The pieces of information that I had gathered sounded almost too good to be true: a deep gorge where the Urubamba River breaks through the last mountain range before entering the Amazon Basin; very little tourism but nevertheless enough boats going down the river (thanks to a gas plant somewhere further downstream); wild; Michael Palin's favourite place in the world and on top of that one of the most biodiverse spots on the planet.
Together with Richard from Holland, whom I had met on the bus to Quillabamba, I was really looking forward to the boat trip down through the Pongo de Mainique. Besides us, about 10 Peruvian fellow travellers and quite a lot of luggage, the boat also carried a transport motorbike. Somehow strange considering that there were no roads where we were going.
About 20 minutes after setting off, a wave in one of the many rapids we passed through, hit the boat and we got drenched to the bones. Normally, this would have come as a welcome cooling shower. However, we had the dubious luck to experience one of the rare periods of surprisingly cold weather in the otherwise hot tropical climate of the region.
As we approached the Pongo, we felt an increasing tension among our fellow passengers, the talks stopped and everybody looked ahead where steep mountain slopes appeared from the mist. When we entered into the Pongo, rain started pouring down. It was a very special and intense atmosphere!
I had expected a gorge with huge cliffs rising up to both sides. Instead, the rocks were only up to about 20 metres high, with waterfalls coming down to the left and to the right. Higher up, the walls were densely forested.
The fascinating ride lasted way too short for my taste and after a few kilometers, our small boat emerged from the Pongo. The river widened and calmed down, the passengers took up their conversations, somebody turned on a radio and we entered into the Amazon Basin.
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