Safety First!

I wake up staring at the side of the canyon through the mesh roof of my tent. I was pleased to have had a good nights sleep for today was to be a longer rafting day.

The water is always cold when you start the day. It heats up for midday but has usually cooled down again by the time you wash in the late afternoon. Great!

Rafting was plain sailing all day (as far nasty shallow grade 4 rapids allow!) except for a portage. Except it wasn't really a portage. The whole river narrowed down a wedge to a point about the width of a standard door. We had to break out ropes, unload the rafts and ease them through the gap on their side!

Today's camp site was on some Inca terraces, the land boundies still clearly marked by rows of rocks. In fact, further up the bank were more Inca ruins and in the afternoon most of us took a trek to go see them.

We found lots of broken pottery but the real find was mantle piece holes in walls stuffed with Skull and Cross Bones! Essentially all the Inca remains in the canyon are largely untouched since the Inca period. Only a few roaming goat farmers have ever travelled the canyon before (and a few previous rafting trips). The consensus is that the locals placed the skulls in holes, and probably looted anything of worth. Still, the tour group are trying to get some anthrologists in to study the remains of the canyon before they become too disturbed. Meanwhile it makes a handy barbeque area!

It struck me as amusing today that a couple of guides wore T-Shirts with, printed on the front in the corner, "Safety First! Dead Men Don't Tip." It inspires confidence for actually, there's probably some truth in it!

Posted by Steve Eynon