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| Adam enjoys a dynamic breakfast |
23/07/12 - 24/07/12
After a day of rest in Nayhua topping up our food supplies, enjoying an evening beer by the camp fire (the first ever multiday with beer?) and bidding farewell to Derf the remainder of the team embarked on the Black Canyon section of the Apurimac. The canyon owes its name to the dark rock of the surrounding mountains and lack of sunlight the gorge experiences.
This infrequently rafted section starts at Nayhua and follows the river through an amazing gorge for 60km until the get out bridge Puente Hualpachaca. By raft the section takes 3 days however we predicted it should take us no longer than one and a half days in our kayaks. The commercially rafted section of the Apurimac lies directly beneath the Black Canyon section and we planned to continue on the river and paddle the whole lot in one go.
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| The bustling metropolis of Nayhua |
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| The team puts their degrees to use: Innovative tent solutions due to the loss of poles and pegs |
The first rapid of the day, dubbed "breakfast rapid" was perhaps one of the best - a clean bouncy grade 4 to get the team buzzing. The rapids (mostly grade 4 read-and-run) continued to provide us with a good amount of entertainment for the first 10km including only one portage which with what Adam could only describe as a "difficult and heroic boof" could be run. The gradient slowly began to level off and with only one stop for lunch we continued to a nice beach about 30km downstream where we set up camp.
Unfortunately due to the loss of the water filter the team were subject to river water boiled in the sardine pan which, when enjoyed luke warm, prompted a disgusting fishy acid reflux.
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| Tom balls deep |
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| Alex pounding the meat |
Day 2
Unfortunately both Tom and Alex had picked up some river bug from the day before and were not feeling their best, the perfect conditions for finishing off a committing grade 4 run. The breakfast rapid today provided us with less amusement than the day before - Adam and Alby reached the eddy at the bottom from where they watched both Tom and Alex drop into a sticky hole following a large pourover. After a couple of back loops and some intense side surfing mania swims ensued and a swift rescue was complete, all that was left to do was find the boats and paddles. An hour of chase boating and Adam and Alby managed to retreive both boats and but only one set of blades. The group was reunited and continued down the river to enjoy (Adam and Alby) and simultaneously paddle and vomit (Alex) down the remainder of the grade 3-4 rapids.
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| Black canyon |
On reaching the Puente Hualpachaca, the get out for the Black Canyon section, we decided to abandon our plan to continue down the Apurimac due to episodes of violent vomitting and the lack of toilet páper. A rough night camping by the bridge later and we managed to catch a cattle truck back to Cusco - a mixed 6 hour journey across an amazing Andean landscape.
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| Grim return journey in a cattle truck |
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