We arrived in Cuzco at 5:30am to fog and cool weather, much like the PNW, only at a litterally breathtaking 11,000ft. It was a great change of pace from the dry, desert-like Arequipa and canyonlands. We had a fantastic breakfast at Jack's on Emily's recomendation. AMAZING FOOD. We met Ben and Scott in the Plaza de Armas and decided how to proceed with our attack on the Rio Paucartambo.
Ben and Baker were totally hagared from the night before (Halloween) but they had managed to do a stellar job shopping for the trip the day before the party. They visited every supermarket in Cuzco and managed to salvage for our 5 people for up to 8 days:
Desayuno: 4 bags of special energy mix including granola, quaker oats, rasins, quinoa, puffed stuff, instant milk
Almuerzo: Bread & avo for first 2 days, 48 tortillas & manjar blanco, strawberry jam for other 6 days
Cena: 5kg pasta, 1kg pasta elbows (for variety), 8 soup mixes, 1pk bacon soup cubes, 2 garlic heads, 3 cans mussels, 6 pasta sauces dry
Other: 1lb Special Peruvian Dark Chocolate (Gringo edition), 2 candy bars/person/day, 2 liters of white gas
Getting ahold of all of these things in Cuzco was actually quite an acomplishment. Shopping in Peru is quite different than back home, and getting things (especially tortillas and gas) here is really tough.
We split around 9am to get a few things done and figure out logistics for the trip. We needed a ride to Paucartombo, so Andy and I rolled to Piero's place to figure out where we needed to go. Piero is Gian Marco's brother who runs an adventure company in Cuzco (www.terraexplorerperu.com). He gave us tons of useful beta, and sent us on our way to see when the busses were running. Sadly, it was a national holiday and all the busses were full, then not running the next day, then running again on Saturday.
It was a mess, but in the end we hired a private transport to Paucartombo. We worked $110 for 5 of us and our gear with Luis, who hated us once our kayaks began littering the top of his nice van. Then he really hated us when we put on two more at Ben's hostal. Then he really hated us when they fell off the rack halfway through town. We were on our way.
We went about 3.5 hours to the town of Paucartombo, but Pierro had suggested that we go to Challabamba, the further downstream put-in to avoid about 30km of flatwater. We found the Puente at Challabamba, but it was only 14km from Paucartombo. We ended up paddling the rest of the flatwater the next morning. Once we had made camp alongside the river, Andy, Todd and I went up to town to scope the scene and look for some dinner. The whole place was closed down around 7pm, but we still managed to make friends with the local kids. Especially in the smaller villages, the kids have often never seen photos of themselves, so they love to get in on them and frequently ask if we have cameras. I´m burried in there, somewhere...
No comments:
Post a Comment