The (Not So Much) Best Camp Spot

"Uh, Josh, the water is rising!" And so was the pitch of my voice as I realized the moon's reflection on the river was getting closer to us, and not because the moon was moving.

It was our last night in Peru, and all I wanted was to get out of Peru the next day and back into Ecuador. It's not that I didn't love Peru--I did...on days that alternated with ones when I really disliked it. This was a day that started out with a complete mixed bag of feelings about the place, but by late afternoon when we pulled into the wild camp spot we had chosen for the evening, I was smitten again.

For the majority of the month and a half we have spent in Peru, we have stayed in hotels (hostals, hospedajes, etc.) as they tend to be very inexpensive. Our rooms have cost between $18-$70PEN with $1USD=$3.3PEN--so, about $6-22USD and we were in the $22 place only one night. Because there were ample options for inexpensive lodging, usually with secure parking, we only camped three times in Peru. The first time was in El Bosque de las Piedras, the second outside Cajamarca near Cumbemayo, and the last time was our final night in Peru.

We would be leaving Cutervo and heading north, essentially retracing our steps from when we first entered Peru back in November. After a not so stellar night in San Ignacio the very first night we spent in Peru, we knew we wanted to be close to there, but not actually stay in town. IOverlander had the perfect solution. There were two wild camps listed just south of San Ignacio, making a border crossing into Ecuador before officials left for lunch an easy thing the next morning. After reading the descriptions of both and looking at a google map satellite image of each, we chose the option further north. It was described as a perfect place to pitch a tent, "useless for cars...not a problem for motorbikes."

Once we descended below that cloud, the road dried and the temps started to rise.

Leaving Cutervo was a little like a case of Déjà vu, yet not. We had to ride an unpaved mountain road that we had ridden in November, but this time lacked the heavy fog and rain of that first pass. It was a dry, fast road and we descended from Cutervo's high altitude quickly. And then, it wasn't a dry fast road.... The road suddenly looked familiar as we came around a curve smack into a wall of fog, riding through a slick, muddy swamp of a road. Ah, yes, now I recognized it!

This was a great section of road. Most of it was single lane or mud. Or...single lane and mud. Thankfully, there was little traffic.

Luckily for us, the fog (cloud?) thinned quickly, and slick, soupy mud gave way to what was once again a dry, fast dirt road. We continued to descend in altitude, and by the time we hit the valley floor, the temps were in the low 90s and the humidity was in the high 90s.

We made our final left turn onto Peru 5N, and rode a fast, twisty asphalt road for forty-five miles. When we knew we were getting close to our destination, we slowed and looked for a break in what had become dense jungle along the road. We nearly missed the track the first time we rode by, but stopped and turned back. There was a rocky two-track road heading down to the river, that quickly deteriorated into a baby-head boulder single track, ending on the beach.

And it totally was a beach! A wide expanse of sand greeted us, with a rushing wide river and green mountains in the background. It was time to break out the chairs and a bottle of wine, and enjoy what was quickly becoming a great night. As we sat having our first glasses, we surveyed the area, and after deciding where we would put the tent, Josh went after a small rock sticking out of the perfect tent site. As he dug down farther and farther--discovering that the rock had been like an iceberg in that we only saw about ten percent of it--the sand seemed quite wet. Much of the sand looked wet, but it looked in the area like it had rained recently.

The sand closer to the river's edge looked very wet also, and I remember saying something like, "Why does it look like this river has a tide?" Josh said it seemed strange to have all that sand without salt water. It really did look like an ocean beach. The spot we chose for the tent was high on the bank, far from the river's edge, and we got it set up, poured second glasses of wine, and started making dinner. This was a beautiful spot!

Our view across the river. Peru may not have good coffee or beer, but the views are pretty great!

By the time we were finished cooking, the sun had set. Though there were a few wispy clouds above, the stars began to shine in spectacular fashion. We sat for long minutes sipping our wine, heads lying back staring skyward. The Milky Way was making a beautiful showing, and a particularly bright star just above the low mountains across the river was making a path of light across the water.

Out loud, I thanked Peru for giving us a beautiful last night in the country. The following day we would do what we knew would be a pretty easy border crossing, from the mountains of Peru to the mountains of Ecuador. I was feeling pretty content--full of good food and wine, and the beauty of the surrounding area.

I looked again at the trail of light across the river, admiring the star's ability to reach so far, and realized something was a little off. The trail of light seemed to reach closer to where we were sitting. Really close to where we were sitting. I grabbed my headlamp, turned it on full-blast and shone it on what should have been dry sand ten feet from where we were sitting. It was no longer dry sand...it was the rushing river.

In the dark, while we were gazing up, the river level had risen fourteen feet. What the hell!?!

Realizing the wet sand hadn't been left over from a rainstorm, Josh and I sprung into action. We grabbed everything out of the tent except sleeping pads and pillows, and hauled it back out the road we had come in on. I remembered a relatively flat spot that would be just wide enough for the tent, about halfway back up the narrow, rocky road. After depositing the tent's contents out of harm's way, we picked up the tent and moved it up the road.

As we walked it up through the narrow jungle plants and trees, hundreds of bugs flew directly for the headlamps lighting our way. Bugs flew up my nose and fluttered in clouds in front of my eyes. I mentally retched, but kept on with my task. As soon as we got the tent in its spot, I flipped my headlamp from white light to red--good-bye bugs!

After we managed to get all the tent's contents reunited with it, we went back for the bikes. We had left them in slightly tricky parking spots as that is all there was. My plan had been to ride on the beach a little the next morning--that would get me turned around pretty easily, and heading back up hill in the right direction. But now, there was no beach. Josh and I worked together, shoving and pushing my bike in a six-point turn, and he rode it up to the tent. Next, we tackled his bike, pushing it around in what was quickly becoming stifling humidity, the evening's beautiful breeze having died completely away.

We thought we'd be camping on the beach--we ended up with the tent on a jungle "road"

By the time the bikes were squared away, we were hot! But, we still had one task to complete--we had moved the dinner dishes and stove to a safe spot another fifteen feet higher than the new river bank, but we still had to clean up. In the hot, damp, dark, with insects flying into our noses and ears, we cleaned the dishes and packed up what we could. We each grabbed a few things, and with everything taken care of, we headed up the road to where the bikes and tent were.

Josh got about ten feet, stopped, and said, "Uh, there is a river here, now."

What???

In the time it took us to do dishes, a second river--one that ran parallel to the original and had not been there before--had begun flowing between us and the rest of our things.

That was it. That was the limit for me. Now we were being surrounded by water. I felt trapped. We couldn't just pack everything up and ride away. It was dark, the road out was treacherous, narrow, and rocky in the daylight--not something to be tackled at night after a bottle of wine. I got a little panicky. Thankfully, the "new" river was a small stream and I could pick my way across, hopping from rock to rock. Looking back now, it wasn't as horrible as I thought at the time.

I kept asking Josh if he thought we were on high enough ground. He assured me we were--we were so high up compared to where we were before. I agreed but then pointed out that some mysterious river had appeared out of no where! How did he know another wouldn't appear and flow right through where we were? I finally had to just get in the tent and hope we wouldn't drown in it or have all our stuff wash into the jungle. I crawled into the sweltering tent, and began inflating my sleeping pad and rearranging things.

Eventually, after one last trip to the river's (new) edge to make sure we had grabbed everything, Josh joined me. I was a sweaty, panicky, hot mess, and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Just two hours earlier I had looked at the patch of sand thinking how comfortable it would be to lie on it and fall asleep with the river breeze keeping me cool. Now, I was drenched, lying on top of my sleeping bag with a hard lump of a boulder beneath my left shoulder, trying to read and get my mind to turn off. I was also feeling pretty pissed-off at Peru, and pretty glad I was leaving the next day.

And then, it started to rain.

It rained just a little at first, but within a few minutes, it was pouring rain, and I was making a mental inventory of things that we had left out in our haste. Our chairs--well, our first cup of coffee in the morning would result in wet butts. My riding pants--they were mostly covered by my duffel but I couldn't remember if the waistband was sticking out, or the hems. I hoped for the hems. The trash bag--well, it may or may not hold up to the weight of being filled with water. We might be cleaning garbage and a broken wine bottle up the next morning if it gave way.

It was a pretty sleepless night. I woke up a few times needing to rework my sleeping bag up to the top of the tent--the angle we were on was enough to make me slowly slide down. At one point Josh woke violently from a dream involving a monkey and something grabbing his shoulder. It wasn't a pretty night, and it seemed like the sun was blazing in the sky way before I felt rested.

The water rose all the way to the line of driftwood in the picture.

Amazingly enough, though the sun was out enough to wake me, it wasn't out enough for it to not be raining. We waited, reading, until the rain finally let up. Josh got dressed and headed out to make coffee. A few minutes later, I emerged from the tent gazing warily at the sky. It was blue above me, but I was pretty sure I was getting rained on. As I walked down the road to the beach where Josh was making coffee, it began to rain again in earnest, and I ducked under some cane plants for cover. Josh stood, tending coffee in the rain, like the hero he is.

By the time we were able to have a couple cups of coffee, read some more, have breakfast, pan for gold (I'm kind of kidding, kind of not...), pack our bikes, and get on the road, the rain was gone and the sun was out in full force. With everything packed up, the water having receded sometime during the night, and the ceasing of the rain, the camp actually looked pretty good.

Funnily enough, the water stopped rising about three feet from where we had the tent, and the "new" river didn't run into it. Had we just hopped into the tent and gone to sleep, it would have been fine. The bikes would have been lying in water, as a pool had gathered there, and the kickstand would have dug in until they slipped and gave way completely. But, in the midst of frantic running around and panicking, we were still able to appreciate that this is adventure!

 

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