Anyway, it seems I missed a lot, a great opportunity, a unique adventure, the trip of a life time. But Luis is planning on going again, most likely in 1998. If you are up for it, send him an email.

Enjoy reading,
Manfred

To Hell and Back

Yes, I just got back and as you can see I'm alive and still in one piece although I almost lost my right leg in this adventure.

To give you a little background: The Incas had two great metropolitan capitals in the Inca Empire, one was the now modern city of Cuzco at 12,500 feet high in the Andes Mountains and the other one was the city of Paititi meaning "the other Cuzco" which hides deep in the jungles of Peru and is yet to be discovered. The fact is that many cities in the jungle in Peru remain to be discovered. But the thing about Paititi is that according to all the historical records it is supposed to be loaded with literally tons of gold. When the Spanish arrived to Peru the first thing they started to do was to take the gold from the Incas. The Incas quickly caught on and a contingent of 80,000 fled to the jungles with all the gold treasures they could carry.

Great extensions of territory in Peru have never been explored or even accessed by white men and many expeditions that went in never came back. There are also many stories of tribes that no one has ever seen or even suspect their existence.

Two Peruvian guys (Darwin and Istban) and myself put this last expedition together because deep in the eastern jungles of Peru there is a grand plateau where we believe the great city may hide. We came out to this conclusion using physical evidence and historical evidence.

The first problem we ran into was that our baquiano (our jungle hacker from previous expedition) and good friend Rosendo had recently died from a jungle decease a few weeks before my arrival so we had to find a new baquiano. His name was Gabino, brother of another guy named Goyo who is a Peruvian who went to live with the Machiguenga tribe and became their medicine man.

The most direct path for us to access the area that we wanted to get to was from the mountains, so Gabino acquired two horses to help us carry the weight, and we got on our way.

The first part of the trip was a pretty good test for us because we had to hike a mountain that was 15,000 feet high from an altitude of 7,000 feet. This hike led us to an Inca trail that followed the top of the mountain range. So we got to the top and no more big mountain climbs, right? Not quite. We began to go up and down one mountain after another and the Inca trail always reached the very summit of each mountain. Some mountains were higher than 18,000 feet and one was even about 19,000 feet. Every time we saw these great mountains in front of us we felt like puking event though we did not have our back-packs with us because the horses were carrying all the weight. But even the horses were having a very tough time and some times we thought that they would not make it. What made things worse is that sometimes the Inca trail consisted of a narrow ledge a few inches wide with an abyss twice deeper than the Grand Canyon right below our feet. One false step and you go down. In fact, one time, one of the horses slipped and luckily landed on another ledge 8 feet below. We managed to save the horse and kept on going.

In our trip we had two important pieces of equipment: a powerful portable radio that I used to call my wife here in the United States and even my parents in Spain. I was able to call my family from any mountain and even from the jungles. The other piece of equipment was a $3500 metal detector that could find gold 33 feet below ground.

About half way in the Inca trail we found an Inca ruin and decided to use the metal detector. It only took minutes before we were detecting gold, lots of gold. We started to dig with our hands because unfortunately we had no tools. When we had dug out 4 feet of dirt we found a large stone impossible to remove so we had no choice but leaving the site and kept on going.

About 100 miles later the Inca trail began to go down the Eastern slope of the mountain range right into the jungle and then vanished. We decided to leave the horses on top of the mountain and then dive into the jungle where the Inca trail disappeared. It was impossible to continue following the Inca trail so we looked for another way in. We then found a bear trail and that's what we followed. After all our years of experience hiking in the jungle and all the mountains we had just climbed, nothing had prepared us for what we were about to go through. The trail went straight down the mountain covered with thick jungle. This trail was very steep and at some points it was almost vertical making it very tough on our knees. The ground was completely unstable--there was no ground per say. The floor was a mass of rotten trees and the surface covered by moss was about 3 feet above the real ground. Underneath this fake floor there was rotten matter and a web of hard roots. Every few feet we would sink into the rotten matter as our feet and knees would twist inside the hard roots. Many times we just felt on our face because we slipped on the roots or just sink again into the matter. Every few feet we fell and it was just a matter of time before we would break a leg, twist an ankle or hurt our knee in this place where no rescue was possible. It was impossible to walk down without using both hands to hold on something, but most of those things to hold on had nasty spikes or they were rotten branches that would just fell off at the touch of our hand. The trail was also very narrow and very low. Many times the trail would be just a tunnel going under the roots of the trees where we had to crawl hardly fitting through with our back packs. The other problem was that we had to go down fast. We could not let the night get us because sleeping in the trail was impossible. At the top of the trail we had ran out of water because we were sweating so much that we drank all the water we could get hold on thinking that there would be more water down below. 1/3 down the mountain we were dying for water and the truth was that there was no water until the bottom of the mountain where there was a river. Because Istban and Gabino could go faster than Darwin and I, they went ahead of us hoping to reach the river on time to make camp before the night. About 3/4 of the way down Darwin quit: "Luis my legs don't respond anymore, my mind gives them a command, but they don't respond. My knees hurt so much that all I feel is the pain, but the rest of my legs I don't feel." We had no choice, but sleeping in a nasty hole under the root of a tree with worms and insects crawling all over all night and without water. In the middle of the night a torrential rain started.

I could go on and on telling you about this nightmare hike where Darwin even felt the nausea of a ant's bite that has the same type of venom as the cobra. But to make the story short we eventually made it to the river with many bruises and wounds and totally exhausted. After we have traveled for two more days through the Machiguenga trails, not much better than the bear trail, we arrived to the place where Goyo, the medicine man, was living. It took us about 13 days to get there to find out that Goyo was not there. Then Istban, Darwin and I made an unanimous decision: "We are not going back the way we came from not even for a million dollars" But there was only one other way we could go back and that was by helicopter. Since we had a radio all we had to do is call chopper and pay by credit card. So we told Gabino that we would be going back by helicopter no matter what the cost was. But Gabino could not come with us because he had left the horses on top of the mountain so he had to go back the way we came from. So Gabino left and we stayed. We only had three days worth of food because we had left a lot of the food on top of the mountain for our way back and because we had underestimated the length of the trip. Therefore, we decided to explore for three more days and then call a helicopter with the radio. In our exploration we actually found a large Inca city although we know is not the Paititi, but the interesting thing is that is in the path to the grand plateau. We used our metal detector, but it no longer worked. In fact it could not even detect a machete-- so much for gold and treasures.

Our three days were up and decided to call for a helicopter. When we hooked up the radio we found that the battery is dead so we connected the spare battery. However, to our surprise the spare battery which was brand new was uncharged. At this point we realized that we had bought a one way ticket with no return. We could not go back the way we came from because Gabino was already gone with the food and the horses. We needed at least 16 days worth of food to go up and now uphill, and of course we would require even more time because we would no longer have the horses to carry the weight. So once again we made a unanimous observation and decision. We said "Let's forget about going back because we are staying here for ever. The question is how we are going to survive." To survive we had to find food and there was food with the primitive tribes that had never had any contact with white men. We began to hike far and beyond anything ever explored until we arrived to a hut of one of the most remote Machiguenga tribes. We were hiding in the bushes watching them for a while until we said "heck let's just go in"

In the hut there were about 8 kids, 4 women and 2 men starring at us in complete astonishment for they had never seen anyone like us before. We spoke to them in Machiguenga and explained that we were friends. I pulled out a bag of candies and made friendship with the kids while Istban and Darwin made friendship with the men and women. The next day these people took us to where the main tribe was and to meet the chief of their tribe. In this hike is where I made a cut on my leg with the sharp edge of a stone. Several days later the wound had worms and by the time I made it to Lima I almost lost my leg from a massive infection.

We stayed with the Machiguenga tribe for several days seeing things and experiencing things that no one had ever experienced before. But the problem was that they fed us with yucca for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner. All we ever ate was yucca and we were craving for meat or something different. They finally had some meat available: frogs, lots of frogs and roasted bees. So we ate about one dozen of frogs each and lots of bees. We decided to go in further were the more savage tribes were because they were primarily hunters. If they hunted a tapir or a leopard they would have meat for everyone and for a long time.

We started our march with a large contingent of Machiguenga Indians armed to their teeth with their bows and arrows to look for the Kogapakori warriors further and deeper into the unknown. The Kogapakori or "Men Hunters" are indeed primarily hunters and no outsiders had ever seen them. In fact most people think that they don't even exist, but those that do believe in their existence gives them a reputation of being extremely dangerous.

We reached the Maestron River and walked upstream until we reached the entrance to the Kogapakori valley. Two strange naked characters with beautiful feathers on their heads, were guarding the entrance to the valley and came out to meet us. Both men were Kogapakori. We made friendship with these warriors and got to meet their families learning a lot about them. The next day we find out that another Kogapakori by the name of Anonpite was living deeper into the valley and had a raft. We never expected to find anyone with a raft in these regions because topa wood (the wood used for rafts) was about 80 miles down river. To cover this distance would have taken us about two months if we were going to open a new trail in the jungle because it was impossible to walk by the river. When we heard the news our eyes got wide open and went to look for this Indian.

We met Anonpite and then went to see his raft. It consisted of four logs tied together. It was a totally crazy idea to even ride it, but by now we did not even care because after all the crazy situations we had lived through one more did not matter. We then persuaded Anonpite to exchange the raft for one machete and our clothes, and in fact, he wanted all of our clothes including our pants. We ended up with literally nothing but our underwear.

From the valley of the Kogapakories we were almost at the base of the Grand Plateau. In two more day, we could have made it to the top. We had got so close and yet we had to leave.

We went downstream in our rustic raft at a tremendous speed one rapid after another. Some rapids were class 5, other even higher and the waves where constantly going over the raft. It was very dangerous because all we had to control the raft was three sticks. At one point the raft was headed to crash into a pacal which is a large bamboo plant with spikes as thick as a thumb and as sharp as a knife. If your body touches the pacal, it rips your body apart. When Istban saw the imminent wreck, he cried "jump!!". I jumped and fractured one of my ribs as I swam to the river bank to save my life. Istban and Darwin tried to stay close to the raft and managed to finally grab it just in time before they would crash on the rocks together with the raft. That night, while we were trying to dry our belongings by the fire, two Machiguenga Indians showed up suspecting that we had crashed the raft for they did not have much confidence in our abilities. They brought us some fish and once again we dined together. They next morning they had vanished.

Three more days of roaring river currents took us down to the Amazon Basin where we left the raft and hiked to a civilized town. We showed up in underwear while everyone was looking at us as if we were savages coming out of the jungle. Our first question to people was "What date of the month is and what day of the week? " Everyone would laugh and no one would give us a straight answer. We bought some cloths and a few days later we were back home. We owe to be back safely to the Indians. If it was not for them I would never be back in the States.

By the time we arrived to the above mentioned town in nothing but our underwear, we had covered a distance of almost 400 miles and non of these miles were on flat or easy ground. It was 400 miles of towering mountains and also mountains covered with impenetrable jungles, crossing many rivers, and rafting on a bunch of logs. It was also an unprecedented itinerary that had never been accomplished before.

We also learnt three big lessons:

Never make a rigid plan.

Never rely on technology.

Never fear the wild Indians

Don't plan your return date

I hope you find this story interesting. You can freely distribute this story at your own discretion as I'm planning to copyright a more extended version of this in Spanish so that I can publish it.

Concluding words from Manfred