Hi JJ -- (from Arequipa July 4th 2015) -- I'm up to eleven crossings of that "Grand Final Rim" of both Cotahuasi and Maran Canyons now -- every one still different, difficult and rewarding, and deserving its own telling. My internet access is rare to nonexistent with my continuing energy to trek and my continuing wish to spend time in the most peaceful places -- and the key link of Cotahuasi-town cut out. This biggest near-city in the whole canyon, just now ramping up with full-speed "development", seems to me -- with no internet service for a full year now after five years service like "everywhere" else before that -- the most "backward" center of "poverty" in my past eight years of travel by land from Mexico to Patagonia! "Crossing Number Nine" would surely detail my ongoing "Cotahuasi Canyon Blues" with this as one main point -- but now the marvelous opportunity that opened up to me on the day after Christmas last year for "Crossing Number Six".

Real Grand Canyon Venture

"Aventura" means both "venture" (or risk) and "adventure" in Spanish -- how we learn philosophy from languages! Adventure surely needs risk of some sort? -- and the adventure is what's added on.

I caught don Edwin out just before dawn in the chacra (famiily farm field) beginning to set up "Gringo Yogi" Burro for my longest trek with that good donkey in three or four years. An appropriaate five-day preliminary of good exertions, including three energetic days on foot with a pack, had set me up perfectly for a Christmas Day surprise and the opportunity I saw in it over pre-dawn coffee the next morning. Two young men from near Corculla had made a traditional but now highly rare journey over from the adjoining Maran Canyon with six burros and two horses and a cargo of meat and -- potatoes? abba beans? -- to trade for the avocadoes and mangoes of Quechualla. The half-green mangoes were just right for such a rough journey back up over the canyon rim from near the deep point of what's now being called the "Deepest Canyon in the World" and drawing a few tourists away from Colca, which has long made that claim. Their two-day return would involve steep, near-continuously-uphill trails from just over 5,000ft elevation to near 16,000ft and back down to 11,500ft Corculla.    My appropriate preparation for asking to get in on this "dream trek" for me had included deciding to get off the Sayla-Cotahuasi bus at 11,000ft Charcana and try the trail route to Quechualla from there for the first time in all these years. The pre-dawn setup of my own burro was part of a plan to return there for half my pack's load that I'd left with Edwin's brother and family, and take them a load of mangoes and avocadoes while I was at it. Edwin liked the idea of the change and agreed that it was a rare, really unique opportunity for me. It would involve going up, around and past the memorable sunset view of the little peaks 9,000 feet above town that I'd gazed longingly at for five years over ceremonial guitar time with a beer or wine.

Walter and Alex greeted my proposal with some quiet doubt until Edwin put in a few words of recommendation for me. I told them "I'm not a bank" but that I would be glad to pay them something for their trouble. My pack, lighter yet with even more weight left for later, fit on top of one of the loads of mangoes and avocadoes, although they didn't seem too happy about it.

I left Quechualla with a head start at 10:30 as they finished packing the burros and one of the horses, I got some of the steepest ground behind me, and relaxed with a trail snack and a brierf nap after finally seeing the donkeys coming uphill -- already far below. When they got there just before noon Walter was riding one horse, and he offered me a ride. I declined "for now" with the option to try later, and Alex took his first of several turns. I finally did request it hours later and got off after an hour -- first horse ride in twent years! I realized, as one knee clicked pleasantly back into walking position, why cowboys get bowlegged -- gripping that horse on rough terrain! -- and why it was a good idea to cut the ride short now.

It was a hard first day, but only six hours, mercifully including only a few extremely steep stretches -- good preparation for the twelve-hour day to follow. Desolate lower zones gradually filled in with small irrigated family fields often cut by steep small ravines. Views down, across and up to the north, south and east were consistently enormous.  We bypassed picturesque little Picha, far off to the right at the top of the gigantic cliff-lined bowl that forms a classic view from Quechualla. The cliffs and "peaks" (really "false summits") nine thousand feet above town are always purple in the distance, beyond the red and grey and gold mountainsides that have drawn me to actually make some watercolors over the years with the supplies I always carry but so seldom use. We passed through another, smaller village, far to the left of the great bowl. Walter called a halt just a half-hour uphill from the last level and irrigated ground and we prepared to sleep out on the steep mountainside instead, at a spot with "no water" and nothing for the animals to eat. This was really the case anyway at the flat spots below, except for bought and sparse feed, and the burros pawed the ground all night long and noisily crunched the roots they came up with.   My questioning the "no water" part led Alex and Walter to get a potful and three liters of pure holywater for morning from the nearest ravine, and they cooked up a great pot of plain soup with thick noodles. They joked and laughed -- so simple and genuine the plain life! -- over some sips of wine for an hour or two, the fabulous view of Quechualla so far below faded into the night with the scheduled electricity still not there, and I felt in heaven as three horse blankets "put away wet" over me and my thin poncho felt mighty good soon enough into the chill of night at nearly 12,000 feet. The thick clouds that had been brilliant red after sunset brought intermittent raindrops througout the night, and the high peaks across the canyon showed a first fresh snow of the season in the morning.   We were up at four, I offered a thick ganoderma-coffee plus cocoa and "seven-grain" mix and we were off at 6:00 on a six-hour haul, plus an hour's rest, up to the pass. The first few hours were up through and around the cliffs, and at one shear drop seventeen-year-old Alex, on his first trip here, advised me earnestly "Don't look down!" "I know", I said, and a minute later he said "Look down there!" Ha Ha.

The last few thousand feet up to the pass are over hilly land often set thickly with steep,rocky outcrops but full of pastureland too. A few ancient houses were on our way, with some cows nearby now rather than llamas or alpacas and nobody home. One bull had fallen a few days earlier from a big cliff-overhang "cave" and become food for "a hundred" condors and they both went to check but found only some bones for their dog -- which had no herding instinct and never helped with the contstant urging on of the burros. We did see one wild vicuña near there. They dared each other into showers under an ice-cold waterfall at the "cave" during our hour's rest and shrieked a bit but came out refreshed. The animals finally got some grass to eat as I munched trail mix and tanked up on spring water.    The going got noticeably harder for me with every bit of higher altitude -- the highest I've ever hiked. Periodic coca chews helped enormously. I shared the Duke/Aulik/Plowman scientific information about its nutritional benefits ("La Coca No es Cocaina!") as they -- like so many even in Peru and Bolivia now -- have largely lost direct knowledge of its benefits, even when traversing these high terrains. I "worshipped" the "Elementals" of AIR! WATER! with conscious deepest possible breathing and thankfully non-chlorinated water.

I rode the horse again for an hour up to the point where we crossed the road. not far from the 15,600ft or higher pass. Walter (only early twenties in age?) left a small open flask of wine there at the grave of his father, who departed somewhere nearby, for the returning spirit to taste. I took another head start as the terrain was open now to the pass and they could point it out at a spot of very white ground -- unlike a few other times this had not worked along the way. I tried to point out a few times how they might benefit in a year-or-few from this introduction to being "guides" -- and pay attention to such things as not leaving the "client" out of sight behind them. The road we crossed, only a few years old, is planned for paving in the near future, with all such "progress" in these faraway zones surely centered around gold mines and potential ones. But the "development" can surely bring "adventure tourists" also to this rather ultimate two or three-day trek.    The head start at that final high ground was a good break for me as they retied loads, and it was nearly an hour after noon as Walter asked me the time again and I gave him my spare watch. The 4,000ft descent to Corculla turned out to be via their home village of Molca far to one side. First we traversed around three large drainages, keeping to high altitude and avoiding the tempting irrigated "pampas" (flat zones) below. I lagged behind for the last two hours, keeping close enough to not lose sight of them and knowing they would need time to unload the animals when we got there. Walter still needed to get the burros and horses fed but I bargained for his help with my "very light" pack about a quarter of the remaining way to Corculla -- "just a half-hour away!" -- by promising a bonus of my headlamp if I was sure I could make it before dark. This and the watch went with my promised payment of 50 soles ($17) for him and thirty soles ($11) for Alex.    I don't want to say this is the "real Grand Canyon" or anything. It's not anywhere near as colorful or, really, beautiful as Cañon Colorado, which is all visible in a single incomparable view. I doubt there are ever places to see these canyons of south Peru all at once without an airplane.  But it is twice as deep -- and what trermendous views!

Corculla's big yearly festival is in mid-July, just ten days now -- time to trek over this route again and show "Gringo"/ "Yogi Burro" the trail this time? And from there --- an old Inca high road goes all the way to Cusco! -- where I'm planning to head anyway in the next month. What's that I hear calling me away from internet yet awhile longer?

   ------------Rick(ardo)

Fourth installment of the story of my travels in Peru, Bolivia and... I've only written up the first two of eight crossings now. Every one has been memorable with details of its own -- and now I'm heading (at relaxed pace?) for numbers nine and next ... This one might stand on its own? I'd like to work up the whole series just because "it is there!"  

Part 3: The Other Side of that Grand Final Rim
Part 2: Classic Corculla, Long Lost Lands
Part 1: Condors Taking Wing from a Great Divide

- Rick(ardo)