Walking the Amazon: 860 Days. The Impossible Task. The Incredible Journey

by Stafford, Ed

  I’ve not got a phobia about heights but when we reached the ridge and I looked over at the sheer drop below I froze with the camera in my hand – terrified. It was an incredible rush of fright that I had to manage and smile through, mocking my own alarm, to be able to move on up the razor-sharp ridge.

  Taking it in turns to kick steps up front, Luke and I led the four-man party up the ridge line to the highest summit on the range – Nevado Mismi – and, despite the previous niggles, as we crested the final part to 5,600 metres just before noon, we all hugged each other in sheer elation.

  As a non-mountaineer just the experience of reaching the summit blew me away. Combined with the thought that from here on in we would be walking down the longest course of the Amazon River, living like nomads, carrying what we needed, and living off our wits for up to two years, I felt as if I was the luckiest man on earth. I felt so happy that we had got to this stage and at that point I could distinctly visualise completing the whole journey. I could see us running, bedraggled, into the Atlantic Ocean – the elation of that accomplishment was already there deep in my soul and I knew I would not stop until the job was finished.

  Luke was even more overjoyed that he had mobile phone reception and phoned Katie. I felt very conscious that I didn’t have anyone I wanted to call, considered whether it bothered me, then grinned to myself, happy to be free to live the next two years exactly as I wanted.

  Chapter Three

  Descending the Deepest Canyon

  in the World

  ALTHOUGH WALKING THE Amazon sounds as if it should be a piranha-, snake- and jaguar-filled Boy’s Own escapade, after 200 kilometres we were nowhere close to jungle or even what is known as the Amazon River. Crossing the Andes mountain range was more like an adventure trekking holiday – but we still had to do it if we were to accomplish our mission.

  From our base camp on the northern slopes of Nevado Mismi, Feliciano set off back to his home in Lari with his tyre sandals and his donkeys. Luke, Oz and I set off in the other direction following the Carhuasanta Valley. The land was so barren and open it reminded me of a vast version of the English Peak District. The high expanse is boggy in places and because of the heavy packs the walking wasn’t easy despite the flat terrain. Trees cannot grow at this altitude and we were descending only a few metres each day as we followed the snaking stream over the flat plains.

  One afternoon, 28 April, I can remember becoming annoyed with Oz as he was being cocky about not being tired and I was struggling badly that day. The thing that wound me up was that I was carrying his food (for a reason I can’t remember) and so when we stopped for a break I remember dumping my pack, pulling out Oz’s food and shoving it at him quite abruptly. I couldn’t work out at the time why this had got to me but the evening’s diary shows what was really on my mind.

  Diary entry from 28 April 2008:

  Today I allowed myself to think negative thoughts about Luke. It was very counterproductive because if he was a poor choice of partner for me, I could only lay the blame on myself as I chose him. I became angry at myself, but he is half of Walking the Amazon and the sooner I focus on making the best of the situation and stop wasting energy being angry at him the better. I know I am strong enough to make the exped work with Luke – I just have to be positive and not get annoyed by him. He is – as I have always said – a good person.

  On the next day Luke seemed tired. Oz suggested a route (that Luke agreed to) through a field that ended up being very boggy indeed. Oz and I came out the other side laughing at the state of our boots and trousers – it was a sunny day and having wet feet didn’t matter. Luke followed scowling and swore at Oz. It was the first time Luke had behaved like this towards Oz. ‘Steady on, Luke,’ I stepped in, pointing out the triviality of wet feet on a sunny day.

  We climbed over a small wall and on to a dusty track. I was in front and turned to see Luke and Oz arguing over who should walk at the back. It was so petty that I have to admit I laughed out loud at them both. Luke flipped. ‘How dare you laugh at me in front of Oswaldo!’ His livid eyes spoke louder than his words and so I just turned and continued walking without replying.

  Soon after, we took a break at the top of a hill and I told Luke that I thought he shouldn’t take his frustrations out on Oz.

  ‘Look, Luke – I did it yesterday to a lesser extent – I’m not just blaming you – but we can’t let being tired turn into treating each other badly. Perhaps laughing at each other is a good way to stop us behaving like idiots.’ Luke still thought I could be more supportive and so after an hour or so’s further walking I apologised to him for laughing at him in front of Oz.

  I was bored with arguing with Luke. It was happening more and more and we were both becoming more sensitive and touchy. Banter had disappeared from our group. As Luke seemed very tired, when he suggested buying two donkeys on 30 April I grudgingly agreed. It was half his expedition after all – and we could still say that we had walked the entire length of the Amazon – but I would have liked the expedition not to have been assisted by donkeys. I conceded to make the peace.

  On 1 May, after parting with £40 per beast, we collected this aging pair from an old farmer. They had not worked for a year and the method of stopping them running off had been to tie their back two legs together. Once they were released, Oz, who had kept donkeys, tried to attach a rope halter but they saw their opportunity and bolted. We all chased them for several fields until they were eventually caught and could be put on leads. The donkeys were fairly wild but Oz was up to the challenge of training them and seemed quite happy with his new responsibility.

  I had to admit that the donkeys would reduce the physical exertion and we would sell them when we got to the jungle. That first day we didn’t get far as I had been feeling ill and so we made camp early. After a sleep in the afternoon I woke to find that it was a nice evening and Luke and I had a walk up a hill and sat on some rocks for a chat.

  Luke told me he was still hurt by my previous lack of support and so I decided to be completely honest with him. I told him about my frustrations at his not speaking the languages and how he was slowing us down. In my view it was all true but it was the first time I’d let him know how I truly felt. As I saw it, we had almost two years ahead of us and if this relationship was going to work we had to be honest with each other or we stood no chance. It felt good that he knew how I felt. A harsh truth or not, he now knew where he stood and seemed to accept it well.

  The air seemed to be cleared after this talk and we all relaxed, ate a great supper of soya meat and powdered potato and practised Spanish and English with Oz. Things appeared to be on the up.

  The following day we walked across a huge, flat expanse and then turned right into the small Apurímac Valley for the first time. The River Apurímac marked the starting point of a network of rivers we had to follow to reach what is actually called the Amazon. After the Apurímac came the River Ene, followed by the River Tambo, followed by the Ucayali, which runs into the Amazon proper. The river was narrow and meandering in a steep valley that might have been in Wales, with scattered rocky outcrops. Heads rose and chatter resumed as the beautiful scenery lifted everyone after a week of desolate plains. In the evening the sunset warmed the vast golden columns of fragmented rock that stood tall and proud above the handsome river valley. The area had been eroded by water creeping into the cracks in the rocks in the day and then freezing at night, forcing them apart. The result was a shattered wasteland of jagged tombstones the size of skyscrapers.

  Diary entry from 4 May 2008:

  Today was arguably the best day’s walking so far. Not the most exciting nor interesting but enjoyable and hassle-free with spectacular scenery in the Apurímac Valley. We swam at lunchtime and even had a snooze on the shingle beach whilst digesting lunch.

  As the valley deepened and started to become more like a canyon, the route was increasingly difficult for the donkeys. Paths were either too steep or too narrow for them to pass through and we were
forced up and out of the valley on to the flatter expanses on either side.

  Sometimes roads went in our direction down these canyon tops and so we followed them. Often we walked over vast expanses of wild grassland with sheep, guanacos and llamas grazing.

  On 11 May we arrived in the Quechuan town of Quehue at the end of a long day of walking 25 kilometres. It was market day and the main plaza was full of men in Stetsons and women in multicoloured dresses and brown bowler hats. Oz told me that the traditional dresses and hats worn by the Quechua women were a legacy of the Spanish rule where each landowner would have a particular style for his workers so that he could tell them apart from other workers. It seemed strange to me that this national dress, one so celebrated, was in fact an enforced peasant uniform.

  Quehue had an odd feel about it and as we walked through the plaza we were hassled more than usual. Beggars pulled at our packs asking for money and kids pointed and laughed. Unimpressed, and as the donkeys were getting scared of the noisy crowd, we left the town and found a flat field 400 metres north that was just tucked out of sight to put up our tents.

  We’d been told people were different around here. There would be far more thieves and ‘bad’ people who would not help us. Whether we’d read too much into this or we were just beginning to become slightly more insular, we all agreed that we felt far more comfortable in this field in our tents than in a town hall or church building in the town. We polished off our tuna and some bread that we’d bought from town and crawled into our sleeping bags as it got dark at about 6.30 p.m.

  For those visitors to Peru who are willing to go slightly further out of their comfort zone than the congested Inca trail, the upper sections of the Apurímac are stunning. At this point the canyon was still less than 2,000 metres deep with forested sides of eucalyptus and fertile valley bottoms where the blue glacial waters bubbled enticingly.

  Although we were more content at this stage as a team, I know from my diary that I was starting to yearn for other company. Luke and I had been together for seventy-five days now and I longed for different conversation. Sadly, our interests didn’t really overlap and so I would quickly become bored with his kayaking escapades and climbing moves he’d executed on a crag somewhere in England, while he didn’t seem interested in topics that appealed to me. We sort of overlapped on films but once we’d discussed the ones we’d both seen – a handful – that was that.

  It was a challenge. It just required positivity and looking for the best in each other. But it was certainly a challenge.

  On 17 May we arrived in a tiny remote village called Santa Lucia in the early afternoon and sat in the sun in the empty plaza drinking Coke, snacking on the Peruvian version of chocolate Oreo cookies bought in the local shop, surrounded by high mountains on all sides.

  The shop was typical of the region: a couple of wooden shelves with warm, fizzy drinks of various hues and packets of sweet biscuits. Sometimes there would be cans of tuna or corned beef and bags of pasta. The shopkeeper was kind and told us of a man who was going in our direction and could accompany us on our way. We jumped at this, as locals always know the short cuts, and set out with Luke at the back with our new friend. Luke soon caught up with me to talk and said that even with his bad Spanish he could tell the man was a bit strange. I fell back to speak to the man and found that he was indeed odd but after two minutes I was bored and so duly sped up again.

  When hummingbirds appeared to my right I quickly got out the camera to record the elusive creatures. As I was filming, the man started pulling at the camera to try to see the screen. Hummingbirds, being lightning quick, are not easy to film – even less so when some nutty Peruvian is tugging at your camera.

  We started walking again and I palmed mad bloke off on Oz as they could speak in Quechua to each other. After five minutes Oz had become very angry, said the man was mad and that we needed to walk in a different direction from him. He said the man thought that we were cattle rustlers and that we had stolen the donkeys from his village. We detoured further up the hill hoping to escape our unwelcome companion on the parallel path below.

  Then he started running up the hill off the path towards us. He blocked our way and picked up a rock, saying we could not pass. Oz’s young eyes saw red and he told the man in no uncertain terms how stupid he was being and that we were just tourists. The man pointed at my trekking poles and said that we were armed with secret weapons. As the shouting continued, Luke and I watched, baffled but quite amused at the little Peruvian holding the rock. He was not amused, though, but fortunately a local turned up who was slightly saner and he calmed the first man down.

  The man who had intervened was called Estefan and he warned us not to go through the madman’s village which lay ahead; they were all like him, he said, and constantly fighting each other.

  So, taking his advice, we followed a higher path that was reportedly narrower and more dangerous to avoid the village of idiots. We ended up camping about 400 metres directly above the village and I think all of us were half expecting a visit in the night. We called out jokes between the tents about setting booby traps for the village of pitchfork-wielding madmen but we fell asleep and they never came.

  Cusco is a big Westernised city with two grand cathedrals that wasn’t on our route but we needed to visit it. It was about 40 kilometres to the north of the Apurímac Canyon, and was where we had cached our jungle gear prior to arriving in Lima. Cusco represented a tempting pocket of Western food and bars that were very appealing after fifty days of walking.

  Peru is, on the whole, cheap. There were about six soles to the pound and we could generally eat for about a pound or less in places where local Peruvians worked and ate. Cusco was very different. With prices higher than London you can stay in luxury hotels, eat fine food and take designer drugs if you choose in the all-night clubs and bars. Its proximity to the ruins of Machu Picchu makes it the biggest tourist destination in South America and you don’t need to speak Spanish to do anything.

  My fear was that we would spend too much time in Cusco and get out of the expedition frame of mind. We would also spend too much money and become unfit. I therefore suggested to Luke that only he went up to Cusco while I stayed with Oz and the donkeys in a small village on the Apurímac, and he did the kit exchange and saw Katie again.

  But by 20 May we were only one day short of Cusco and were all very tired. None of us had ever walked for fifty days before and the call of civilisation was too strong. I changed my standpoint and suggested to Oz that he and I spend a few days recovering in comfort, too. We palmed the donkeys off on a nice farmer on the Apurímac and headed for the bright lights.

  While Luke spent time with Katie, I caught up on the administrative side of the journey – doing the accounts, digitising all the footage that we’d taken so far and couriering the tapes back to the UK. I sorted our kit for the jungle and sent our goosedown sleeping bags, thermals and waterproofs back to England, too. We were realising at this stage the real length of our journey and the real cost. The original sponsorship money that we’d got from JBS Associates wasn’t going to be enough to enable us to reach the finish so I approached them for further funds. I became far more worried about money than I ever got on the journey about natural dangers. When I finally made the call to the CEO of JBS Associates, Jonathan, he was understanding and said they would help. The relief was huge but I knew I would have to curb our spending drastically from here on. This meant less time in towns and less buying of expensive kit from abroad. We had to do the expedition as much as possible using what we could acquire in South America.

  It’s difficult to tell this story accurately without mentioning the differences in Luke’s and my attitude towards money at this point. Luke did a tourist trip to Machu Picchu (paid for by Katie) and in my opinion was eating the best food in restaurants (paid for by the expedition). He quickly put weight back on and I began really to resent his presence on the journey. Despite us having got on better in the weeks prior to Cusco, things
between us started to turn sour again.

  Some friends of ours were travelling through Cusco at the time and so I spent an evening in a bar boring them to tears about my issues with Luke. I doubted my judgement and wanted to know if I was being unreasonable. I actually expected them to tell me that I was making a lot of fuss about nothing. The relief, in some ways, was that they agreed with me and, although they didn’t have any solutions, they seemed to recognise that Luke and I were not right as travelling companions.

  It was early June by the time we left Cusco. I watched emotionless as Luke and Katie said goodbye to each other – Katie in floods of tears. Their need to see one another seemed to fly in the face of everything the two of us were trying to do. This was a world-first expedition that needed focus and commitment and I felt that Oswaldo was more committed to it than Luke.

  We picked up the donkeys, paid the man well for the extended kennelling, and were pleased to be on the move again. I was aware that, when walking, your mind searches for something to feed off as there is often nothing much to think about. Often this energy can become negative and this negativity can end up being focused on your expedition partner. I fell into this trap and, in my head, allowed all of the expedition’s problems to be put down to Luke. Some of them were his fault, but, looking back, it is easy for me to see how blaming Luke actually made things worse for me as I felt less in control because the problem was him, rather than me. If I had accepted responsibility for the way I reacted to certain things I would have been in a far better position. It was part of a mountainous learning process for me on how to control my mind; I was still very much in the foothills in this lesson.

  On 11 June I woke up having slept right through from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Ten solid hours, and I woke feeling more refreshed than I’d felt in months. It was well timed as we had a 1,100-metre climb to start the day.