Through-out the current trek, we got into the habit of late morning starts. Normally when I trek, I get up with the sun, and am on the trail within the hour. Almost every day on this trek, we didn’t get going until ten or eleven o’clock. Which was actually kind of nice! On average, we only had to trek for four or five hours to get to the next village, giving us ample time to take lots of sightseeing breaks, and to converse with the locals.
We left the village late that morning, following a rough country road that followed a river heading south. I knew from our maps that the river followed the outer east edge of the crater, and that eventually it would be possible to cut into the crater, following a series of canyons and rivers. I must admit, I read the maps incorrectly with regards to uphill versus downhill, but I think I can be forgiven. The maps that we had didn’t indicate whether the contour lines ended in mountain tops,or the bottoms of canyons.
Some of the contour lines had altitudes labeled on them, but because there were so many mountains and steep pitches, there were very few of these on the map. The easiest technique is to find a river on the map – the lowest spot – and work up from there. The challenge in this case was that we wanted to follow a deep river canyon into the crater. I made an incorrect assumption, due to my lack of experience with craters, and not enough research. I assumed that the river would be flowing into the crater and that the majority of the trekking would be downhill, since I thought – logically – the impact of the meteorite would have made the crater lower than the surrounding landscape. Yah, bad assumption. I found out later that the crater was created by erosion. Meteorites had nothing to do with it.
We thought we had an easy day ahead of us, so we were taking our sweet time getting to the next village. The eight kilometer wide crater has massive walls on all sides, which we had to climb. The actual floor of the crater is much higher than any of the surrounding landscape, other than the walls, of course. Interesting. More research needed. It was such a fun day, though!
Instead of following the road into the crater, we veered off and followed a network of trails following the river. It was such a beautiful river valley, with lovely farms on each side, and the occasional cluster of adobe huts. The smell of spices, hay, and animals permeated the air, the sun was shining, and it felt like more of a stroll through the country-side than a trek. Throughout the day, we sang songs, laughed a lot, and stopped a lot to admire the views.
We came across a small group of locals trying to get their huge truck unstuck. There was no road where they had come from, and they had sunk into the ground in a particularly wet spot. Our group stopped to help them out, first by pushing, which was useless, and then by collecting rocks to stick under the tires. The truck was really stuck, though. The only good option was to unload the truck of its cargo, and dig a long trench for the tires, so it could gather up speed. When we suggested this to the locals, they looked at us like we were crazy. Unload all that wood? No way! We offered to help, but no love. And it would have only taken an hour or so.
Now, I grew up on a farm. I knew what I was talking about, and sometimes the only way to deal with a situation is to roll up your sleeves and do it the hard way, rather than being clever. I explained to my friends that we might as well leave. If the Bolivians weren’t going to unload the truck, they would never get out without another truck to pull it out. Kat and Federica really had a hard time with it, because they really wanted to help. So did I, but I could see it was no use. Kat and Fed went over to try to convince them one last time. The locals said no, they were going to go find a lot of rope to pull the truck out.
That truck was a five ton truck, with another ton or so of lumber in the back. A team of twenty people couldn’t pull it out of the mud! I threw up my hands and started down the trail, the others following grudgingly. It was an example of how sometimes it’s difficult to work with people from other cultures – often each side thinks they know better than the other. It was also why I respected Kat, Federica, Sander, and Cindy so much. All of their hearts were in the right place, and it was eating at them to leave the situation unresolved.
We stopped for lunch at a sweeping bend in the river, where there was a really nice sand beach. An abandoned homestead up on the bank overlooked the river, slowly but surely being reclaimed by the unrelenting forest. Kat, Federica, and I had a quick bath in the frigid waters, and air-dried in the hot sun while we ate lunch.
We continued on, and shortly after, came to a small community that looked to have been recently abandoned. It was fairly established, with a church and school, but there wasn’t a soul around. We crossed the river at that point, using a cable bridge close to the village.
And then, the day got a whole lot harder. The next couple of hours were spent climbing straight up the side of the canyon, over a ridge, down into another canyon, up the other side, over the ridge, down into the next river canyon. You get the idea. The trail was difficult to find in some spots, which meant a bit of scouting on unstable mountain-sides. Not really an ideal situation with the fading light and a heavy backpack.
Eventually, we made it to the final river canyon that would take us up into the crater, but night was falling fast, due to the high canyon walls. Before long, it was completely dark, and we weren’t even close to the town we were aiming for. Trail finding by lantern isn’t easy, especially when the route is washed out in spots by landslides.
The canyon was getting narrower and narrower, and the walls pressed in. I said to the group, “Keep your eyes peeled for side trails. I think a waterfall is coming up.” I just had a hunch. Sure enough, I spotted a small trail heading up the side of the canyon wall – we were following the river bed, it was luck that I saw that. We ended up going up and around a decent sized waterfall. Our luck ran out shortly after that, though. We came to another waterfall, with no obvious way around it. The trail was getting dangerous in the dark, so we decided to stop for the night. We backtracked a bit, until we found a place big enough for my tent, on a rock ledge ten meters above the river. We gathered up driftwood, and lit up a cheerful fire. It’s amazing how much a crackling fire can bolster one’s spirits.
While the girls cooked up dinner, Sander and I decided to scout out the trail by lantern, promising to return in thirty minutes. We found the trail pretty quick on the other side of the river, which again made its way around a large waterfall and back down to the river bed. Yet another waterfall blocked our path a short distance upriver. We walked up and down the river bed, inspecting the canyon walls for a trail. We found it, but it was tricky. I figured we would have to use ropes the next day, to get past a washed out section. With Sander and I working as a team – Sander would stay in a spot where the trail ended so I could find my way back if needed – we eventually found an Inca path. I knew we had hit pay dirt, but I ran up the path for five minutes to make sure it didn’t end in a washout. All good!
We headed back to share the good news, and to chow down on a hot dinner. After that, we were all a lot more relaxed, and had a really nice evening drinking red wine and singing songs.
And then, to bed! We had three sleeping bags, three sleeping mats, and one three-man tent…and there were five of us. I volunteered to sleep on the outside edge with just my silk liner, as I was the most accustomed to cold weather. We used Federica’s sleeping bag as a bottom blanket, with mine and Kat’s bags covering the other four. And then we snuggled up. It actually wasn’t too bad, despite the sub-zero temperatures, because we were all curled up against each other. I was pretty cold by 4AM, but only on my side that was pressed up against the tent wall. As I always say, “It wouldn’t be an adventure if everything went as planned!”