Near Disaster in el Cañon del Colca

I have quite a yarn to spin this time. There are times when events let us know that no matter how prepared we are or what precautions we take, we are still at the mercy of chance and that when things start snowballing we have no choice but to ride them out and hope for the best. Our most recent trek into el Cañon del Colca, one of the deepest canyons in the world, reminded us of this in spades.

We were also reminded of the love we have for the people in South America. Once in a while we have gotten jaded by the tourist traps and the hard sell or by the stories of robberies and kidnappings and what not (never someone we know, always a third or fourth-hand story). But then we encounter people like the ones on this trip, we again become overwhelmed with gratitude at their kindness. But let me begin, as they say, at the beginning.

We left Arequipa after midnight on an overnight bus to Cabanaconde. It was a fairly uncomfortable ride and soon the bus was absolutely jammed with people and the aisles full. One woman even had a bag full of cheeping birds. It was an odd scene every time my eyes opened to see so many people hanging on to the overhead luggage compartments as the bus hurtled down a winding mountain road. Despite the discomfort, it was fun to be on a local bus and not riding the Gringo Express.

We arrived in Cabanaconde around 7 am and after breakfast started the long hike down into the canyon, past terraced fields and down steep, rocky, cactus covered walls to the gorgeous river at the bottom where we spent our first night.





The following day we started early because, unlike Patagonia where days are 16 or 17 hours long, the sun here sets early and quickly (before 6 pm). We had a long walk up and then a traverse around the northern canyon walls before heading into a new canyon and up to the small town of Choco where we bought a drink and José, hanging around outside the store, invited us into a little stone house for avocado sandwiches, apples, and a pleasant conversation out of the sun. We continued following the river up the canyon, stopping to talk with a sweet 12-year-old named Doris. We walked on past the local form of political advertising, potential mayors' names spraypainted on rocks, until it started to get late and we found a flat space to camp for the night.






In the night I awoke with steadily growing stomach pains that by morning felt like someone had released a couple of rabid weasels in there to fight it out. Without delving into the gory details, let me just say that I was granted all the nasty symptoms an intestinal disturbance can offer along with a slight fever and chills. Luckily I had some Cipro which seemed to help a bit and Hilary read to me from Jeeves in the Offing, which calmed my writhing. By the afternoon I felt well enough to trudge up the canyon for a couple hours before camping again.








In the morning I was shaky and didn't feel much like eating but was well enough to continue. We headed up canyon to Miña where everyone smiled and waved as we passed through. Then we went up and up and up over the next two days. From the bottom of the canyon we had to climb about 11,000 feet to a pass 5100 meters high (over 16,700 feet), by far the highest we have ever been backpacking. Perhaps because of our exhaustion, Hilary slipped and badly hurt her ankle (now we know she has a small fracture in her fibula), making it very difficult for her to walk. It took several hours but we managed to get her down from the steep rocky pass to a beautiful pasture on a small river to camp before dark.








In the morning, Hilary was still unable to walk without severe pain, so I tearfully packed up a bag and started down the trail to try to find help, knowing of only one sure town a long day's walk a way. I hated to leave Hilary, especially for what I thought might be a couple days, and was having unhelpful flashbacks of the English Patient playing in my head as I crested a ridge an hour on to see far below tiny specks of orange and hear the far off sound of a cement mixer. When I finally got down to the them, I found a large work crew building an aqueduct.




I don't know if you have ever approached a large construction crew to ask for help before, but let me tell you it is a fairly daunting task, especially if the language in which you need to transact business is as limited as mine (despite what my father might say). Luckily as I approached a man with a big smile yelled out, "Hola, Bienvenidos, Gringo!" which broke the ice and allowed me to approach the jefe with a less worried smile on my face. Calming me further, was the demeanor and the amazingly gentle eyes of the jefe (named Cesar, we discovered later). If I ever have to do brutally hard manual labor above 15,000 ft, I hope I have a boss like him.

After a little confusion (when he asked me where Hilary was, I helpfully told him we were from the U.S.) and some time cooling my heels while they finished pouring cement, four workers started a flurry of wood and nails and hammers. The next thing I knew I was marching back over the ridge with these four guys carrying a preposterous looking wooden stretcher, scrambling to keep up in the thin air.

I was back with Hilary in about three hours. I packed up the remaining stuff and installed Hilary on the stretcher. Again I struggled to keep up as these amazingly strong guys carried her back up the trail. We stopped often and got to know the guys. Feliciano was older, 50-years-old, and had the calm engaging manner of real wisdom. The other guys, Miguel, Edison, and Poysis were in their early twenties, kind and amusing. We stopped a few times to rest and talk and their easy manner and friendliness eased my frazzled nerves. Unfortunately at one point the jury-rigged contraption snapped at a handle and Hilary went tumbling to the ground earning herself a sore shoulder and a shiner on top of her leg pain. We weren't too keen on putting her back on the stretcher after they put it back together with wire, string, and a sweater, but what choice did we really have? Feliciano instructed us to put dust from the road in our pockets and taught me to shout, "Vamos Hilary!" each time they lifted her up. He claimed these actions would insure her safety and bring us good luck in the future. I don't put much truck in superstitions in general, put I have to admit that having a ritual to perform, however absurd, helped us feel like we were playing some active part in events that were, in reality, entirely out of our control.



Finally we reached the worksite and I collected my backpack and the workers transferred Hilary to a wheelbarrow for the final leg of our journey down to the corrugated tin shack where the workers stayed. I gave each of the load-bearers a hundred Soles (about $30) which appeared to be an awful lot to them (imagine how much a rescue effort like this would cost in the States?). In fact I had the distinct feeling that they didn't expect anything. I think they just figured bailing hapless gringos out of their mountains was all part of a day's work.



We lay around outside the shack, exhausted, while the workers returned and played futból or split wood or some other active thing, laughing and joking as if they hadn't just worked extremely hard all day. Every so often one would come over and talk to us. Here I have to apologize. I wish I had pictures of these guys. I wish you could see the dignity of their faces, the kindness of their eyes, the humor of their smiles. I wish you could see the kind worry on Balthazar's face as he rushed to help Hilary when she started crying from twisting her foot the wrong way. Or the face of an older man whose name I didn't get, his ear-flaps sticking out at the sides and eyes of such stunning kindness and wisdom that it made me want to weep. People don't much like to have their picture taken here. I have heard it said that people believe cameras can steal their soul. I'm not sure about that. I think it is more likely that they don't like having their open friendliness repaid with a camera stuck in their face. I don't blame them. As much as I wish I had pictures of the workers' beautiful faces, I am even happier to have had a chance to talk with them.

As the sun was setting, it started to get bitterly cold. I set up the tent but Cesar invited us in gave us beds in a small room by ourselves (I am pretty sure one of the beds was his own). We rested for a while until around 11 pm when a four-wheel drive truck pulled up and a doctor named Jaime came and examined Hilary. He re-wrapped her leg and loaded us into the truck for the long twisting ride down to Chachas. All the while I was worrying, "How much is this going to cost us?" We only had a certain amount of money because there was no ATM until we returned to Arequipa. Jaime gave her a shot and put us to sleep in a bunk house in Chachas. The next day he returned with some medicine and to check on her. Finally he returned once more to take down her information and ask shyly for payment of twelve soles (about $4). Amazing. We made a donation to his clinic.

That morning I walked around Chachas and talked with a few interesting characters including one who held my hand throughout our conversation and hugged me goodbye. In the afternoon we took a small bus piled high with potatoes and melons and corn and full of a photographer's dream of faces (sorry again) to Andagua where we caught a bus for Arequipa. As the sun was setting over the otherworldly high country, the bus whipping around tight corners on the dirt road, and a video of Peruvian big bands blowing in rhythm on the TV, I thought about Jaime, Feliciano, Poysis, Edison, Miguel, Cesar, Balthazar, and the man with his ear-flaps askew. Whenever I feel hard-done-by or put-upon I hope I will remember those guys. People who work so hard, expect little, have smiles as big as the Andean sky, and live without knowing it as quiet heroes.