PART 2 of 2 – THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF MY WILD FRIEND IN PERU – 1978

In this Part 2 post, about the adventures of my South African, wild-man friend. I will now conclude my memories of him on this blog site. I know it is hard for everyone to relate to stories of a person that you do not know. However it somehow paints a picture of my times in Peru, during this period of my life. We had fun, adventure, caused some problems, solved others and basically never had a dull moment. Our group was the second group of Canadians on this Project. From what I understand, we were by far, tamer than those that proceeded us. I heard stories of the Canadian construction people, packing sidearms (ala the Wild West). Apparently, shooting up the camp and basically raising hell. I am not sure, but I don’t think all of them left of their own volition.

Ol’ Bubbaloo was there during that period, preceding my arrival. She would know more of the truth about how it was during the early years from 1975 to 1977. If only she would “spit it out”. To this point all I could ever get from her is “they were nice”. Back to the story at hand. This one takes place at the start of our “two month” annual break. When most everyone, had left the camp for vacations, and work was slowing down for the year. Deysi and I remained, at the start of this period. Mainly because I had to make a full inventory of the 60,000 carded items that we carried in stock. This amounted to millions of pieces of inventory, all told.

So, everyone is either gone on holidays or cleaning up some remaining work, such as myself. BdK (from the previous stories), is up in the camp and planning to spend most of the break period there. Now, I loved the mountains, the scenery, the romance, history and culture. However, there was no way in hell that I would have spent two months in that place. Alone, with nobody else around. Had I been forced to remain there for 2 months. I would have used my rope on one of the light poles in the compound, after a few days. Anyway, BdK has one of his brilliant ideas. And this is where this story starts.

He decides, in all of his wisdom, and after a couple of gallons of beer and wine. That it would be a great idea if he were to climb down into the Colca Canyon, below us. And then walk out the other end, onto the desert. Well you have to know that the Colca Canyon is more than two times deeper than the Grand Canyon. It is not a ditch! After long and not too deep, planning, BdK determines a route. One used by the local area farmers and Inca’s of the past. In order to get themselves down into the bottom of the canyon. He enlists our Project Manager’s teenage son to join him in this venture.

Fully prepared with work clothes used in the high Andes, running shoes, and a light backpack carrying beer, for BdK and Inca Cola for his protege, as well as a couple of blankets, they embark early one sunny day. No one is saying much, however, I’m thinking that maybe a bit more planning could have been given to this journey, before leaping over the edge of a major canyon into unknown territory. BdK tells his hiking partner’s father that they will go down into the Canyon, live with the locals, eat with the locals and stay with the locals and should be out the end in a couple of days, at which point they will find a phone and call for someone to come and pick them up. Away they go, hopping along, chattering and laughing as they disappear into the distance and over the edge.

“Adios” I say, “I hope you know what you are doing”.The next two or three days go by with not much thoughts to BdK and the kid. Day four arrives and the father of the kid, starts to wonder out loud about how the trekkers might be doing. He is making excuses, like they are probably having too much fun to even consider the passage of time. A couple of more days go by, still no word from the explorers and our Project Manager’s voice is starting to take on a high pitched twang. Not to mention the abuse he was now taking from his wife for letting her son join “that idiot BdK” on such a journey. Day six arrives and the kid’s dad and a couple of others, hop in trucks and drive out of the mountains to a point where the Colca Canyon joins the desert.

They question the locals, but to no avail, no one has seen or heard anything of two gringo’s walking out of the canyon. They in return were questioned as to “how did gringos get into that canyon in the first place”, and, “why would anyone want to walk through that canyon, anyway” or, “do you realize that there are no roads, phones, or other services in that canyon”? The locals, I don’t think quite believed that someone would climb down that canyon and walk out. It didn’t make any sense, “why would you” was their question.

Now we are all starting to panic a little bit. The kid’s dad, our Project Manager, is more than a little bit panicked and now has to go face his wife with the news. I am so glad, it wasn’t me! Police were called to be on the lookout and we all prepared for some bad news. Well, maybe you have heard the old saying that, “the lord looks after fools and drunks”? It just so happened that BdK qualified as both, so on about the 7th day, out come these two weary, ass dragging gringos onto the desert and into the midst of a major search being organized for them, or for some of us in the midst of our preparations for the disposal of their corpses. Then they relate their trials.

Apparently, after scaling down the canyon and arriving at the bottom, they realized that they had now just passed from high, cold, arid, dry mountain plateaus to tropical, wet, hot jungle. They were fully prepared, with gear, to fight off the cold of the Andes. The bottom of this canyon had a micro climate that changed everything including vegetation into a tropical jungle type environment. They also immediately realized that there were no roads, no villages of note and definitely no services. It was hot, they were starting to shed clothes and gear. BdK consumed the liquids from his pack, so as not to waste anything or have extra weight to carry.

The first night they slept out, crapping themselves to the sounds of the jungle. Their real walk started on day two, where they quickly came to another realization that there was not going to be a “straight shot” out of this valley. First of all they were on the wrong side of the river, to where most of the population appeared to live, and secondly there was nary a bridge in sight. The paths that did exist, were twisted and turning, up and down, in someplace non existent and in others dead ends. Of a sudden they start to realize that what might have been a 40 or 50 km walk (as the crow flies) was going to be maybe 150-200km, with no roads or conveniences. This river like any other did not run in a straight line anywhere. It was like a snake.

So, they walked, until their feet got blisters, they stayed with local farmers from the valley. They ate local foods and just kept going. They were definitely a curiosity to the locals, who had seldom if ever found a gringo wandering thru their lands. At one point they had to rest for a day and try to recover. The trek along the river, up steep paths and down thru the heavy vegetation at the bottom, was taking it toll. BdK says he was never worried. His protege, never said anything, he was saving it all for the nurturing conversation he was about to have with his mother. He just kinda stood around with a sheepish look on his face. We never did calculate how far they walked, but it was substantial. The little money they had, they used to buy food from the locals.

And finally after 6 days of walking (on a hike planned for two days) they encountered a village that had a road into it. They were tired, hungry, sun burned and sore, but had made it too, what seemed to them as, civilization. One day later a local produce truck came to the village to pick up the produce for the market and the two intrepid hikers were able to hitch a ride, the rest of the way out of the canyon. Once again BdK had provided us with some relief to our life in the Andes. I might say it didn’t dampen his spirits and a couple of days later, he was planning the next crap pile he could get himself into.