For, navigable or no, the river was navigated once again by Don Abraham Marquez and his merry men, this time with near-fatal consequences. The rough swirl at one of the final bends inspired some plain and fancy seamanship which left me gasping; even the indomitable Marquez exclaimed afterward, “That was an ugly one, hey, señores?” We careened to a landing in a canebrake, just short of a horrid pile of black rocks tumbled at the mouth of a thick, sulphurous stream; the black rocks formed the first real mal paso of the river and were therefore the point at which Marquez no longer considered the April river navigable. The canoe was hauled in among the rocks, and we forded the rush of yellow water, waist-deep, holding our gear on our shoulders. This was a bad moment, too, as my knees were still weak and shaking with cold and offered little or no control over my sneakered feet, which splayed wildly on the slippery rocks below; one false move, I thought, and I would slip beneath the yellow waves, to be swept onward to the Pongo and points north. I froze momentarily, and Andrés, who chatters at these nervous moments—I tend to remain silent and morbid—sensed my alarm. His own assurance and encouragement stung me forward like a goad, and I came plunging out at last on the far side.
The hacienda at Sirialo is typical of these small river holdings: an adobe house, thatch huts for the peons, mud, chickens, pigs, a donkey or two, coffee and cacao trees struggling up out of the choking flora, mud, insects, a damp heat of imminent rain, more mud. The jungle rises up behind, looming forward as if ever on the point of obliterating man’s intrusion in a wild maelstrom of green. The adobe hut itself had been invaded by jungle weeds, and on this dark day its half-built shell littered with boards and burlap seemed particularly uninviting. We stood dully, our clothes soaked and muddy, with nothing dry to change into, while the hacienda manager expressed his conviction that the foot trail to the Pongo gave out entirely a few kilometers below Sirialo. Marquez himself, exhausted and nervous from the passage down the river, had taken to the manager’s bed. Left to ourselves, Andrés and I contemplated the insects and the mud, which was steaming now that the rain had stopped; our state of mind was so abysmal that it is difficult to describe without inducing it all over again, right here and now.
As of this evening, this is our situation: we are less than a day’s canoe travel downriver, but returning upstream by the trail is a matter of three days, and any further progress would only increase the discrepancy. We are faced with the choice of an expensive retreat of at least ten days, to Atalaya via Quillabamba, Cuzco, Lima, and Pucallpa, or a desperate plunge down a river said to be unnavigable at this season. Canoas and balsas are apparently unavailable, even if a crew could be found willing to man them; the extent of the foot trail is a matter of general ignorance and dispute, though everyone, from the smiling man at Lugarte’s to Marquez’s man at Sirialo, agrees that it is bruto—extremely tortuous. Even should we reach the Pongo and get past it, there is no assurance that Cruz will be waiting on the other side, or even at Timpia, some thirty miles beyond, and no means of advising him to do so. And in the hundreds of miles of wilderness between Timpia and Atalaya there is no trail of any kind.
The sensible course is a retreat. But the idea sticks painfully in our craws: the trip here has been made in such high hopes, and the return seems arduous and humiliating. We discussed alternatives this morning. We were spreading our dank gear and soaked sleeping bags on the muddy rocks and stumps when I suggested to Andrés that we might have to go back.
“I know,” Andrés said almost gratefully. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
He was grateful, not for the chance of retreat, of course, but because I’d finally voiced our mutual doubts; I was grateful in turn that he had not concealed his own misgivings under cover of mine. A smaller man might have said, Oh, do you think so? as if the possibility of turning back had never occurred to him. In any case, the moment the misgivings had been voiced, our morale rose again, and the idea of retreat appeared intolerable—as I have indicated elsewhere, both Andrés and myself tend to be pigheaded. This afternoon we made our way through the jungle to the neighboring hacienda, where a young man named Rosell heard us out with an indulgent smile: too many people had drowned just below his place, at Sirialo Falls—why, a bishop had died there only the year before—for him to consider a descent of the river at this season. Machiguengas might make it, he said, on a strong balsa: we should return to Coribene by the trail and prevail upon Padre Giordia to help us. As for the trail itself, it was impassable for mules beyond the Sirialo River, and human bearers were impossible to find.
But at supper Marquez was very discouraging about our chances at Coribene; he did not think that Giordia would risk his Machiguengas at this time of year, even if the Indians themselves were willing. It occurred to me in desperation that if I could prevail upon Andrés to dispense with some of his gear—thus dispensing with the need for mules, or for more than one or two peons—we could attempt a fast trip to the Pongo on foot, in the hope that we might obtain help from the Pereiras, or even pick up a balsa on the way. To my surprise (for he is over sixty, after all), Andrés immediately agreed: we would lay out our gear in the first light of the morning and pare our equipment to the bone. Whatever we left could return upriver with Marquez, to be sent eventually to Estelle León de Peralta in Cuzco. Far from being tempted to return ourselves, we were now repelled by the idea of wasting two more days in what would almost surely be a vain effort to get assistance from Padre Giordia; we planned to set off downriver on the trail as soon as we could get organized in the morning.
April 14. Rodríguez.
I slept happily last night on top of a bin of cacao beans, having first searched the shed with a flashlight for snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions. When I scrambled down at dawn, Andrés was already at work on his equipment but had managed to reduce his five large bags of gear by only one. He also planned to leave behind his sleeping bag, keeping only his poncho and a piece of canvas; by sacrificing the sleeping bag he felt justified in keeping with him such luxuries as a portable radio and a quart bottle of eau de cologne.
Andrés is in love with his equipment, which has seen him through many an adventure, but over the years he has accumulated quite a lot of it. The dates of his various expeditions are scrawled all over the stock of his carbine and the inner brim of his broad frontier hat, and in this sense he clings, through his equipment, to the past. He is unquestionably a jungle man of experience and courage, but he is nevertheless the only such man I have ever come across who is willing to burden himself unnecessarily. Had Cruz met us with canoes, as planned, his equipment would have been welcome, but it was now crucial that we travel light. I reduced my own gear to one sack, two-thirds full, and a small knapsack, and placed them next to his pile by way of contrast; I then suggested as gently as my irritation would permit that the refreshment to be gained from a heavy radio and a quart of eau de cologne would not begin to compensate for the possible loss of sleep he was risking by leaving his bedroll behind.
Andrés is a man who is not at home on the defensive and dislikes criticism almost as much as I do. Therefore he was soon irritable himself. Nevertheless, he sliced a little of the fat out of his sacks, and meanwhile Marquez had located for us a Quechua, one Zacharias, who for twenty soles, plus a twelve-sole bottle of pisco to be used en route as fuel (or a total salary of approximately one dollar and fifteen cents) contracted to bear a truly enormous weight for one whole day downriver. The enormity of his travail—two large rubber duffel bags full of heavy gear, plus a sack of canned goods and other emergency food—cannot be imagined unless one keeps in mind the steep, muddy trails full of slippery and sliding rocks, the stream crossings, the insects and clinging thorns, the fierce heat in the open swamps, and the promise of the long walk back over what, in any other part of the world, could only be called an obstacle course.
Nonetheless, Zacharias rolled the sacks up in his qquepina, the cloth sling of the mountain Indians, and we hoisted it onto his bent back. He set off cheerfully, the
pisco bottle snug against his side, a wad of coca in his cheek, and his small mongrel, Tarzan, at his heels. Having thanked Don Abraham Marquez for his many kindnesses and said good-by, we followed him. Andrés was truly a hard-looking character, with his broad hat and rawhide chin strap, his carbine slung on his shoulder, his machete and packs, and, on his belt, his canteen, drinking cup, sun glasses, bullet pouch, and two hunting knives; if I had not borrowed a third knife and the revolver, he would have worn these too. To Andrés’s annoyance, I carried the revolver in my pack, not only because its holster would catch on thorns and bushes as we went along but because, I felt like a damn fool wearing it.
By nine the day was already very hot. A short distance below the hacienda we had to ford the Sirialo River, just above its confluence with the Urubamba. Zacharias plunged across the current, barefoot on the boulders; Andrés and I struggled through with a little more difficulty. The packs upset our sense of balance, and Andrés once slipped and fell, though he recovered himself before water could reach his camera. Halfway across we came to a rock island; the water beyond was too deep to traverse with the gear. But there was a small hut across the way, and its owner swirled over in his canoe to fetch us.
The banks of the Urubamba, above the Pongo de Mainique, are a series of steep ridges broken by mountain valleys; there is no trail along the river banks, since these are too precipitous, and therefore one must climb the ridges, plunge down into the valleys, and climb all over again immediately. From the top of the first ridge, we glimpsed the dread tumbos of the Sirialo, which lie below the encuentro; perhaps because we were on foot, and far above, there seemed to be nothing very alarming about them.
On theory, we were bound for the hacienda of one Rodríguez, a man, so it was said, who might be helpful; he was supposed to live four or five miles below the Sirialo and to have some Machiguengas working for him. But as the day wore on and the miles moved slowly past, there was no sign of the good Rodríguez. Zacharias, pisco-crazed, got farther and farther ahead, while Andrés slowly fell behind. Whenever we stopped to rest, I could see that he was suffering. Once, offered a swig of the Quechua’s white lightning, he accepted gladly, which was quite uncharacteristic. I felt a pang of conscience and began to worry.
The day had become frightfully hot: we were soaked beneath our packs. Andrés put up no resistance when, toward midday, I relieved him of his carbine. His pants were ripped and falling away at the knee, and though he did not complain, his face was gray. Shortly thereafter we came to the hut of a Rodríguez, though not the man we sought: an old woman there gave us lemon and water, and Andrés gulped at it like a man dying of thirst. He tried to pour some into his canteen, and his hand shook so that he slopped most of it onto the ground. His self-control was precarious, and for the first time since I had known him he actually looked his age.
By this time I was desperately concerned. I felt bad that I had taken him at his own estimate of his endurance, had encouraged him in his courageous decision not to let me continue by myself. He admitted now that he had felt a twinge of pain in his heart, and I got to the point where I had to consider what I would do should his heart give out. There would be no possibility of getting a body out of this valley to Quillabamba in this heat; he would have to be buried in the jungle.
But Andrés knew that we had gone too far now to turn back; retreating would mean a four-day walk, and he was not up to it. He felt that his trouble had stemmed from the straps on his pack which, in combination with the steep terrain, had made his breathing difficult. We decided that he was not to carry anything when walking, and that we would move more slowly. The woman gave us some fried eggs and bananas, and he felt better; afterward we rested in the hut until the heat had eased a little. A second peon was located who took over Andrés’s gear and part of mine, and as it was only two hours to the right Rodríguez, we decided to move on, as we could accomplish nothing where we were.
At dusk we came out on the bank opposite the Rodríguez huts; their owner came across for us in his canoe. In this swift current the technique is to lead the canoe far upstream along the bank, make a break for the other side, and try to land as little below the target point as possible. Rodriguez and the boy in the bow were skillful, but even so they landed well below us and had to inch upstream along the bank.
Señor Rodríguez, a small dark suspicious man who later proved quite hospitable, denied any knowledge of available canoes or balsas with a vehemence suggesting that he felt himself falsely accused; he further denied that he harbored Machiguengas, much less the slightest inclination to take us anywhere on the river. Like everyone else, he spoke optimistically of hopeful prospects only a few miles farther down; if necessary, he swore, we could make it overland to the Pereira holdings in two days.
I have the impression that we make these people nervous, arriving armed as we do, on a mission so senseless as to make them suspect that it is actually something nefarious; they get our hopes up with their optimistic tales simply to get rid of us. It also appears that most of these people who have ventured down a short distance on the Urubamba are people of the sierra rather than the jungle. They fear the river, as Andrés points out, and know nothing about it, not even the actual distance to the next hacienda below. Beyond Rodríguez there are two or three small holdings; from the last of these to the Pongo de Mainique is a vast wilderness controlled by the Pereiras. Rodríguez could tell us this much, but he felt certain that we could obtain a balsa before we reached the Pereira country. He was not very convincing, and privately I felt that we faced the possibility of a three- or four-day march, with nothing we could count on at the end of it.
April 15. Ardiles.
Last night I slept badly on a hard cane mat laid on the mud, beset by chicken lice, small flies, and mosquitoes: Andrés, who had no sleeping bag, was given a kind of mattress, an ironic reward, I thought, for his improvidence, but one which came at a fortunate time, as he needed all the rest he could get. I awoke this morning rather low in my mind and taped a growing boot chafe on my ankle.
Our faithful Zacharias and his valiant Tarzan had departed in the early hours, bearing with them, as it turned out, the greater part of our emergency rations. Tired before we started, we soon set off ourselves, accompanied by two fresh bearers lent us by Rodríguez, and bound for the hacienda of César Lugarte—no relation, it was said, of the César Lugarte upriver. This Lugarte lived “three hours away, señores, walking slowly.”
We reached our destination early in the afternoon. The march had required five or six hours over a path infinitely more tortuous than that of the previous day; once we paused to fire the .44 in vain at a pava, or guan, of which we saw several during the morning. Our feet were giving out, and we slumped exhausted on the bank while Lugarte peons on the opposite shore waved us back upstream; they were trying to indicate that they had no canoe and that we should cross at a point farther up where, an hour previously, we had been waved downstream. This latter intelligence, of course, was impossible to convey across the roar of the river, and so we simply slumped there, at a loss; we refused to retrace our steps over that terrible trail, for reasons which were becoming psychological as well as physical.
At last two young men came across the river on a small balsa to talk to us. One of them, called Ardiles, claimed to have a larger balsa farther downriver; to our surprise and pleasure, he agreed to take us down to the Pereiras’. He departed immediately on the trail upstream, to return in less than an hour with a canoa, in which he transported us to the Lugarte clearing across the way. One of our bearers, Alejandro, came along with us; he had decided to run away from Señor Rodriguez. In return for his services, we agreed to see to it that he got eventually to Lima.
Tomorrow we walk again, the usual “cuatro o cinco kilómetros, señores, nada más,” but at the end of this walk, whatever its distance, there is at least a balsa. Ardiles claims that he is willing to take us into the jaws of the Pongo itself, and Andrés, who would now willingly risk his life rather than walk e
ven one mile farther on this jungle trail, is all for it. (He may feel, of course, that walking is more dangerous for him, for his heart, than the Pongo could possibly be, and after yesterday I can scarcely blame him.) Though he feels better today, his legs are swelling badly, and he will soon reach the point where courage will not be enough.
We still have a few hours of daylight, and I have taken a bath in the river and washed out both sets of clothes. I am sitting now in the mud yard, observed by the silent Indian peons; their huts, surrounding us, are characteristic of the Machiguengas, high-peaked and closely made, with mud floor, thatch roof, and a kind of straw wall from floor to chin level. Chickens and dogs pick through the huts, and swarms of guinea pigs.
On both sides the mountain ridges hem us in, as if we were trapped in some sort of chute. And of course we are, for there is no turning back: we will soon have the Pereiras and the Pongo to deal with, and after that the open jungle, the unknown.
Of the Pongo de Mainique we have had only dark reports, and Ardiles himself, despite his avowed willingness to take us through it, speaks excitedly of enormous waves and falls and whirlpools, or remolinos. As for the Pereiras, they are as much a legend in the montaña as they were in the era of Mrs. Cox, and the truth is hard to come by. This much is probably fact: the patriarch, Fidel Pereira, is the mestizo, or half-caste, son of a Portuguese slaver and a Machiguenga woman. He was sent to the university in Cuzco, where he was a brilliant student, and was studying to be a lawyer. But during this period, for reasons disputed, he murdered his father and, fearing reprisal or the law, or both, he fled back into the upper Urubamba. There, in a wilderness to which he held no title, he has established a huge domain, and has gained control of virtually all of his mother’s people above the Pongo, even the wild Machiguengas of the tributary rivers. The law has not cared to follow Pereira into Pangoa, as his home grounds are known, and Pereira himself, a single visit to Quillabamba excepted, has not left the jungle in nearly forty years. Some of his holdings he has parceled out among three sons, and there are several other children recognized as well. It is said on the upper Urubamba that his children by Machiguenga women number more than fifty, and that after his return from Cuzco he committed many other murders among his people, but these reports are as doubtful as the one that attests that the old man maintains potency to this day with a secret potion made of monkey milk.