, where we sat around the perimeter of the living room area while Pedro showed them videos of rafting and kayaking on the Rio Marañon, plus a video about the consequences of the dam proposals to their future. We appreciated seeing what information SierraRios was using to help the locals along the river understand what would happen to them if the dams became a reality. It was also fun to watch the children sneaking peeks at us; we were the most excitement they had seen in a while. We asked some polite questions through our various Spanish speakers, and listened to translations of how these settlers in the wilderness felt about the dams. They seemed a bit bewildered by the information they were receiving, or perhaps by the presence of so many foreign house guests. I remember the grandmother said that the idea of losing their home because of a dam was frightening. I wasn’t sure if the family really believed such a thing could happen, though. Pedro had explained to the grandfather about our quest for a paddle, and after the videos, several paddles were assembled outside the front door for us to choose from. They were the right size for us to take home on the plane (not always the case) and were clearly handmade. The man had found them washed up on his beach after flood rather than making them himself, but they were authentic: a hand-hewn shaft about four feet long with a heavy rectangular blade attached with metal brackets. It was a heavy paddle and we were impressed that the Peruvians actually used such a heavy paddle to cross the river. The man wanted to give us the paddle as a gift, but we insisted we should pay for it. We paid him 50 soles, which is roughly $15. At first he wouldn’t take it, saying it was too much, but finally he took it saying he would do it for us, not for himself. His wife then tried to give us another paddle since we had paid so much, and at our polite refusal, brought us a large bunch of bananas for our trip, which we gratefully accepted. Then the farmer showed us his water-powered mill, under the house, which he had built himself and was very proud of. It was fascinating—simple and effective—with a wooden wheel under the house that the ditch water turned to spin a shaft that came up through the floor of the grinding room to push the attached huge hand hewn stone grinding wheel around a circular trough. After that, the two oldest sons led us on a short hike through their farm. When we departed the beach just before noon, the six kids came down to the beach to see us off. We had made new friends. These lovely people were quiet and unassuming, yet generous and accepting. We had been told that in some places along the river, we might not be welcome because the locals associated rafters with the exploration crews from the dam building companies. Especially farther down river in the jungle section, rafting groups had been threatened with death if they passed through. But here at this farm, and at the other villages we visited, we were welcomed because the people knew we were sympathetic to the cause of saving their river and their homes. To raft and/or help protect the Rio Marañon, contact SierraRios at www.sierrarios.org Read more entries in our ten-part series about the Rio Marañon.
Rio Marañon Post #3: Christmas Day
Our trip on the Rio Marañon was over Christmas break so that our college student kids could join us. December is the equivalent of June in Peru, so the summer rains were due to begin and the river was due to rise. We began our trip on December 22, and the days leading up to Christmas were wonderful. The canyon was deep and stark, with many-armed cactuses the size of trees dotting the hillsides, and tortured geologic folds in the mountain terrain laid out for our inspection. Beyond the innermost canyon, we could see views of towering mountains dressed in clouds and deep greens and blues. The map showed several places where the canyon was 3000 meters (10,000 feet) deep. The canyon walls were steep, and the current swift, a function of the still-growing Andes through which it cut. Flocks of small green parrots jabbered overhead and argued from the trees. Much of the time it was cloudy, but when the equatorial sun broke through it was instantly almost too hot. Ours were the only rafts on the river, and each night we camped on a huge deserted sandy beach. Christmas eve we camped at a long beach just above a major rapid called Llanten. We shared a succulent meal of steak and salmon presented with special flair by Joe, Will, and Chris. We set up a Christmas tree using a tripod of paddles from the paddle boat, and wrapped multi-colored garland I had brought around it. Steve had some battery-powered Christmas lights that he donated to the effort. Jane brought out small gift bags for everyone that contained chocolate and other fun trinkets. We brought Santa or Elf hats for everyone, and we all wore them to dinner. The mood was festive and fun. After dinner we went around the circle and everyone told about the Christmas traditions they grew up with. We felt close and warm on this special night—day three on the Rio Marañon. Christmas day was later voted one of the biggest highlights of the trip by many. We rose early, as we always did, just before dawn. We felt, as a group, that it was good to make the most of the cool morning, and to rig and get on the river before it got too hot. The majority of our group were river guides, so it was a natural routine. The only ones not thrilled with this plan were our Peruvian guides, Pedro and Freddy, but they went along with it without open complaint. After breakfast, we had a white elephant gift exchange. Each in the group had purchased a small gift in Peru costing no more than five US dollars and wrapped it. We put our gifts under the tree (plus two gifts brought from the US for Pedro and Freddy). Then we went around the circle. The first person took a gift from beneath the tree and opened it. The second person could choose another gift from under the tree or could steal the first person’s gift. If the second person stole the first person’s gift, the first person had to get another one from under the tree. We went around the circle this way, either choosing a gift from under the tree or stealing someone else’s until everyone had a gift. Each gift could only be stolen twice. We had a blast. People had been encouraged to purchase silly, entertaining or unique gifts. There was lots of stealing and laughter, and when it was all done, everyone had a souvenir from Peru. Pedro and Freddy had a good river knife and a rafting logo ball cap. All were happy. Next on the agenda was the best hike of the trip, up the wash that formed Llanten rapid. The wash became a narrow canyon, almost a slot, with sheer walls that left a strip of blue sky visible far above. A waterfall marked the end of the trek, where several showered and played in the water. Additional highlights included a large fresh water crab and a flock of green parrots with pink crests on their heads. After the hike we scouted Llanten rapid. It was the biggest rapid we had seen so far. And that was saying something. The river had been rising, and the waves were huge—some taller than the length of our 18 foot rafts. I was fascinated by the character of the river. My experience with large volume rivers was that there was usually a smooth tongue somewhere in the rapid where most of the current flowed. But not on the Rio Marañon. There was no tongue at all. No defined wave train either. Waves were everywhere from bank to bank, building and breaking in different directions, not just downstream. So the object was to miss the huge flipping holes, and try to hit the waves as straight as you could. For me the most nerve-wracking time is preparing to run a rapid. Once we have pushed off from the shore and are committed to running it, the pressure eases for me. I rode the bow in Joe’s green boat. I love to ride the bow. I stand at the very front of the boat and hold onto the grab lines, then I lean into every wave, letting them break over my head, pushing the front of the boat down. The waves came left right and center, and we came through in fine form, as did all the other boats. We were all soaked and laughing in the tail waves. What a thrill! But Llanten wasn’t the only rapid on that magical Christmas day. Samosierra was a series of rapids that stretched over six kilometers! The first in the series was the biggest, and the current pushed into a wall at the bottom. Joe and I managed to catch the eddy on the right side and avoid the wall, as did Ethan in the orange boat, and the paddle boat. But Dude, rowing the blue raft, did not
Rio Marañon #2: Near Disaster at the Start
Rigging with unfamiliar equipment takes a while. But 12 out of 13 of our group are experienced rafters, so we’ve got this. The folks who rode to the put-in with the gear truck already had the boats blown up and the gear unloaded when the rest of us arrived from the airport. So we all jumped in and finished the work in a matter of a few hours. It was warm on the open rocky beach, but cloudy, so the temperature was very tolerable. We decided to assign boats to people for the trip so that everyone would be responsible for rigging a particular boat each day. Joe and I took the green boat, because our Colorado rafting company has green boats. Our sons, Ben and Ethan took the orange boat, Glenn, Jane and Larry took the yellow boat, Steve and his girlfriend Rachel took the red cataraft, Hal and Dude took the blue boat, and Glenn volunteered to rig the blue paddle boat. Will and Chris, who would kayak, jumped in and helped where needed. Steve and Chris already had dysentery from something they ate or drank in Trujillo, and both were clearly feeling very poorly. Joe and I felt glad that Glenn was at least somewhat familiar with catarafts and could help Steve rig. We didn’t request a cataraft for the trip and were a bit surprised that we were given one by the outfitter, SierraRios. Anyway, rigging went fairly smoothly, and shortly after lunch we were loaded and ready to launch. This was a special group of old and new friends from all corners of the U.S., plus our two Peruvian kayaker guides, Pedro and Freddy, who we already could tell were going to be excellent. Pedro had somewhere around 15 Rio Marañon trips under his belt and knew the river, its issues and its people well. He also spoke English well and was a very likeable person. Freddy was an expert kayaker, but only 18 years old, with no English at all. But our group had four fluent Spanish speakers, Ben, Will, Larry, and Rachel. Ben, Will and Ethan, our youngest group members at 22, 20, and 19, bonded quickly with Freddy, and he worked his way into the rest of our hearts in short order. It was a momentous thing to launch our outfitted private trip on the Rio Marañon. This wasn’t just any trip—this was the primary source of the Amazon River! In Peru! In the wilderness! We all had silly grins plastered on our faces, and felt giddy with the excitement of it. We were about to become a floating community, together for better or for worse for two entire weeks. As we pushed the boats off from the shore, we merged with the river in a physical and an emotional way. So began the trip of a lifetime!! I had chosen to start off in the paddle boat. It felt good to pull my paddle through the silty gray-brown water in concert with the others. We launched last, after the cataraft, knowing we would float faster than the oar boats and catch up quickly. The breeze in our faces, the strong current carrying us…perfect… Suddenly a rafter’s whistle cut shrilly through the air. A whistle? We’d only been on the river for less than a minute—what, somebody fell out? Tree across the river? We looked around frantically for the source of the whistle. It was the cataraft. Steve was blowing his whistle insistently. He was sinking! The cataraft was sinking! Steve is tall and very strong. At another time it might have been comical to see him waist deep in the river with his Tully-hatted head bobbing well below the handles of the oars. But in this case, it was a true emergency. His boat was falling apart and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He was carrying all the safety, first aid and repair gear, as well as two huge coolers full of food and several river bags full of personal gear. The group sprang into action. Our paddle crew paddled hard toward him, but he was floating downstream fast, his boat sunk deep in the current. We could see him struggling bravely to try to control the floundering craft, but with little success. To compound his troubles, a rapid was coming up fast. The rapid was along the right side of the river on a left-hand bend. The current pushed into the shore. Steve was helpless. Slowly we were gaining on him in the paddle boat, but not fast enough. Joe, in the green raft, was downstream of Steve’s cataraft. He slowed down and positioned himself between Steve and the shore as the current accelerated into the rapid. Joe pulled away from the shore directly in front of the cataraft, so that the sinking red craft ran into Joe’s stern, and he was able to hold the cataraft off the shore. After the rapid, which was relatively small by big volume river standards, Pedro climbed aboard Joe’s raft, pulled his kayak on board after him and caught a rope thrown by Rachel from Steve’s boat. With Joe rowing frantically, they attempted to pull the cataraft into the eddy on the left side of the river. Our paddle boat caught up to the scene just at the end of the rapid and paddled hard into the cataraft, pushing it toward the eddy as Pedro and Joe pulled. The other boats had eddied out and members of the group ran upstream to help catch Joe’s boat and the cataraft. In probably five minutes, it was over, and the boats were safely ashore, but it was a close call. Our adrenaline was pumping, and we all immediately jumped in to figure out what had happened and to fix the cataraft. What had happened was a silly mistake, which is all it takes to cause disaster on a river trip. While rigging the boats at the put-in, group members had
Rio Marañon #1: The Plane Ride to the Put-in at Chagual
It was still dark when the alarm began to buzz. But I was already awake. My excitement for the day ahead had make it hard to sleep. I jumped out of bed and was dressed in minutes. Joe knocked on the boys’ door, next to ours in the Hostel Colonial in Trujillo, Peru, and they were already up, too: our two boys, Ben and Ethan, joining us for their winter break from college, and their college friend, Will. It wasn’t long until we were climbing into our pre-arranged taxi outside the hostel, and driving through the dark to the Trujillo airport. When we arrived, we were the first ones there—even before the airport workers! Ah, well. Better than being late.We set up camp on the few chairs along the hallway, next to the ticket counter for domestic flights, which consisted of two airlines. Larry, a trauma surgeon and river rafter in his sixties arrived a few minutes later. He had been struggling to get to Peru for nearly a week, fighting cancelled flights and lost luggage due to a LAN airlines strike. Another member of our group, Glenn, had also lost his luggage because of the LAN strike. Glenn, Jane, Chris, and Hal had gone to the river put-in by truck yesterday with our Peruvian guides, Pedro and Freddy, to begin the rigging for the trip. Glenn had pieced together enough borrowed gear to get by for our 14-day trip, but it had been a big distraction and stressor for him. Larry, fortunately, had received Glenn’s luggage at his hostel at 1:00am the night before, so we celebrated how happy Glenn was going to be when we arrived at the put in with his gear. Less fortunate was Larry himself, whose luggage was now lost, as well. Soon the other three members of our group, Steve, Rachel and The Dude, arrived at the airport, and after hugs and greetings, we got in line at the ticket counter. SierraRios had arranged our flight to Chagual, near the put in for the Grand Canyon section of the Rio Marañon. The original plan was for our group of nine to fly in together on the first flight of the morning. But by the time we realized we needed to get in line at the ticket counter, there were already five local people in line ahead of us. As a result, we had to split our group into two flights. We four Greiners took the first flight with half of Glenn’s luggage, and the other five would take the second flight one hour later with the rest of Glenn’s gear.The plane took off smoothly into the morning coastal clouds, which we broke through in short order, and then we banked toward the Andes, which towered to the east. The little plane was as full as it could be and labored higher and higher as the mountains loomed close. We cleared the first range with at least a thousand feet to spare, and climbed for about another 10-15 minutes as we soared over range after range, many mostly obscured by clouds. Jagged peaks poked out of cottony cloud banks in the distance. Shades of blue and gray and white and shadow surrounded us, with occasional green and brown when the sun managed to reach through the clouds to the ground. And then the descent began. The clouds loomed closer and closer and then we were inside them. All those mountains all around but we couldn’t see a thing! I fervently hoped the pilot had a very good sense of where he was. A few tense moments later, we broke through the clouds and got our first view of the Rio Marañon, stretching out below. We were already in the canyon, still high, but dropping steadily. The little plane floated smoothly, not a bobble. But my heart pounded. In the next few minutes our little plane would execute what was reported to be one of the most dangerous approaches and landings in the world. Gulp. And yet, my heart soared, too. It was beautiful. Stark, desert beauty, for there is no jungle this far up the river drainage. Steep brown and blue-green slopes and crags surrounded a wide brown river dotted by large sand bars. We dropped still more. Then the plane banked into a smooth, wide turn, straight toward a sloping mountain. We soared close over the top of it, still banking until 360 degrees had been achieved, then leveling out. We could feel the engine slowing still more…and then the decisive drop toward the runway, which had just magically appeared in front of us—right in front of us. Mountains to either side, cross the river, and there began the impossibly short runway. And yet, the pilot brought the plane down smoothly, with barely a bump, and slowed to a serene stop before the embankment that signaled the runway’s end. Wow! What a thrill, and yet, what a gorgeous trip. And here we were, at the river. We had been warned about the no-see-um gnats in this river canyon: that we wouldn’t feel them biting, but we would get red welts. Being particularly susceptible to swelling and itching from such bites, I made sure I was covered from head to foot with permethrin (insect repellent)-coated clothing, including socks, gloves and bandana. The others sprayed themselves with DEET within minutes of our exit from the plane. We hung out by the tarmac for a few minutes. The temperature was pleasant and a thin layer of cloud helped keep the equatorial sun from feeling too hot. A few minutes later a black pickup truck pulled up and the driver said he was our ride to the put-in. Never mind that we had never seen the man before and that we were in the middle of nowhere. We clambered aboard and he drove us up a dirt road for a couple of miles, where the river and a colorful array of boats and river gear lay splayed
Hidden Jewel: Rafting Peru’s Rio Marañon, the Primary Source of the Amazon
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920280751{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]This 10-part series documents a two week trip down the Rio Marañon that Wilderness Aware’s owners, Joe and Sue Greiner, their two sons, and nine friends took from December 22, 2015 through January 4, 2016. The Rio Marañon is the primary source by volume of the mighty Amazon River. It starts high in the Peruvian Andes and flows down through a desert canyon that has been dubbed by river enthusiasts “The Grand Canyon of the Marañon”. It is the longest free-flowing river in the world. However, 20 proposed dam projects may destroy this amazing river, its ecosystems, and would displace the Peruvian villagers who have long called its shores home. Written by Sue Greiner, this blog series documents our trip, and shines a light on this spectacular river in the hopes of raising awareness about the Rio Marañon so that it can be saved for Peru and the world. Join our adventure of a lifetime by following our blog series, which will post every week from March through mid-May, 2016. To raft and/or help protect the Rio Marañon, contact SierraRios at sierrarios.org.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920862337{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #1: The Plane Ride to the Put-in at Chagual It was still dark when the alarm began to buzz. But I was already awake. My excite… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516921764590{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #2: Near Disaster at the Start Rigging with unfamiliar equipment takes a while. But 12 out of 13 of our group… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516922254962{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #3: Christmas Day Our trip on the Rio Marañon was over Christmas break so that our college student kids… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920923605{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #4: Buying a Paddle Joe and the boys and I have a tradition that started on our first overseas trip as a family… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920938470{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #5: Rapids and Eddies A truly free flowing river has a unique character. Those of us from the United States… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920956968{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #6: Tupén Grande We had spent the first half of the day blasting through huge standing waves in rapid after rapid… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920975209{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #7: The Pachamanca We hiked from our camp on the beach back to the village at Tupén Grande for the evening… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516920988946{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #8: Pools and Waterfalls The river was coming up again. The morning we left Tupén Grande the water… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516921007835{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #9: The Jungle and Tutumberos January 1, 2016 was our last day in the Grand Canyon of the Marañon. The original plan was… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516921047301{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”] Rio Marañon #10: Dams and Regrets Mid-morning on New Year’s Day, we arrived at Amazon Cavern, which is reminiscent of… [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
