Kayaking in Peru is amazing but getting to the river can be a
challenge. It is very important when you are arranging a ride to make
sure that you and the driver, know both where you are going and how much
that costs. We ran into some trouble with one of our drivers because he
was taking us to a place he had never seen and did not know much about.
This left us in the town of Cotahuasi,
two more hours from our destination without a ride. Luckily we were
able to get a ride from the very friendly people at Purek Tours Cotahuasi,
run by Henry and his wife (cotahuasitours@gmail.com). Henry took us all the way down to the river
and we spent our first night at hot springs (more like a small hot tub
due to road construction destroying the other tub). On the way down
Henry told us about some of the other towns on the river and local
wildlife we might see. It turns out we probably did not need to bring as
much food with us we, could have purchased some on the way down. The
town of Quechuallea is a great place to stop. The locals are very friendly and we bought some amazing wine and avocados from them.
The kayaking was very fun it started out class II/III that was
pretty continuous with the occasional IV scattered in there. There are
tons of ruins that run along the river from the top all the way to the
bottom. We were there in October which is before the rainy season and we
had great weather. Bring sunscreen there are long days in the sun and
it is very strong. The wind would also pick up around noon and last
until dark. This was a good thing though because we had pretty bad
no-see-ums,
and the wind helped. According to some of the locals the winter was
very mild and did not kill off the bugs like it does in a normal year.
Still I would be prepared with long sleeves and some repellent. Once you
reach the town of Quechuallea
the rapids pick up just a little and the canyon scenery becomes pretty
amazing. It is similar to being in the Grand Canyon except you are mas
profundo here. The rock in the Cotahuasi is not quite as colorful but amazing non the less. Be carfeul
of landslides even in the summer, we witnessed a fairly large one from
camp. The slide was big enough to change the color of the river and give
it a silty appearance for the next day. Our last day on the Cotahuasi
provided the best rapids we came to a few points where the river became
extremely narrow, Meter Canyon and Centimeter Canyon. These are obvious
because the river chokes down to a few meters across in Meter Canyon
and maybe a meter wide in Centimeter Canyon. This is the best section of
white water on the river and there are some great rapids after. These
two canyons are the hardest sections. We then paddled all the way to
takeout in one day from Meter Canyon. This is was a big day and not
recommended two people in our group spent the previous night puking and
one other person sprained there wrist. We began our day at 7 am and
paddled to almost dark, 5 pm. The last seven or eight miles are not that
great. The river starts to separate into different channels that can
lead to getting beached on rocks. Each channel is littered with shrimp
traps creating a slalom course. Once you start seeing people its a good
idea to start asking for a ride. When we arrived to the town to take out
in we noticed several plans on building a dam on the river. Several of
the locals said they were going to start relocating people soon. You
should definitly try to get out there and paddle on this river before
they dam it up.
To make everything easy on yourself find Carlos at
Hostel Solar in Arequipa. He helped us find rides, gave us advice on
where to go, and helped us sell our gear at the end of the trip. He will
help make your trip better.www.hostalsolar.com
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