by Stafford, Ed
At about 4,000 metres above sea level we found a small sheltered valley and made camp on a grassy flat by a bubbling brook. May and Cusco proved to be too soon to have ditched all our cold-weather kit and we had a very cold night in our thin jungle sleeping bags and cotton shirts. We’d been looking forward to the jungle so much that we had wished the mountains away by changing gear too early. Idiots.
With long, tough days, often climbing and descending over 2,000 metres, I tried to focus on tangible goals. I didn’t like walking with the donkeys so my focus here was getting through the next ten days or so, selling the donkeys, and then the expedition becoming more flexible and fun on foot. This laboured slog with pack animals had become dull and unchallenging; I dreamed of the jungle, hammocks, fishing and fires.
As we now owned our own donkeys we did not have local donkey owners walking with us who knew the way. This meant that we had to navigate, something Luke and I decided to rotate, day on, day off, so that we wouldn’t tread on each other’s toes and so that the person not navigating that day could relax.
Although I like taking the piss out of the way I go about expeditions, the truth is that I am very confident in my abilities and have high expectations of others, too. In my view, Luke’s navigation was too vague, often saying that our destination was ‘just over this spur’, giving me the impression he didn’t know exactly where we were. Had we not been at each other’s throats this wouldn’t have mattered, we didn’t need to be super-precise, but, to me this was – and I hope I’m not being unfair here – another example of him not contributing properly.
Every entry in my journal refers to my fixation with how frustrated I was – and how bored I was about still feeling the same way after so long. Surprisingly, with hindsight, I never saw the obvious way out. I always thought we would resolve our issues or that somehow the expedition would change once we got to the jungle and we’d both be happier.
So the next morning I think I was looking for trouble. Luke came over and offered to run through the route with me and I told him I didn’t need to – he was navigating and I’d just follow. I can’t remember the exact exchange but it blew up when I told Luke he was shit at navigating.
Luke exploded. I knew it would happen yet I looked on amazed at the angry onslaught of expletives. He was furious with me. Part of the brain-dead me got a buzz from this outburst and I fully admit to creating the situation to cut through the chronic boredom of our failed attempts to get on. It felt liberating to watch some fury come out of him. Oswaldo and the donkeys patiently looked on as they watched two gringos let out all their pent-up aggression on each other. We were both shaking – it was like the most vehement row in a marriage that has gone hideously sour. If we’d been in London we’d have gone our own ways long ago – but the expedition was keeping us in each other’s company 24/7– so letting off steam was necessary.
It took us until lunch to start walking. I felt the air had cleared between us and certainly felt relieved not to be bottling up these feelings any more. It had, for me, been a necessarily honest outburst but unbeknown to me it was the final straw for Luke. Although we would walk together for another two weeks, he had made up his mind to leave.
We followed indistinct trails over dusty hills covered in spiky plants; pitched our rain flysheets in sloping campsites covered in sheep and guanaco shit; talked nonsense to drunken Quechua men to try to confuse them; and marvelled at how foul old people’s mouths could look after a lifetime of chewing coca and not brushing their few remaining teeth.
As we approached the jungle, Luke had insisted that he needed specialist jungle boots shipped in from the States. We were all shattered and so we left the donkeys with another kind farmer and went to Abancay to pick up Luke’s boots at the post office. I had left the logistics of Luke’s boots to him as he insisted that they were vital, and so we waited day after day.
The break did mean that we had the chance to relax a little and rest our legs. After a few days, Luke’s boots had still not turned up so I told him we had to continue anyway – the inactivity was unbearable for me. We continued along roads for a few days until, at one exit point, Huanipaca, Luke managed finally to take delivery of his boots.
My diary entries show a marked ignorance about the stretch ahead: I thought the jungle wouldn’t start until we hit the River Ene; I thought that the valley bottom would open up and we could walk along the bottom by the river; and I believed that the rumours about the Red Zone (the infamous terrorist stronghold and drugs-trafficking centre of Peru) were overstated and that the area would be a cinch to walk through.
As we walked down a huge spur into the canyon we were confronted by two small men who wouldn’t let us pass. Conscious that we were now entering the Red Zone, we were respectful and presented our passports and permits but the men refused to budge. I then had the idea of hiring them to walk with us and they thought this was a good idea and so escorted us on to their land. As we walked and chatted, they told us that there was a land dispute raging over rights to a mine and we had been mistaken for foreign mining surveyors.
The men also bought the donkeys from us. We would no longer need them and would be walking at the bottom of the valley where they couldn’t pass. We got only slightly less than we had paid for the beasts and I was pleased that for once some money was coming back into the expedition. Luke was sad to see them go and I have to admit that even I felt my heartstrings tugging slightly as the two men took one donkey each and dragged them away in diametrically opposite directions, separating the aging couple for probably the first time in who knows how long.
The donkeys were replaced by two local lads, Segil and Ruben, who agreed to walk with us for a fee. They were simple farming boys, not used to carrying weight, and asked to stop all the time. We descended into the valley bottom and strung our hammocks in the tropical heat. Luke and I tested out the gill net and caught a trout in about half an hour. The water sparkled with life and the thought of being next to the crystal-clear bath for the rest of the expedition made us very happy. Behind us were the dirty, sweaty months of barren hills; we could now dip into the river and wash off whenever we liked.
The local lads told us that all of the coca fields we were walking through were cultivated for processing into cocaine. The small-scale farmers sell the leaves to the drugs traffickers (‘narcos’) in the night and then the narcos process the leaves into a moist, cheese-like substance before it is packed out to places like Abancay for distribution to Colombia for further processing and refining.
On 1 July 2008 we had fried fish and noodles for breakfast and the five of us set off down the bottom of the valley. We knew there was a possibility that we would have to divert up and over small spurs if the sides of the canyon became unnavigable, but without the drag of the donkeys we felt pretty confident about tackling any terrain.
Soon enough we reached a section where the water butted straight up to a vertical cliff. Ruben and Oz could not swim and, anyway, the menacing white water river was not an option. Luke made the decision to go up and over the hill to the right and I agreed with him; aside from turning back, there was really no other option.
Heading up the steep sides of the Apurímac Canyon where there was no path was not actually that easy. It was too steep just to walk; we had to hold on to spiky plants and hope the rocks beneath our feet didn’t give way. Against the advice of the three Peruvians, Luke decided to head straight up but they followed him nonetheless. Not for long, though – the slope became far too steep and the locals branched left, contouring round the face until they found a ridge that they could climb. The heat was oppressive after weeks in the mountains. Sweat painted our clothes on to our bodies.
I called to Luke to suggest he follow the locals. He didn’t respond. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ I called after him. ‘Yes!’ he responded abruptly and kept climbing.
The four of us left Luke to his alarming ascent. We skipped across an easy valley and started climbing a rocky spur. At one section a vist
a opened up to our right and we could see Luke making his ascent. ‘Christ!’ I thought, ‘that looks dangerous.’
Luke was scrambling up a hill where he was reliant on loose rocks and small plants for purchase; one slip and he would have been dead. He would climb two steps and the ground would slide and he would be back to where he’d started. It was painful to watch but we could tell he was completely committed now and to go down would have been even more dangerous – if not impossible. He took about twenty minutes to cover 40 metres and I honestly thought I was about to witness and film his death at any moment. When he’d done the very steep section we decided to start climbing again ourselves. The climb got worse and worse and the crest of the spur seemed forever away.
Luke and I could hear each other if we called very loudly and I asked him how much water he had left. ‘I’m almost out’ came the faint reply. I was praying that the spur in the distance marked the start of a path that would head down the other side to safety and water. After six and a half hours’ climbing, the last three and a half without water, I could see the two locals and Oz, who had gone ahead, against the skyline on the spur above. Luke and I were not together but were at comparable heights still a hundred metres or so below them.
It’s difficult to convey how spent I was at this point and the looseness of the mountainside and the weight of my pack had taken their toll. I was falling 10 metres downhill into bushes of cactuses and then not moving out of sheer exhaustion for a further two minutes. I was covered in cactus spines and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as my head throbbed with dehydration.
Oz was shouting encouragement from the top now but I felt so weak I was almost broken, defeated. I started not to care whether or not I got to the top. The next bit is something I will never forget. Oz, who was twenty-four, eight years my junior and about five stone lighter, started heading down the hill to help me. When he reached me he took my pack off me and I struggled to keep up with him as he carried it to the top. The final section took about five minutes and I collapsed in a heap at the top.
I felt embarrassed. I’d been humbled by the terrain, the heat, the vegetation, and the young Peruvians who were looking at me in pity now. Luke had not entered my head for about half an hour but as I lay on the ridge with a mouth that hadn’t had water in about four hours of climbing, I started to be concerned for his safety.
Oz then brought up the bad news. There was no path here, we couldn’t head down to water in less than a day’s further walking. We were stranded on this desolate, barren spur in the deepest canyon in the world.
‘Luke!’ I called. ‘Can you hear me?’
I heard a faint reply. ‘I have something in my eye.’
‘I’m going to send down Oz to help you. Stay there!’
‘Can he bring some water with him?’ Luke called back.
I didn’t answer.
Oz and Segil, neither of whom had had any water recently either, went down to help Luke. I knew I couldn’t help and I was pretty disgusted with myself. I lay under a cactus with Ruben staring at me.
Twenty-five minutes passed before Segil crested the hill followed by Oz with Luke’s pack on his back, and then finally Luke himself who collapsed to the ground beside me.
‘We’ve fucked this one up,’ he stated matter-of-factly.
‘You don’t know the half of it, mate,’ I said. ‘There’s no water.’
Luke admitted to nearly fainting several times on the way up. Neither of us felt we were able to keep going but Segil told us there was a town about two hours’ walk up the spur. With packs it would have taken us about four hours minimum. Pride now well and truly swallowed, we sent Segil and Ruben up to the town with an empty bag and a hundred soles note and told them to buy the shop out of any liquid they could find. They set off at about 4 p.m. and, while Luke and I lay in the dust, Oz went and cut the arm off a cactus with his machete, removed the spines and sliced it up into pieces. Chewing it was incredible as the fluid seeped into our dry mouths. I was soon revitalised enough to sit up and contemplate going and cutting another branch off the cactus. Which I did.
The local lads returned almost an hour after dark and we could see their torches about a kilometre away. They emptied their sack: 10 litres of water in a jerrycan that they’d borrowed, two 3-litre bottles of Inca Kola (yellow) and Coca-Cola, and 10 cans of evaporated milk. We rationed over half of it for the morning and the climb and then set about glugging the life-giving liquid. Never in my life had I appreciated fluid so much. Luke and I had been beaten that day, and we were only OK thanks to the efforts of three young Peruvians. It was an embarrassing and humbling lesson to us both and I don’t know to this day why we fared quite so badly in comparison to the locals.
The next morning we all climbed to the town in about three hours and were met by an interested crowd who’d heard about the stupid white men who had run out of water. Despite it only being mid-morning, we checked into a mud-walled hostel with a tin roof and washed our clothes and ourselves and lay in the sun all afternoon. The hostel owner was great and wanted to help us find new guides as Segil and Ruben had returned to their village. After much searching I think he felt embarrassed that he’d not secured any guides and so he agreed to walk with us. I am afraid I took no note of his name.
In the next hamlet, high on the canyon side, the kind hostel owner continued his quest to help us find guides and he finally produced man called Sergio with a mischievous broad smile. Sergio was well built: huge chest and thighs and not an ounce of fat on his short frame. He agreed to leave his new wife and tiny baby to walk with us. Sergio loved walking and was thrilled to join us – I had no idea how long he would stay.
The nameless hostel owner, Sergio, Oz, Luke and I descended into the Apurímac once more. It now had an enormously wide base and a howling wind was blowing down it. We camped by the side of the river and Luke and I cooked dinner for the Peruvians. Luke put together a resupply request list, set up the BGAN and sent an email to the UK. What transpired following that email was to change the shape of the expedition forever.
PART 2: THE RED ZONE
Chapter Four
The Red Zone
Diary entry from 3 July 2008:
Luke has decided to go home.
This morning I woke up so annoyed that he had allowed Katie, his fiancée, to send 30 kilograms of kit to Peru for resupply. 30 ruddy kilos! So I asked him to get on the satellite email and try and stop the parcel as it was going to cost £300 to send. When he was on the laptop he read out his list of requested items so that I could give my opinion on what was necessary and what was not. It included 1 x MP3 player. This annoyed me as I had asked him to get me one too and he had only requested one.
So I said to Luke, ‘Mate, why only one MP3? You know I want one too!’
‘Because I’m leaving the expedition,’ replied Luke in a tired, resigned manner.
‘What?’ I stammered, and listed the people he had made commitments to: the charities, the sponsors, the schools.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘it’s one of the hardest decisions I’ll ever make but I would prefer not to lose the friendship we’ve got and become bitter with you – which I can feel happening.’
‘Mate – we can talk about this – it will be fine.’
‘Ed, listen to me.’ Luke had raised his voice. ‘Talking about things solves everything for you but for me it doesn’t. The comments you said last time still hurt now and I have wanted to leave since our last argument.’ [Approximately two weeks earlier.]
‘Shit, mate, OK,’ I said, shaking. ‘If that’s what you want then you should go.’
I wasn’t prepared for the emotion that then came over me. Pure excitement. I was going to be free to run the expedition how I wanted to; to stay in towns less; to be able to be in charge of all aspects of the exped.
I WASN’T SAD to see Luke go but I was disappointed that our relationship on this journey had been a failure. I thought he would regret making this decision – throwing away th
e opportunity of a lifetime – but I had no desire to try to change his mind. Everything was slotting into place and, despite never really planning on Luke leaving, suddenly it all made more sense.
Luke didn’t change his mind and we planned an exit for him. I offered him half the expedition sponsorship money so that he could continue walking on his own or with Oz, but he wasn’t interested. It was a fairly safe offer – we both knew he just wanted to go home.
We climbed out of the deep Apurímac Canyon again to the town of San Martin. During the long climb my mind was busy with ideas and my newfound freedom. I had to be careful not to show Luke how energised I was about the prospects of the expedition. I didn’t want him to change his mind and it would have been thoughtless to act too excited at his departure.
Why wasn’t I more sad? Well, in the cold light of day Luke and I had been work colleagues before committing to this expedition. Cumulatively we’d spent probably three weeks working together at the beginning and end of expeditions in Belize and we’d got on very well during that time. But we’d never called each other up when back in England, and we’d never even written each other emails save for the round robins that Luke would distribute to his mailing list.
Even before the expedition started I remember my mind state with regard to Luke. Initially I thought he was the perfect partner: he was an expedition leader, we got on well and, importantly, if we fell out it wouldn’t be the end of the world as we hadn’t been close friends before.
The interesting thing is that whenever we fell out to the point at which we talked about the subject of not being able to walk together, my default was always that I would have to continue on my own, Luke’s that he wanted to go home. That was the difference between us.
Hence the fact that, as soon as the initial shock of Luke’s decision had worn off, I felt an exhilarating surge of freedom that I could now throw off the past weeks of negativity and start doing things my way.