Burro-ing Into The Canyon Again, (not-yet) Crossing Number Twelve of the Canyon Divide  

Was that Apus somehow looking down, maybe grinning at me from those solid ranks of terribly beautiful cliffs above, where I knew the trail must pass somewhere? Why was I somehow questioning whether I had permission to pass there?   I just sat and drank some pure mountain water for a half hour or so. What now? Where now? -- were questions on the mind but not on top. It was the third day of "Gringo"/"Yogi" Burro's and my most serious wander in four years -- an effort to retrace the wonderful "ultimate trek" of six months ago from the bottom of the Cotahuasi Canyon directly up over nearly the full canyon depth of eleven thousand feet and into the neighboring Huanca Huanca Canyon.

It was not exactly going as planned. But then, that's so normal for me now that "plans" are not exactly a category any more. Maybe I'd make it to day two or three of the big yearly mid-July Corculla festival now instead of the whole thing? Maybe not at all? The late start on day one, and an evidently-very-hungry burro very unwilling to leave "eternal Spring" Quechualla for steep trails into high country had been balanced by wonderful help from newly-met simple, genuine -- and generous -- people in these faraway places. The hearty soup and grand silence of don Jesus' homestead where I'd begged in that first night! -- broken only by the peaceful splash of the nearby irrigation stream -- sure was a balm after a first-time-ever "pollution" of the years-long perfect silence at my years-favorite Quechualla tepee spot by speaker "music" enabled by newly-arrived house electricity at nine in the morning from a very drunk Benito at the house "next door" through the fruit forest..The big pile of don Flavio's corn stalks I'd hauled up along beautiful terraced fields below Picha that burro dispatched in two hours midday rest the next day! -- sure put him in a better mood to go from there. And the good conversation and capable paid help keeping him going that afternoon from don Klever, a young man returning from city life for a month's visit, the offer of don Flavio's expert and energetic help getting up to "the cave" and past all the difficult and dangerous terrain the next day -- good beginnings at making sense of this next phase of my "South American Retirement Plan." Don Edwin had remarked curtly as I left (a joke?) "No need to bring burro back." Just how long and far would this burro wander -- such a big change, after all, from what seemed my largely-uncomfortable "comfort zone" -- appropriately be?

My decision to go up an hour's climb higher, with Kleber's help that second day, past all-three-houses-empty Cayhuine and the highest cultivated zones of the great side canyon had meant missing out on don Flavio's help with this hardest stretch today. "I know the way!" -- had been easy to say. But Burro and I met up with several wild cards after the freezing night's campout with spare food for him again -- the nearly-unused through-trails overgrown with thorn bushes and confused by innumerable cow paths, the serious cactus hiding "everywhere" with three- or four-inch thorns like needles that stick in your skin and hang the whole detached section from your leg or arm, the ungainly load and my "experimental" (as usual) setup of saddlebags including those cheap fiberglass-weave bags that do not slide past thorn bushes ... and then the horseflies!   The two or three dozen horseflies as big as bumblebees with those horrible black half-inch-long needles for faces had been the wildest wild card. I finally learned to stay calm and just swat them with my hat when they landed on me or in mid-air, but burro reacted violently to their buzzing that aimed at him. Only several hundred yards from the camp that morning, the load was sliding off-balance, stuck on thornbushes, just as burro thrashed at a horsefly and sent my pack sliding away from the big ropes (hadn't thought to tie it to the rest of the load) -- and rolling down a ravine! That was luckily less than a half-hour delay, not an impassable zone like it easily might have been.

So I'd scouted from there, with burro tied and the load off and awaiting re-packing -- and saw what was surely the more gradual and direct way we'd taken last December to the high switchback where the trail finally cuts back across the cliff ranks to the cave. But, even carrying my pack now with the lightest stuff in it, then going back for burro, the confusion of trails and a final wild card of amazingly complex hilly terrain full of thick bushes, even on what was basically a steady gradual incline -- had me finally stopped before midafternoon. I'd left the pack and gone for burro, then left him "near the pack", only to find I couldn't find either pack or burro again!

An "Apu", in Inca or Quechua lore, is a mountain god or spirit inhabiting these high places. Being once actually stopped and gazing up at the wall of cliffs above proved to be awe-inspiring! Without Flavio's help, or anybody really experienced with the animals and familiar with the route, like Walter and Alex on that first time over -- which always makes the whole thing seem so nearly ordinary, you just look at the trail ahead and walk up! -- things immediately looked a whole lot different. Did I "have permission" to just forge on ahead and somehow make it through this potentially treacherous and "awe-full" terrain?

Actually -- why not pull out the watercolor supplies, so long unused, that aptly symbolize what meaning that big, ungainly load may ultimately have? -- and spend hours (or was it days?) here honoring those fabulous solid ranks of cliffs? The three-tier "wedding cake" to the extreme right and the three or four massive bastions in the middle that all hide behind lower versions of the same when seen from the classic view spot far below in Quechualla, and, at the extreme left, the full view finally of the highest rugged "peak" in that view that now proves to be not an actual peak but just the start of a long knife-edge ridge behind it that runs directly away from the view below -- maybe that was Apu's finally speaking from those gorgeous places? I went back down to the same camp with its crawl-in spot under thornbushes and another quietly peaceful night's rest, and returned downhill in the morning.   The next two days had adventures of their own, including being run over by Burro in the first hour as he escaped a horsefly -- one hoof planted on my leg, good thing burros aren't heavy like horses and mules! -- as I led him down a steep narrow path. I still had hold of the lead rope but -- I've seen this one before! -- had no wish to be dragged down that rocky trail -- and I let him "escape" down in the direction where he knew the way and surely wanted to go. An hour or two of scouting for him as I went down (he and all my stuff off a cliff?!) proved unnecessary as he'd simply stopped when the load came down (but not off!) along the main trail. The experimental "saddlebags" were hanging completely under him, leaving him peacefully grazing while tangled in ropes. That day's luck! -- a couple were home this time down in three-house Calhuine another half-hour below. Don Cosmo and his wife welcomed me to another of those classic hearty soups, help getting burro down and fed, another peaceful night's rest -- and Cosmo was going to Charcana with his own burros the next day and easily took mine too! There a road now connects to Cotahuasi with daily bus service and I was welcomed by one of don Edwin's brothers and family.

I left Burro there, five days ago now, for a very WELCOME rest (and return to being a "tourist"!) at another sort-of-main Canyon town, Alca. Here there's not only internet but also the best hotspring in the area, an enjoyable half-hour's riverside walk away. I soak every day and have found myself eating ravenously -- thus noticing I must have been rationing myself on "spare diet" -- for how long now? How peaceful Alca has been compared to the ramping-up "development" of Cotahuasi that includes "undeveloping" the public internet! (damn mental horseflies?!). Here there was even an owl hooting one midnight from the plaza trees below my room.

I'm still mulling over Edwin's comment about "no need to bring Burro back" and will find the right answer to that one when it's time. The route from Charcana over the Canyon Divide and to Oyolo instead of Corculla is much easier and safer, entirely along a new road. But then? -- a whole new "wander" with him in the Huanca Huanca Canyon?  I consider many possibilities that line up for (possible) days ahead now rather than actual "plans" -- "tomorrow knows tomorrow" -- calling that "freedom". Cuzco -- and an eye-doctor appointment in Curahuasi -- do appear on next month's horizon. ----- 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 4: Real Grand Canyon Venture
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