by Stafford, Ed
Diary entry from 5 July 2008:
Today was a breath of fresh air. I had a clear head and my mind was running opportunities and ideas around in a way that made me feel more alive and enthused in this exped than I have for weeks.
Luke had boarded the bus at five o’clock that morning and I’d got up to wave him off. I could tell he was sad – it felt just like splitting up from a bad relationship – and at that parting moment I think both of us thought, ‘We could make this work – let’s give it another bash.’ But deep down I knew he’d done the right thing taking himself off. I am grateful to him for that.
Looking back, I take a huge portion of the blame for what happened. It was my expedition concept but I chose Luke to become part of it. I believe I convinced him that kayaking was for girls and that we should walk the Amazon. I believe I cajoled him with so much enthusiasm and passion that he ended up committing to something that he never really had the deep desire to achieve. As a result, none of the behaviour or attributes were really Luke’s fault – Luke was only being himself. He gave it his best shot and in the end did the noble thing by taking himself off.
Once he’d gone, I ambled back to the rickety bunkroom that we were staying in. Oz and Sergio were just stirring. Sergio swung his feet towards the floor and sat up with a cheeky morning grin that comforted me. I was with two good guys – I wasn’t on my own – and we would be fine. Sergio was a kind man with a very confident aura about him. That day he told me how he used to earn much more money than the fifty nuevos soles a day I was paying him; he had been a drugs runner. I could tell he had loved the job by the way he spoke of the huge distances covered up and down hills in the pitch dark along winding, narrow paths. He would have a small package (couple of kilos) of base cocaine with him and adrenaline flowing the whole time. Although only twenty-two, Sergio now had a wife and a baby and so he didn’t want to continue the dangerous trade. But he had a spark in his eye that told me he was a good man to have with us at this time.
That day Oz bought some food supplies, helped by Sergio, and I started replanning the expedition. It soon became evident that little needed to change. Two of Luke’s main roles had been buying food and cooking. Oz took over both without me even asking and the expedition was streamlined.
I took over writing the blogs, also one of Luke’s jobs. I wrote to all the charities and sponsors and let them know that Luke had left. Everyone seemed sympathetic and supportive. These things happen on long expeditions.
That evening the three of us sat in San Martin gazing down the canyon, sipping Inca Kolas while we debated our route. We were on the east side of the Apurímac and there were trails high up on both sides. The pain was that they involved descending and climbing a thousand metres every time a watercourse entered the canyon, which was exhausting, and soul-destroying. As part of my newfound solo leadership I suggested that we try something a bit riskier, more fun and actually easier. My idea was to descend into the canyon bottom and follow the river itself. There would be no drugs traffickers down there, we could fish, and we would be walking gently downhill the whole way. No more climbs.
The two agreed – or consented – I’m not sure, with hindsight, whether I’d really sought their opinions. We set off the following morning and went down and down, hour after hour, into the dark depths of the canyon. The dusty upper part was simple enough but lower down it involved us pulling our way through bamboo fields that were tightly knotted together and had us regularly on all fours then squirting out into a smelly bog at the bottom that sucked at my sandals as if I was walking with each foot in a plastic bag full of lard.
Because it was now warm and we wanted to shed weight, we’d sent Luke back to Lima with our waterproofs, and, more amazingly in retrospect, with my boots, too. It shows how much we’d been out in the open on dusty tracks and it also indicates how overwhelmed I was at first with this solo responsibility.
Down on the canyon floor we made our camp by the now fierce river. It was hard to find a flat area on which to sleep and we crafted stone patios on which to lay our sleeping mats. Oz was fantastic with the cooking and now that we’d dumped the kerosene stove he would make a small enclosed fire out of stones – almost like an oven – to balance the pot on and contain the small, efficient fire within.
Oz would always go that bit further to make things taste good. That night we had a starter of a strawberry jelly mix (serves fifteen) between the three of us served as a gloopy sweet drink. Then he toasted the rice and fried the canned tuna in garlic.
As we ate I became aware that Oz and Sergio spoke to each other too fast for me to understand when I was tired. With Luke gone all easy chat was out until my Spanish improved markedly. I took myself to bed fairly soon after supper and did a video diary and wrote my journal. Oz and Sergio stayed up chatting for a while, their tiny voices just audible over the roaring river.
Too tired to appreciate the surroundings the evening before, we woke up in the jagged belly of the deepest canyon in the world. The rocks that formed the ‘pebble beach’ were up to three or four metres in diameter and a river in full flood would have filled the canyon bottom way above our heads flowing with tremendous, lethal power.
We started to pick our way over the rocks and the problem with my plan soon became obvious. Our packs were just too heavy to allow us to be nimble and we repeatedly risked spraining ankles making huge leaps between boulders. Progress was painful – both risky and slow – but around the canyon corner was a far worse sight. The canyon beach had disappeared and the power of the river was focused between two sheer rock faces.
Realising that I’d led us down into a dangerous route, I started to doubt my judgement and the options spun round my head. The river wasn’t walkable and the right face that we’d descended the day before looked too steep to climb back up. That only left trying to climb the left-hand canyon side – the side that the narcos used. We started to climb a spur on the left and immediately bamboo and thorns slowed our progress. Our hands, knees and ankles became covered in tiny black splinters. After three hours we’d moved 200 metres and were exhausted and running out of water.
I asked Sergio if there was a water source above us. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but we can’t go there – it’s used by the narcos.’ I started to get jumpy. What were we doing, trying to ascend a canyon side that had no path at this point, was ridiculously steep, covered in thick spiny vegetation and was frequented by drugs traffickers?
Then, feeling panicky and under pressure, I snapped to another rash decision. I decided that we would have to go back to the river and through the narrow gorge. Oz and Sergio would use the two pack rafts and I would swim behind so as to avoid travelling downriver in a boat. This was a grey area in terms of the rules of my expedition, which were that we should never advance by river, but in the heat of the moment I tried to be decisive. As we picked our way back down to the river my stomach was churning at the prospect of swimming through the gorge. Neither Oz nor Sergio knew how to paddle either and so would be novices on the water, not able to hold a straight line. By the time we’d scrambled down to the bottom it was mid-afternoon. We looked down the canyon and could not see the end of the sheer cliff so I could not gauge the length of the narrow gorge. I got the map out and measured the canyonised part to see how far we would be in the water: two and a half kilometres. I started to feel more and more out of control. I didn’t know if we would encounter rapids – there was every chance – and this would certainly put all of our lives at serious risk. What was I thinking? I was swapping one miserable hell for another.
‘Mr Stafford, sir, is your village missing an idiot now that you’ve come to Sandhurst?’ In my head I could hear the mocking Scottish burr of my first colour sergeant in army training. ‘Take a Condor moment, Mr Stafford.’ The latter was a reference to an old cigar advert on British TV that meant take a deep breath and give yourself time to think. I knew that I was failing the others because of the pressure I was piling on myself; I was rushing and needed
to calm down and take a deep breath. ‘There is no time pressure,’ I told myself. I looked at my watch: 2.30 p.m. I decided we would camp. We found a small sandy beach and made a fire. I sat on a rock and poured hot, sweet coffee down my throat. I got the maps out and went through the options in slow time. Once I’d recomposed myself, the only sensible option presented itself to me. I found a spur on the eastern (right) side of the valley that was shallow enough to climb. It would take all day but we could try to rejoin the path we had left forty-eight hours earlier. It meant admitting that the whole descent into the valley had been a complete waste of time and it meant having a huge climb in the morning, but it was the safer side in terms of narcos, and we knew that once we’d climbed out there was a path at the top that we could resume following.
Having found the safer, more sensible route out, I reflected on the day with embarrassment. My confidence had taken a serious knock and I sat at the bottom of the Apurímac Canyon feeling as small and as sorry for myself as I have ever felt. Was I capable of running this trip on my own? Would I get the three of us killed?
I dug out the Cuban cigar my friend George had given me to smoke at some celebratory moment and decided that this was a time for such a comfort. I lit it up and breathed in the smooth leathery smoke. I had made three bad decisions which had put us in two very tight spots. I made a pact with myself not to look for easy options and not to let myself feel pressured into making a particular decision. I had to accept full responsibility for all of our lives from now on and I needed to dig deep and find the composure and confidence required to get us out of this mess.
The following morning I woke up feeling 100 per cent better. Oz immediately found a track on the spur and we reached the path (the one we had left three days before) in only four hours of climbing.
The track contoured back and forth around spurs high on the valley side until we dropped down into the picturesque village of Locmahuaeco, in a valley full of fruit trees heavy with oranges and sweet lemons. In the impossibly pretty village we found a shop that had a new stock of fizzy drinks and biscuits. The young couple who ran it were pleased to welcome their first ever customers and we relaxed immediately in the pleasant surroundings – so much so that we committed the cardinal error of not asking to meet the village chief. The young couple seemed so relaxed and friendly that it didn’t seem necessary and they suggested we sling our hammocks between the goal posts on the football pitch.
While we were down on the pitch I used the large expanse to lay out the four six-foot solar rolls and charge the 12v dry-cell motorbike battery that we were using to charge the laptop. Inquisitive kids came and offered us sweet lemons until we could eat no more.
I was just about to start writing my diary entry in my hammock when the village chief summoned Oz and me to a village meeting, demanding to see our permit. We had no permit, of course, so we giggled all the way to the meeting like naughty school kids. Inside the metal-roofed shed I explained who we were and what we were doing. The whole village had assembled to discuss what to do with these outsiders who had just turned up and made camp on their football pitch. Then Oz retold the story for those who didn’t understand a word of my crude Spanish. Everyone looked deadly serious, the women more so than the men. The chief took down our passport and ID details and we were told that, as this was the Red Zone, if anything were to happen to us they would be under suspicion. They told us we must speak to the village chiefs whenever we entered a village in future and we apologised profusely and thanked them for their advice. When they said we could go I stepped outside into the dark, relieved that it hadn’t been more problematic.
‘Idiotas!’ Oz shouted – far too soon and far too close to the shed. We all broke into a run like kids playing pranks in the street. I needed to take these people seriously – they all lived outside the law here as there was no law – no policing, certainly, and a huge drugs trade. ‘Start growing up, Stafford,’ I scolded myself back in my hammock. ‘This isn’t a game.’
In the morning the young couple, recent arrivals in the village themselves and noticeably more relaxed and normal than many of the other inhabitants, cooked us an old hen and some yucca, a local root vegetable. Everyone was all smiles when we left and we started climbing the valley wall out of their community on a wide path. We felt strong after the breakfast but the path was steep and I was having to focus on my walking to keep up with the two Peruvians. At the crest – without really breaking stride – Sergio stretched his rubber catapult elastic between his thumb and forefinger and took aim into the trees to the right. He did this often – launching small stones to the left and the right to little effect. But this time he whooped in delight and shrugged off his pack to retrieve something from the undergrowth. He’d hit a small mountain pigeon and we had meat for supper.
The day was hard and the path split several times. We had to guess the right way each time; eventually the path ran out and we found ourselves picking our way down the mountainside, slipping over and hanging on to roots and branches as we went.
At a small, strong-flowing stream we stripped off and bathed, washing the morning’s scum from our bodies. We suspected that the path we had lost was now high above us and so we started uphill following a spur through increasingly dense trees until I realised that we had, after three and a bit months of the expedition, entered the jungle for the first time. Exhausted, I smiled at the familiar feeling of being surrounded by trees. The cool darkness of the shade and the damp smell of the vegetation welcomed me back to what seemed a long-lost environment.
After three hours we had made 400 metres horizontally and 200 metres vertically. We were cutting through dense, tangled undergrowth and crawling under and over fallen trees to make any ground. It was now late afternoon; we had seen no sign of the path and none of water. We made camp, lit a small fire and fried the pigeon in oil. With virtually no water we savoured the succulent meat and had some banana-flavoured sweet biscuits for pudding. Progress had been so slow that we all agreed we could not continue on this side of the river through such mountainous jungle as we hadn’t enough food, and according to the map at this speed it could take us weeks to hit the next village. Sergio knew the other side of the Apurímac had a good path all the way from here to San Francisco and so, despite the obvious increased dangers of encountering drugs traffickers, we made a plan to use the paths on the narco side and get out of here as fast as we could.
So we got up, with no water to drink but a slow drizzle falling, and ran almost straight down the hill to the river, one and a half kilometres away down a 650-metre descent. Swinging on trees like monkeys as we crashed down the hillside, we made the river in little over an hour. Lowering ourselves the last treacherous metres down slippery rocks, we finally inflated the rafts and ferried ourselves over to the other side. We glugged about two litres of water each and Oz made up a big pot of noodles that we wolfed down. We could see agricultural fields above us and knew that that meant that there were paths. Paths meant progress and so we started scrambling up the steep hillside.
Diary entry from 10 July 2008:
At one point on this 50-metre ascent I had my arms round Sergio’s waist to make him heavier so he could pull Oz up a vertical face that had no handholds. Ridiculous stuff that you do because there’s no option. Your life is dependent on a dead tree not snapping or a clump of grass not pulling out of the earth. Once we hit the paths we marched quietly up the hill – all suddenly very aware we were in narco land.
Once we had relaxed a little we stopped and sat under a tree and gorged ourselves on sweet lemons. I ate eight today. Free food that you don’t have to carry – why not?
We continued up the hill. As we climbed up 800 metres with our heavy packs I realised how easy it was becoming and how fit we were getting. We found a fantastic path – maintained to a very high standard – and rounded the corner into a valley that was covered in lush green forest. The days of dusty hills were now behind us and, as if to signal the entrance to the jungle, two troops
of howler monkeys started roaring at each other through the deep valley. Howlers are the second loudest mammal in the world (after blue whales) and noise filled the valley as if herds of dinosaurs were taunting each other, ready to fight. The noise lifted me and I felt comfort in the fact that I was leaving the mountains, a region in which I have limited experience, and was entering my favourite environment in the world – tropical rainforest.
The latter stages of the River Apurímac were still part of the Red Zone and I slowly became aware that the River Ene was going to be just as dangerous. Beneath the veneer of peacefulness and tranquillity I was aware of the ominous truth: there was a huge amount of drugs processing and trafficking going on and we were dealing with narcos on an almost daily basis. Sergio warned me that if we did mistakenly walk in on an active drugs processing plant we would be killed immediately. ‘No two ways about it,’ he said. The profits were too high for the narcos to be able to risk outsiders knowing about their locations. If locals were aware of the details of the processing, they kept quiet. They valued their lives.
With satellite phones, Internet, GPS and modern weapons, the drugs industry is far better equipped than the Peruvian police, who don’t stand a chance of defeating them. The only successful operations against the narcos were conducted by the military – and these were apparently rare.
After a 0530 start, sleeping in a ditch at the side of a road, we wandered into a small town called Villa Virgen at about breakfast time. The town was in the early stages of recovery following a huge party the night before and most people were still awake and blind drunk. The president of the town staggered towards us, face flushed red and eyes bloodshot, and demanded to see our papers. I smiled and asked him politely if he could recommend a good hotel. He looked confused, pointed us in the direction of a hotel and welcomed us to Villa Virgen. We stayed one night and bade farewell to a very smiley Sergio the next morning and Oz and I headed on alone.