By Steve Brooks

Steve Brooks

Bio

Steve has lived in Austria now for over 20 years and from being a place to come and work seasonally on the river, to a base camp and finally making Austria his home! Steve’s love for kayaking and adventure is infectious and this can especially be seen in the kayak school he set up eight years ago. Based out of the Arlberg region in western Austria, the school runs courses for beginners plus coaching and instructing kayakers through all the whitewater grades, including creeking and river running. Inbetween the kayaking season in Austria, Steve can be found kayaking and leading adventure trips and expeditions in the Indian Himalayas, Peru and Chile in South America. He speaks German like a local and is trying to work out if he speaks Peruvian, Chilean or Argentine Spanish. When he is not kayaking he searches for that perfect powder run in the back country in his home mountain of St Anton am Arlberg, or riding his Royal Enfield Bullet in search of undiscovered rivers in the Himalayas.

For more information check out: www.gokayaking.at and www.gokayaking.at/blog

Peru’s stunning and remote Cotahuasi Canyon

Story: Steve Brooks
Photos: Steve Brooks and Ute Heppke
Situated in southern Peru, the Cotahuasi Canyon is said to be the deepest canyon in the world. Twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and with way more whitewater than its North American counterpart, though not as famous as its sister – the Colca Canyon, which is one valley to the south, the Cotahuasi Canyon is an amazing place and should be high on the list of rivers to kayak in Peru!

For me it this adventure was going to be my third trip into the Cotahuasi Canyon, it was Ute’s first and for Carlos, an Arequipeno, I am not sure if he has enough fingers left to count the amount of times he has journeyed through the deep walls.

It was departure day and what used to be an easy taxi ride to the bus station was now turning into a bit of a nightmare as for the past 20 minutes not one taxi that drove past our hostel had a roof rack! We had spent an hour the previous week waiting for a taxi that could take our kayaks from the bus station after our Colca Canyon adventure. However, the wait was finally over. Carlos managed to flag down a taxi and now we were rallying through the tight streets of colonial Arequipa on the way to the bus station.

old ‘chicken bus’

A fair few years have past, since I was last heading to Cotahuasi village. Previously our way of transport was a real old ‘chicken bus’ full of local villagers bringing back goats, pigs and a herd of chickens that accompanied our kayaks on the roof. For this trip the bus company had upgraded their bus, which meant that nothing went up on the roof and the only storage was below. It was proving difficult to get the kayaks into the bus, Carlos was doing his best to explain that there was enough room and they are part of our baggage, while I was grabbing the baggage handler getting him to help me twist, pull, push and squeeze our three kayaks inside before the driver or bus boy could say no!

We were finally on our way, leaving Arequipa on the Panamericana for an hour or so before turning off into the Colca Canyon where we stopped for evening dinner of fresh water shrimps in a garlic sauce – the valley speciality. With our bellies full we were now heading up on dirt and gravel roads towards the 4,500m pass between the two enormous mountains of Coropuna at 6,435m and Solimana at 6,093m. I am not sure when we reached the pass, I was drifting in and out of sleep. My legs and body were being battered by the road, still at least the seat in front of me was so far back I could not spring out of my seat when the driver caught some air!

Some 10 hours later we arrived in the village of Cotahuasi at 5am. We managed to get a vehicle to take us to our hostel, Carlos was doing his best waking up the owner to open up his doors and after a bit of negotiation we crashed for a few hours on what seemed to be the best bed in the whole of Peru.

Cotahuasi village

I have had some wild times in Cotahuasi village! The first time it was Peruvian independence day and we met up with some girls who came to visit the village from Arequipa. We were invited to a bull fight where no harm came to the bulls, except for their hearing as they had to constantly listen to the village band playing everything well out of tune! The bull fighters were their owners and as soon as the event came to an end, the cattle were taken back out to work the fields. The night was a huge party and we ended up walking the seven hours to the river the following morning with some mega headaches!

The second time we arrived by Gustavo’s jeep at midnight, had a few drinks of Pisco, the local rocket fuel that can also be put into a petrol tank and then headed out to meet our mule herders at some distant and very bizarre rendezvous point. It felt more like a smuggling scene than one of kayakers wanting to get down to the river.

This time we decided to stay another night in Cotahuasi and check out the area. Also the pull of the hot springs was just too tempting. Carlos and I headed off looking to see whether we could hire motorbikes for the day. It proved quite interesting with a couple of mechanics and repair shops next to each other. I managed to get a bike that would start, had breaks and seemed to be semi-road reliant. Carlos had found a motorbike which needed to be hot-wired to start and seemed to have not much of a clutch. However, the mechanic said it could ride fast which was not the greatest of sales points as the brakes were also pretty sketchy. Still with our kayaking helmets, shorts and towel in our packs for the thermals what could possibly go wrong?

Alca

We rode up the valley, checking out the river whenever we could, before entering the small hamlet of Alca. For a small hamlet in the middle of the Andes there seemed to be a lot of activity going. After a quick lunch of chicken foot soup with huge corn on the cobs, that are the staple diet of the Andes, we went for a walk to check out what was happening.

What we found were lots of locals dressed up in traditional dress, the kids in their masks and the men wearing their working hats, be it mining helmets for those who go underground or cowboy hats for the farmers and wranglers. They had all come down from the mountains for their annual health check up and it was proving to be quite the occasion.

Termales Luicho

After a while talking to the locals and the medical team, we headed off in search of some hot springs and a chance to ease all those aches and pains from the journey. We were given a recommendation of Termales Luicho. There were three areas: a public pool for everyone, the second pool was warmer and had shade from the blistering sun and the third was a private pool inside. We opted for the second pool and it was amazing. t was just so nice to sit, chat and lie in the hot water.

The only problem was trying to get out, but with only an hour of sunshine left we did not fancy riding in the dark and to be quite honest we did not know if the lights on the bikes even worked! Dinner back in Cotahuasi was some kind of meat and potatoes with a side dish of huge corn. We crashed pretty early in the evening and rightly so as we had to be at the bus station by 05.30, as they would not pre-sell us any seats the previous day!

What was previously a 7-8 hour walk with mules taking the kayaks was now a two-hour bus journey. Cotahuasi had also received heavy financial help similar to the Colca Canyon and so the first thing that arrived was a dusty track for a bus. The views though were stunning, sometimes the road hugged the canyon wall with a sheer drop on the right-side way down to the river. We passed high above Sipia waterfalls, then we drove through the stunning cactus fields, all set with a deep blue sky in the background before finally arriving on the other side of Velinga. We divided our group kit, packed our kayaks and put-in.

razor sharp rocks

For the first kilometre or so there were a bunch of new rapids with razor sharp rocks littered in the river from where they are blowing into the canyon walls to extend the road. We had to portage one rapid as there was no line. Once we left behind the road builders the sharp rocks disappeared and the lines were becoming a lot more smoother. For the majority of the day we had great read and run whitewater, with just the odd scout to check out what was beyond the horizon. The Rio Cotahuasi has a continuous nature and it was to be a fantastic way to get back into the flow, while we could take in the stunning canyon scenery and none more so by late afternoon once we were in camp.

What is so good about the Cotahuasi is that, even though there may not be many beaches, instead you camp in old Inca terraces. With many artefacts such as pottery, textiles and even human bones, you do not need to wander too far to see what was left from the Inca culture.

As the Cotahuasi Canyon is in high desert it makes for a dry but cold night. With it getting dark at 18.00, you have plenty of time to spend in your sleeping bag, after dinner and a tea, looking up at the stars with absolutely no light pollution around.

The character of the river changed on the second day. It was now solid Class 4 with a couple of long rapids pushing higher. It was still continuous and was proving to be so much fun, it was also starting now to gorge up. The longest rapid on the river came towards the end of the day with moves going from far right to far left, back to right with some boofing required to miss big holes and others where we just had to plug the hole. A final short gorge and we found a nice campsite.

There were a couple of local fisherman working their way upstream to a bridge before walking six hours out to the canyon rim to where they will meet a truck to take them back to civilisation.

Carlos went over to have a chat with them and it turned out they were fishing for camarones, the fresh water shrimp that can be found in the river. They came over to camp and we talked about our kayaks and where we had come from, it was quite surreal for us and the fisherman. They sold us some camarones and headed back to their rendezvous. Dinner was good that night!

Blistering sun

Our third day was to prove the longest. The sun was blistering and I was certainly feeling the heat pounding down on me! We were scouting a lot of rapids today, the river had steepened and became more serious with the walls closing to form box canyons – the rapids were long and pushy. We scouted one rapid where the final move is through a metre wide gap from rocks wedged between the box canyon walls. The water levels were low and the line was not great. Ute and Carlos decided to portage. After getting the kayaks to the seal launch back into the river from the box canyon we noticed the river had changed colour and it was starting to rise.

It was now rising pretty fast and so with the chance to run it, I dropped in. It was unbelievable piece of luck as it rose nearly half a metre, the lines were clean and with Carlos and Ute in safety positions it was a sweet ride! Carlos and Ute dropped into the box canyon to join me, the river dropped again as quickly as it had risen and we continued kayaking some fantastic Alpine style whitewater. It was getting late so we decided to camp at the end of a box canyon. We slept well that night!

Our final day on the Rio Cotahuasi gave us four more box canyons to kayak and a short portage around one of them. By the time the box canyons came to an end the river was starting to lose its gradient and mellowed out to some playful read and run class 3-4. Suddenly the Rio Maran met us. We stopped to relax and just enjoy looking back at the Cotahuasi Canyon. With hugs all-round and smiles on our faces we continued downstream on what is now the Rio Ocoña to meet Daniel and Carlos’s jeep.

It was a nine-hour drive back to Arequipa, where we got stuck at a big fiesta and parade in Camana on route but we did not care. We were looking forward to eating a chunk of Alpaca steak, wash it down with red wine and head off into the Arequipa nightlife in search of mojitos!