As the little bus chugged away from the llamas and their cargo of piled gold ore bags and over the grand final rim of both Cotahuasi and Maran Canyons on my first trip almost a year ago, it showed me a first full view of 20,000-foot Solimana and a route I've come to treasure and have repeated now on five round trips. My "South American retirement plan" of eight years and running has found me returning to the Cotahuasi Canyon more than any place else. The unique village of Quechualla, perched above the river and a few miles upriver from the canyon's deep point, has especially drawn me for such regular extended stays that the locals say I "live" there.

  At 1600 meter (5250 feet) elevation, with its Quechua (and Spanish)-speaking population, "eternal spring" climate, highy developed permaculture traditional farming of grapes and many fruits (and "everything" grows), still a two-hour hike from the road's end, with the canyon deep point a natural draw for small numbers of "adventure" tourists, with the canyon impassable below there except for rafting (another natural tourist draw), with two enormous side canyons joining the main canyon on each side offering those other trekking opportunities (including four old downstream Inca villages, no longer permanently inhabited but used for grape growing and February foot-stomped winemaking, reached through a "far, far!" hike through no-water wilderness along a ridge high above) -- does anybody understand why I've long said I hoped the road never arrived? In my travels I've never found a place so ideal as a model alternative life independent of the "mixed blessings" of "modern:"

   Now on my fifth "round trip" (this past month) to Quechualla and back to the Pauza "sister canyon" since happening into that mid-July Corculla festival last year -- preferring it to the standard (and still difficult) tourist route from Arequipa that I repeated a dozen times (?) since '09 -- I found changes I'll leave to detail later -- the road, on hold for three years, now a'bulldozin' again (to arrive in November), the electricity almost completed and due to arrive at any time (with poles each hauled by two men before the road arrived and connecting to the hydro plant in Alca at the other end of the canyon), NO PUBLIC INTERNET for the past YEAR in the main canyon town of Cotahuasi after five years of service as usual like "everywhere else" before that -- and other changes adding to my "Cotahuasi Canyon Blues" --------- I'll recommend a trip to these locales for anyone who might be so inclined, catch it while you it's still there to catch. First -- the return to "classic Corculla" that first time:

The Ore Truck Only Came Down That Hill Once a Week

   A dozen or two llamas milled around in the road, raising dust and presenting a blurry, confusing picture in the half-moon light. The condor attack squad coming in for the kill? I preferred to walk by moonlight, as the headlamp's brightness erased shadows and made the focus on avoiding tripups actually harder. I switched on the headlamp as a dog barked, the shifting scene came into focus, and the herder approached with his own headlamp. He confided at a later meeting that he'd found that first scene confusing too, thinking maybe that small guitar sticking up out of my pack was a big gun or something.

The bus-fare-taking and rock-in-road-removing lady had quizzed me heartily:

"You still wanta get off here?" -- as in "Are you sure you want to get off here?"

A confident "Yes."

"Do you know the way?"

"Yes, just the road."

"Do you have a light?"

"Yes, two."

"A traveler," she murmured almost to herself as I got off the Cotahuasi-Tauria bus at the 4700m (15,000ft) road junction leading down to Corculla over that barely-traveled stretch. I'd told her the story about the dozen condors and she joked as I left "Well if you don't make it the condors will like it."

    I found myself powering back to Corculla on this more 'venturous route even after showing up at the Cotahuasi bus station at four in the morning and learning that the Sunday bus left at two in the afternoon. I decided to stick with the plan and go for the walk to Corculla ("two or three hours" yeah right) with the heaviest pack I'd hauled in years, even though the starting time was now seven at night instead of mid-morning. After an hour or more I'd passed Mama Llama's Stand and arrived at the few falling-down antique houses where the llama herder lived. We had a lively conversation, cut short by his comment about the lights uphill near the pass, where the ore was staged for pickup.

    A dozen or more miners had gotten off that bus at the 15,750ft. pass and final ridge of both canyons, where a whistling wind made for serius cold. A large part of their paychecks had evidently been spent for a good weekly drunkfest in town. One had asked the Bus lady as he got on "Mind if we drink alcohol?" -- "OK, just sit in the back seat." There had been entertaining laughter coming from back there for a few hours, followed by large silences punctuated by random brief loud exclamations unintelligible to me. The miners took awhile unloading all their baggage, which must have included their weekly supply of drinkables along with the fifty-kilo bag of oats and everything else. They must have loaded up the ore truck, as it left about an hour later.

   So it was a surprise as the herder said "Just wait here, the truck's coming" -- "But what if it goes the other way, down to Sayla?" -- "Oh no, there's no other vehcle that would be coming."  The two miners welcomed me to an empty seat and it took until 10pm to reach Corculla, down a very steep hillside road with an endless number of tight switchbacks. The small but heavy truck -- though it had a good turning radius -- had to back up three times to make a switchback, and one of them found the front wheel only a yard from the serious dropoff. The driver called on me for a "big rock" under the back wheel. I pushed the biggest one I could find under the wheel and stood ready with a second to pitch under the tire. The engine died all three times, without any backward progress evident, and the wheel rolled almost all the way over the rock each time. Somehow the maneuver had worked and the truck made the turn.

   The ore looked just like dirt, the miners had said -- and that it ws an old mine. The ore truck only came down that hill when a full load was ready, about once a week. What if they hadn't come? My backup plan was a fire until dawn (or cover it with dirt and sleep on it) if I got too tired to walk and any good supply of firewood turned up (yeah right). The truck was very slow but faster than my walking. Would I have made it to Corculla, exhausted, by midnight?

    But at Corculla there was a fresh surprise. The only hostal in town had a padlock on the door, and the lady still serving a late dinner to the miners said Ronald had gone traveling. I pulled out the guitar, after a request, played a few songs, and had a late dinner myself. The miners offered another ride, down to Oyolo, where there were two or three hostels. There -- never know what's next? -- a huge fiesta was in progress as we rolled in at midnight-thirty. It took me another hour to find a hotelkeeper and get a bed, as drinking dancers warmed up for an all-nighter with this special yearly fiesta that preceded a "Faena" (community work project) the next day. Allnight revelers moved right out into all the irrigation channels for a day of repair and cleaning, to the tune of the wandering brass band --  I love it!

Viva Peru!

Third 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 1: Condors Taking Wing from a Great Divide
Part 2: Classic Corculla, Long Lost Lands

- Rick(ardo)