Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 31, 1991 TAG: 9103310289
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SU CLAUSON/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: MALDONADO, PERU LENGTH: Long
"But we're in the jungle," I protested groggily to my tentmate. Then, as I heard water lapping against canvas, I knew our worst fears had been realized. The thread of beach on which we were camped was being devoured by Peru's rising Tambopata River. Our only choice was to bushwhack up the cliff and wait out the surging waters, probably for days.
We struggled into the clammy clothes we had been wearing for days and sloshed over to the cook tent to join our expedition in cold, dejected silence. The only sound over the roar of river was that of the guides' machetes hacking into the jungle.
"This is adventure travel," someone commented.
We had been warned. Back in the Juliacca hotel where we had assembled for the river trek, guide Tony Ugarte alluded to the nature of this trip. "The Tambopata is very crazy and very unpredictable. Something different happens on each trip." Hazards included snakes; "The most deadly ones sleep like logs at the bottom of the river. If something happens, we have no refrigerated medicine, no communication - all we can do is put you in the small raft and paddle like hell for three days. By then it is too late," he said.
Ugarte, a slight, gaunt man of 39 whose glowing eyes gave us our first hint of his spiritual and physical strength, had logged more than 20 years exploring South American rivers and was one of the first to run the Tambopata in 1979. The river has been traveled only 15 times since, and our tour operator, CanoAndes, is one of only two commercial companies operating there.
To reach our southeastern Peruvian put-in, we skipped through the Andes to acclimate ourselves to progressively higher altitudes, paying exorbitant tourist airport-use taxes even on days our recycled Aeroperu Boeing 707s remained hospitalized in Lima.
At Juliacca, an Andean Indian village at 12,000 feet, we were still feeling light and dizzy - mild symptoms of altitude sickness - when Ugarte told us we would be leaving at 1:30 a.m. to bounce over the mountain trails in a fruit truck for the next two days.
He wanted to regain some lost time, he said, but we wondered if the strange itinerary had anything to do with the fact we were traveling through terrorist territory. Founded 10 years ago by a Marxist university professor, the Sendero Luminoso or "Shining Path" has claimed 18,000 lives in almost every corner of the country. Though southeastern Peru is considered relatively safe, the guerrillas had killed the mayor of a nearby village three years ago.
The 12 of us climbed into the truck and attempted to sleep atop deflated rafts, life jackets and bags of rice as we jolted over the first ridge. Ahead of us was a 40-hour drive to the put-in over a single-lane dirt road with ruts deep enough to bury a family.
Clinging to boards laid across the truck top, I meditated on death. On some of the hairpin turns, where our top-heavy truck teetered over 1,500-foot cliffs, white crosses marked the graves of less fortunate drivers. Five tires ruptured as we crossed the 15,000-foot plateau, past a glacier and grazing llamas. Chewing cocoa leaves to relieve our altitude sickness and swaying to Andean flute music piped up from the cab, we enjoyed spectacular views.
The Tambopata, meaning "Resting Place," starts high in the eastern Andes before joining the Madre de Dios in the village of Puerto Maldonado and eventually merging with the Amazon in Brazil.
We left our passport numbers with armed guards in each jungle village we passed in our retreat from civilization. In some, banners draped the street proclaiming, "Alberto Fujimori . . . Down with Exploiters." Fujimori, a left-wing Japanese immigrant, had just defeated novelist Mario Vargas in a hotly contested election, and now has the task of curbing Peru's 2 million percent inflation rate, the world's highest. When I arrived in June 1990, the exchange rate had escalated to 60,000 intis per dollar. By the time we got off the river two weeks later, the rate had jumped to 120,000 intis per dollar.
But in the jungle our money could buy little more than fruit and Inca cola, a bottled soft drink made from cocoa leaves. The road ended in San Ignatio, where hundreds of children sprinted along beside the first Caucasians they'd seen in a year. In fact the whole village came down to the put-in to gawk at men who cook and women who wear pants.
It was raining lightly when we pushed off the next day, a phenomenon that delighted our guides and the Colorado faction of the group. The U.S. river rats, professional guides on the Colorado, whooped about "big water" and "sweet holes," but my tentmate, Carol, who couldn't swim, hoped for a drought.
We took the river in five rafts plus a kayak for scouting. We hit the first big rapid - the Ant's Nest - in a couple of hours. When Ugarte first scouted the spot, ants had parachuted from the trees, covering several people from head to waist. Ants and trees team up in the jungle. One species, the Tungarhana, even produces a sugary sap designed to lure in ants, who will kill any competitor growing within 6 feet.
Even without the insect distractions, Ants Nest proved to be a challenge. Halfway through the channel, the front raft hung up on a rock and we slammed it broadside, knocking out one of the Virginia contingent. He swirled through the angry water for a moment that seemed like an eternity, until his guide grabbed his vest and dragged him behind the raft, still paddling madly. Another Virginia comrade fell out, gashing his forehead against a rock. Blood spouted down his face, but his pupils remained symmetrical.
These rapids required more technical maneuvering and more respect than those of the New River. Ant's Nest, for instance, was Ugarte's idea of a class III rapid, but seemed equivalent to West Virginia's Keeneys, which are classified a IV or V, depending on water levels. We were to drop 5,600 feet in the next 120 miles.
On the second day, Ugarte told us we would see no more gold prospectors or nomadic fishermen - only animals. So far we had spotted herons, eagles, condors and monkeys. Near our third campsite were the unmistakable prints of a jaguar following those of a tapir, a small piglike member of the elephant family. Sniffing the air, one of the guides noted the scent of the jaguar's urine was still fresh.
On the third day we confronted a class IV rapid where none existed on Ugarte's last trip. We skirted a huge, sucking hole that threatened to pull us to the bottom and were congratulated with a pounding from a 7-foot standing wave.
At night, we camped tent to tent on a narrow sandbar and celebrated our victory over the Monster rapid with linguine and a bottle of Cien Fuegos ("100 Fires"). While we were passing around stories, including one about a group that had to live three days on bananas, a guide went down to check on the rafts. He explained that if water condenses on the boats between 6 and 9 p.m., it's not likely to rain because most of the moisture is down at a lower level instead of up high in the clouds. That night the boats were bone dry.
The downpour started at 10 p.m. When we put in the next day, the river's technical pool-drop rapids were lumped together in one continual surge. Ugarte looked uneasy, realizing that ahead of us lurked Monster II, a Class V drop even at lower levels.
We skipped lunch, snacking on waxy Peruvian chocolate while we paddled. The rain persisted. No one cheered anymore when we came through the big ones. We all were grim, tense, doing a job. In three sets of rapids, we had five swimmers - a euphemism for those who fall out. Luckily, they were picked up before they took in too much water. The river's color went from champagne to deep chocolate.
At 5:30 p.m., the equatorial jungle was almost dark, and most of the beaches had been consumed by rising waters. We found a small strip left just above the second monster.
"I guess this will have to do," said Ugarte, concern obvious in his voice. "We'll just have to set up a watch all night."
The river had risen another 4 feet when the cry came at 3 a.m. Water was seeping under our tents, and in only a few hours the entire beach would be lost.
We waited for two days in wet, dirty tents in damp sleeping bags, coiling up four to a unit for warmth. Wet wood had to be whittled down to a small dry core before it would burn. The river rose almost 13 vertical feet. It became a wall of water tearing away at the banks, sometimes with trees in tow. There were no beaches, no eddies, no way for anyone to get ashore. Ugarte said the whole course was a class V.
On the third day the river had dropped enough for us to continue our journey. The rapids were constant now, with large holes where only ripples had been a few days before. Weak with dysentery, I thought only of the moment and paddled with all I had. Shivering from soakings by 12-foot waves, we sailed through two Peruvian class V rapids without incident.
Within two days, we arrived at the Class II flats and, after several grueling, 12-hour paddling marathons, we emerged from the Tambopata hairier, thinner and tougher. Somewhere on that long rebirth canal of a river, the 12 separate individuals who went in had become a "we," a united group.
by CNB