30
Peru
‘So these are cloud forests, huh?’ said Macy,
surveying the scenery. ‘I can see the forest part – but where are
the clouds?’
‘Don’t worry,’ said
Eddie, driving. ‘Once they come down, you won’t see anything
but bloody clouds!’
The seven-seater
Nissan Patrol was in the middle of a small convoy, heading north
along a dirt road that had split off from a paved highway some
thirty miles north of the provincial capital, Chachapoyas. In
another off-roader behind them were two Peruvian archaeologists;
the tall, thin-faced Professor Miguel Olmedo from the University of
Lima, and his shorter, fatter associate Dr Julian Cruzado. A local
archaeological presence was both expected and welcome, but Nina was
less enthused about their also being accompanied by a senior
official from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, a rather
full-of-himself man named Diego Zender who had attached himself
lamprey-like to the expedition to claim a stake in the glory if the
mythical El Dorado turned out actually to exist. Zender had an
assistant, a young, long-haired woman called Juanita Alvarez whose
function when not acting as a chauffeuse, as far as Nina could
tell, was mostly to stand beside her boss looking
pretty.
But freeloaders
weren’t the issue. More worrying was the profession of the four men
in the leading Jeep. Soldiers. Her request for security had been
taken seriously, but she couldn’t help feeling that the armed group
in their military vehicle might draw exactly the kind of curiosity
she hoped to avoid. Zender’s claim that the troops were necessary
to protect them from the terrorists known to operate in the
province had not exactly been reassuring.
But for now, Nina was
able to forget such concerns and simply enjoy the landscape. The
three 4×4s were heading up a long, lush valley, vegetation clinging
to practically every non-sheer surface. Unlike the trees in the
rainforest around Paititi, those here were rather squat, clawing
moisture out of the air when the clouds descended rather than
waiting for rainfall, but they were every bit as dazzlingly green
in the stark high-altitude sunlight. The river that had carved the
passage out of the Andes was over fifty feet below at the bottom of
a ravine, but the slope they were ascending was broad enough for
them to stay well clear of the drop.
That wouldn’t be the
case for long, however. In the distance, she picked out the road’s
brown thread clinging precariously to the flanks of the mountains.
Swathes of grey running down the hillside, as if someone had
randomly scraped away a top layer of green paint, provided evidence
of recent landslides. ‘So,’ she asked Eddie, ‘when you mentioned
death roads the other day . . . is that actually what they’re
called?’
‘’Fraid so,’ he
replied. ‘Went along one in the Philippines once. Fucking
terrifying! Combat’s bad, but idiot drivers are worse. The best
bits of it, there was just enough room for two cars to get past
each other.’
‘And the worst bits?’
Kit asked from the second row of seats, where he was sitting with
Macy.
‘Just enough room for
one car. Only problem is, people still
try to pass, ’cause nobody wants to reverse for half a mile. And
God help you if a bus or a truck comes the other way – they just go
“We’re bigger than you, so we’ve got right of way” and come right
at you without stopping.’
‘You know,’ said Mac
from beside Osterhagen on the rear seats, ‘I think I’ll just sleep
until we get there. If we go over the edge, try not to wake me with
your screams, hmm?’
‘At least there is
not much traffic,’ Osterhagen said. ‘We should not have any
prob—’
At that exact moment,
the convoy rounded a bend – and the Jeep skidded to an emergency
stop. Eddie had prudently kept a safe distance behind it, and was
able to bring the Nissan to a halt with ten feet to spare.
Unfortunately, Juanita had not been so careful, and the Patrol’s
occupants took a jolt as her off-roader nudged their
bumper.
The driver of the bus
lumbering the other way gave the stalled vehicles a baleful glare.
‘Everyone all right?’ Eddie asked, getting positive responses. He
looked back at Osterhagen. ‘You were saying, Doc?’
Osterhagen recovered
his composure. ‘I was about to say that once we get past the next village, which is the last settlement
for over forty kilometres, we should not have any
problems.’
‘Of course, Leonard,’
said Nina teasingly.
There was a
walkie-talkie on the dashboard shelf, letting the three vehicles
communicate; it squawked. ‘Hey, careful how you drive!’ Zender
demanded. ‘That could have damaged my car.’
‘Damage his
face,’ Eddie muttered, picking up the
radio. ‘Here’s a tip – you might want to stay further back and not
drive so fast.’
‘Juanita knows how to
drive,’ came the peevish reply. ‘Now come on, get
going!’
‘Think anyone’d mind
if he went over the edge?’ Eddie asked
as the bus finally squeezed past. Nobody raised any objections. The
Jeep set off, the Englishman pulling out after it. With a lurch,
Zender’s vehicle followed.
About five minutes
later a village came into view, ramshackle buildings clumped
haphazardly on each side of the road. The Jeep’s driver sounded his
horn to encourage a skinny goat to clear out of their path, the
blare attracting curious looks from the locals. Once the animal had
ambled aside the Jeep moved off again, and Eddie had started to
follow when Osterhagen suddenly jumped in his seat. ‘Eddie, stop
the car!’ he cried, pointing. ‘Over there, look!’
An elongated,
moss-covered rock poked out of the ground like a giant raised
finger. ‘What is it?’ Nina asked.
The German was out of
the Nissan before Eddie had brought it to a complete stop. ‘It’s a
huaca! On the map, one of the last
markings before the Incas reached El Dorado was of a particular
type of huaca. And this,’ he pointed
excitedly at the stone, ‘is almost identical to one on the Inca
Trail – and the marking is the same!’
Nina joined him as
the third 4×4 pulled up. ‘So you think we’re nearly
there?’
‘Yes, absolutely!’ He
gazed at the valley ahead. ‘Only a matter of kilometres. I am
certain!’
Zender’s window
whirred down. ‘Why have we stopped?’
‘Navigation check,’
said Nina. ‘Dr Osterhagen thinks we’re getting close.’
The official’s
impatient expression was replaced by approval. ‘Ah! Good, good.
Well, lead us there, doctor!’
It was now Eddie’s
turn to show impatience. ‘Are we done?’
‘Yeah, we’re done,’
Nina said. She and Osterhagen re-entered the Patrol, and it
continued on its way, Zender’s 4×4 behind it.
A scruffy man, the
smouldering stub of a cigarette between his lips, emerged from a
house to watch the convoy pass. He paid special attention to the
Nissan – and the red-haired woman in the passenger seat. Once the
convoy had left the little settlement, he stubbed out the
cigarette, then took out a cellphone.
Beyond the village,
the road steepened – and the ground it traversed narrowed
enormously. The ravine carved by the river was now over a hundred
feet deep, the drop growing steadily higher as they drove along.
The route ahead was not so much running through the mountains as
clinging to them by its fingernails.
The convoy slowed as
it approached a bend. Poking up from the cliff’s edge were several
crude wooden crosses. ‘Ah . . . what are those?’ Macy asked
nervously.
‘Where people have
gone over the edge,’ Eddie said, navigating the turn. ‘Narrow
roads, bad drivers and old cars with knackered brakes aren’t a good
mix.’
‘Yeah, I wish I
hadn’t asked,’ she said, shuffling across the seat away from the
edge. ‘Couldn’t we have gone by helicopter?’
‘I don’t think the
Peruvians’ budget would have stretched to that,’ said
Nina.
‘I would have paid! I’ve got money!’
The Patrol’s other
occupants laughed as it rounded the bend, revealing more of the
twisting route. As Eddie had promised, clouds were starting to
obscure the valley below, in places the ever-deepening ravine
vanishing into a blank grey haze. Somehow, that made the prospect
of going over the edge even more frightening: no way of knowing how
long it would take to reach the fall’s inevitable
conclusion.
Other features were
still clearly visible, though. ‘Is that the waterfall?’ Kit asked,
pointing.
Ahead, a great scar
ran down the hillside, vegetation and even soil scoured away to
reveal the bare rock beneath. It started at the top of a rise a few
hundred feet above the road, and descended into the clouds below. A
thin waterfall flowed down the centre of the exposed swathe,
splashing on to the road. Nina checked her map and satellite
photos, puzzled. ‘No, this isn’t marked.’
Eddie reduced speed.
‘Must’ve been a landslide. Probably a river up there somewhere that
overflowed.’ The road itself was covered in debris, rocks and thick
reddish-brown soil dumped on the already rough surface. Even though
the locals had made the obstruction passable by simply shovelling
much of the stuff over the cliff, the way forward was still
worryingly narrow.
The soldiers in the
Jeep also had misgivings, three of them hopping out and leaving the
driver to traverse it alone. Nina drew in a sharp breath when the
Jeep reached the waterfall and slipped sideways – the constant flow
from above had turned the soil to a soft, muddy slush – but a quick
burst of power pulled it free, muck spraying from its wheels. Once
it cleared the landslip, the soldiers hurried after
it.
‘Well, us next,’ said
Eddie cheerily. ‘Everyone out. Except you, Nina.’
‘What?’ she protested
as the others exited. ‘Why do I have to stay in the car of
terror?’
‘’Cause of that whole
“till death us do part” business – it might not be too far off.
Nah, I’m just kidding,’ he added, at her unamused expression. ‘I
need you to look out of your side and tell me how close we are to
the edge.’
‘Too close,’ she
said, even before he started moving. ‘Way too close!’
‘Ha fuckin’ ha. Okay,
here we go . . .’
The Patrol was
considerably wider than the Jeep, the wheels on Nina’s side coming
within inches of the edge – which sagged alarmingly as the truck’s
weight was put on it, clods of earth falling down the steep slope.
Somehow, a stunted tree had managed to cling to a rock outcrop
below while everything around it had been washed away, the lone
sign of life a silhouette against the clouded abyss. She looked
away from the vertiginous view to the sliver of road between the
tyres and the long drop. ‘About six inches, six inches, three
inches – whoa! Minus an inch.’
Eddie turned the 4×4
in as far as he could, trying to keep it in the ruts made by
previous traffic. ‘That better?’
‘Yeah. Relatively
speaking.’
They reached the
waterfall, the stream drumming off the roof. Nina, still leaning
out of the window, gasped as spray washed over her. But the Nissan
rolled on, soon clearing the landslip.
‘Piece of piss,’
Eddie said, cracking his knuckles. ‘And we even stayed dry! Well, I
did.’ Nina glared at him from under damp strands of
hair.
The Nissan’s
passengers caught up, then the last off-roader made the crossing,
Zender chivalrously abandoning the passenger seat and allowing
Cruzado to act as Juanita’s navigator. But she too cleared the
landslide safely, and the convoy continued. There was an awkward
moment when a pickup truck coming the other way took a ‘first come,
first served’ attitude by swerving to the inside of another tight,
unprotected bend marked by more crosses, forcing the three vehicles
to creep around it on the outside, but they soon reached the first
piece of actual infrastructure along the road: a short wooden
bridge across a narrow gap.
‘We’re getting
close,’ Nina said into the radio as she found the landmark on the
map. ‘About another mile.’
The news produced a
renewed sense of anticipation, even as the clouds closed in. The
road narrowed again, the hillside so steep that a short section had
actually been carved out of the rock itself to allow it to
continue, thousands of tons of stone hanging above the vehicles.
Beyond that, though, the way ahead began to widen out. Another
couple of turns . . . and their destination came into
view.
‘Now that’s more like
it,’ said Mac admiringly. The broad waterfall ahead was much more
impressive than the one they had passed on the road, plunging down
a vertical cliff for over two hundred feet. Its base was hidden by
jungle; the falling water had cut a deep bowl out of the hillside,
every square inch packed with plant life. Above the cliff, tall
peaks loomed through the clouds, the river feeding the falls
flowing through a narrow valley between them.
‘This is the place,’
said Nina. She passed word via radio to the other vehicles. The
soldiers turned off the road and led the way into the little
forest, crunching the Jeep up a slope for a few hundred yards,
winding between the trees, before the sheer density of vegetation
blocked their path. The other 4×4s stopped behind
them.
Everyone climbed out,
glad the bumpy ride was over. Nina stretched and looked round. The
waterfall was now obscured by foliage overhead, but the echoing
rumble from up the hill meant it would not be hard to
find.
She noticed that Mac
appeared a little hesitant on the uneven ground. ‘You
okay?’
‘I just need a bit of
extra support,’ he said, smiling. ‘And there it is.’ He picked up a
fallen branch and knocked it against a nearby trunk to shake off
loose dirt before leaning on it. ‘There. A perfectly good walking
stick.’
‘Tie another couple
together and you’ll be able to make a Zimmer frame,’ Eddie
joked.
Mac waved the stick
at him. ‘Do you want me to kick your arse, Eddie, or beat
it?’
‘Now, now, boys,’
said Nina, amused. She turned to Osterhagen. ‘Okay, Leonard. What
are we looking for?’
Osterhagen had photo
blow-ups of the Paititi map laminated in a folder. ‘First, we find
the waterfall, I suppose. Then, if the painting was accurate, the
ruins should be to one side of it.’
Zender bustled over,
Juanita a step behind. ‘Is this the place? Have we found
it?’
‘We haven’t even
started looking,’ Nina chided. ‘Okay, to find the waterfall we just
need to follow our ears. Then we’ll see what else is
there.’
The soldiers stayed
with their Jeep as the rest of the expedition moved uphill into the
jungle. The rumble of falling water soon became a roar, and they
emerged from the trees to face its source.
‘Now that’s pretty .
. . wow,’ said Macy.
‘No kidding,’ Nina
agreed.
Close up, the falls
were even more spectacular than they had appeared from the road.
The flow, some ninety feet across, plunged down the wide, almost
sheer cliff to crash thunderously over the broken boulders at its
base. Spray swirled across the pool carved from the rocky ground,
sparkling rainbows shimmering in the sunlight breaking through the
clouds. A broad, fast-flowing stream acted as a run-off, water
rushing away into the forest.
Osterhagen compared
one of his pictures to the view before him. ‘It looks a lot like
the painting. Don’t you think?’
‘It’s pretty close,’
Nina agreed. While the mural was stylised, there were undeniable
similarities between it and the real-life features of the
landscape.
‘So in that case,’
said Eddie, ‘where’s this lost city?’
‘Let’s take a closer
look, shall we?’ Nina led the way to the water’s edge. ‘According
to the map from Paititi, it should be off to that side of the
waterfall.’ She pointed. ‘We’ll split up and check the
cliffs.’
Eddie looked up at
the falls. ‘Think this really is the place?’
‘It could be. I’m
getting a vibe.’
‘I thought you left
your vibe at home?’ he said with a dirty smile. Nina shook her
head, then directed the others to begin the search.
Despite her gut
feeling, however, nothing turned up. The cliffs were conspicuously
lacking in golden cities, or nooks and caves that might provide
entrance to one. Empty-handed, the expedition members regrouped by
the pool. ‘I don’t understand,’ said Osterhagen disconsolately. ‘It
matches the picture from Paititi. What are we
missing?’
‘There is nothing
here,’ said Zender. ‘We have wasted our time.’
Nina was losing her
own patience with the Peruvian official. ‘We haven’t finished
searching yet. There’s the other side of the waterfall to search,
for a start. And then there’s the waterfall itself. There might be
an opening behind it.’
‘Easy way to check,’
said Eddie. He picked up a stone and flung it into the plunging
waters. A faint clack of rock hitting
rock was audible even over the rumble of the falls. ‘Well, that’s
solid,’ he said, picking up a second stone and hurling it at a
higher spot. ‘And that’s . . . ’
The second missile
was swallowed up without a sound.
‘. . . not,’ Eddie
concluded, surprised. ‘Huh. I was only doing that to take the
piss!’
‘There’s a cave
behind the waterfall?’ Mac asked.
‘Maybe . . .’ Nina
regarded the falls thoughtfully.
Eddie threw another
stone, aiming at the same height as before, about sixty feet above
the pool, but some way off to one side. Again, the missile
disappeared noiselessly. ‘It’s at least forty feet wide,’ he said,
bending to pick up a new projectile.
Nina put a hand on
his shoulder. ‘Save your pitching arm, hon. We’ve got an easier way
to check.’
Amongst the team’s
equipment was a laser rangefinder, which Nina had requisitioned
from the IHA to take measurements of whatever they found. The
results took some time to collect; while the device could work
through rain, it hadn’t been designed to send its beam through a
torrent of water. The reading constantly fluctuated as the laser
light was refracted by the falls. But she didn’t need millimetric
precision, only for enough of the beam to reflect off the cliff for
her to get a reading . . . or not.
Osterhagen stood
beside her as she scanned the waterfall, sketching the results. It
became clear that there was indeed an opening hidden behind the
deluge – a large one, at that. The cave mouth was some seventy feet
wide and at least forty high, its lowest point fifty feet above the
pool.
Always fifty feet above the pool. While the outline
of the opening was irregular in shape, its base was completely
level. ‘That’s got to be man-made,’ Nina said.
‘It could have formed
along a rock stratum,’ said the German. But it was clear he didn’t
believe it.
Eddie looked at the
drawing. ‘Be a bugger to get to it. Even if you climb up that high
away from the waterfall, you’ve still got to get across – and that
much water coming down’ll knock you right off unless you’re
seriously well attached. That’s a job for a pro
climber.’
‘I used to climb,’
offered Cruzado. Everyone looked at the portly, middle-aged
Peruvian. ‘A long time ago,’ he admitted.
Nina continued
surveying the cliffs. ‘We might not need to go all the way up,’ she
said, pointing at a spot almost dead centre of the waterfall, and
considerably lower. ‘There’s another opening.’
‘It is not very big,’
said Osterhagen as she took more readings. He marked it on his
sketch. It was roughly twenty feet above the base of the
falls.
Nina swept the
rangefinder back and forth. ‘I think that ledge leads to it.
Someone might be able to climb up to it and then go along behind
the waterfall.’
‘Someone,’ said
Eddie, with a faint but distinct sigh. ‘You mean me.’
‘I’d volunteer,’ said
Mac, ‘but, well . . . ’ He banged his stick against his prosthetic
leg, plastic and metal rattling.
‘Can you do it,
Eddie?’ Nina asked. ‘With the climbing gear that we’ve brought, I
mean. Or will we need to go back to town for more
equipment?’
‘No, I can probably
do it with what we’ve got,’ he said. ‘I’d rather take the chance
than drive along that bloody road again!’ He looked between the
waterfall and Osterhagen’s drawing, judging distances. ‘We’ve got
enough rope, so . . . yeah, I think I can do it. I’ll put in some
spikes so I can hook up the line.’
‘So that we can get
across?’
‘I was thinking more
so I can get back. It’s only twenty feet up, but I don’t really
want to end up in that pool. There’re a lot of pointy rocks.’ He
gave the cliff one last look, then nodded. ‘I can do it. Let’s get
the gear.’
Eddie, Nina and Macy
trekked back to the Jeeps, finding the four soldiers sitting around
smoking and looking bored. Their interest perked up when Macy
filled them in on developments. The highest-ranking of them, a
young lieutenant called Echazu, decided to accompany the group back
to the waterfall – purely in the interests of gathering information
for his superiors, of course, rather than the hope of being
involved in something mediaworthy. Another soldier, a corporal,
persuaded him of the benefits of having a second pair of eyes to
help with his report, but the two remaining privates were left
disappointed as they were told to stay and watch the
vehicles.
The soldiers in tow,
they returned to the waterfall. Mac and Osterhagen had been to the
base of the falls in the hope of glimpsing what lay behind it, but
nothing was visible through the water and spray. ‘That looks like
the easiest way up,’ Mac told Eddie, indicating a particular
section of rock face.
‘Yeah, shouldn’t be
too hard,’ Eddie agreed, before giving the older man a look. ‘Been
trying to find a nice simple route for yourself, have
you?’
‘Well, of course! If
El Dorado really is hidden behind there, I’m not going to stand
outside like a lemon while you and Nina explore it. I want to see
the place for myself.’
‘That’s if there
is anything back there.’
‘There must be,’ said
Osterhagen earnestly. ‘Everything fits - the map at Paititi, the
khipu, the trail of huacas. This is the
place.’
‘Then let’s find
out,’ said Nina. She regarded Eddie expectantly.
‘Muggins leads the
way, as usual,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll go and find you another
archaeological wonder. If I must.’ He grinned, then gathered his
equipment and went to the foot of the cliff.
The edge of the
waterfall was only ten feet from where he began to climb, and spray
quickly soaked him. As Mac had thought, the ascent was
straightforward; it took barely a minute before he was level with
the ledge. It was only a matter of inches wide. Eddie hammered a
spike into the rock and attached a carabiner, then threaded the
rope through it and dropped one end down so the others could follow
him up, tying a knot to secure it. Then, the line coiled over one
shoulder, he faced the wall and edged sidelong along the
ledge.
Even though the route
was set slightly back beneath an overhang, the falling water still
pounded at his back. He dug his fingers into cracks in the rock,
clinging tightly and advancing step by cautious step.
After about forty
feet, the cliff bulged slightly outwards. It would force him
directly into the deluge. He tried to look past it to see if the
ledge continued on the far side, but his view was blocked by water
and spray. Keeping hold with one hand, he took out a second spike
and gingerly supported it in the crook of his thumb before tapping
it into place with his hammer. Another carabiner was hooked on, and
the rope clipped through it. Satisfied it was secure, Eddie took
several deep breaths – then found a firm handhold and pulled
himself into the deluge.
He almost lost his
grip as the full force of the water hit, threatening to hurl him
down on to the jagged rocks below. Blinded, unable to breathe, he
pressed his chest against the rock and groped ahead. The protruding
section of cliff was only short – his hand found clear air again on
the other side. He hugged the wall and slid round it, emerging back
beneath the overhang.
Utterly drenched,
Eddie shook water from his face and regained his breath before
attaching another spike. Holding the rope, he twisted to look at
what lay behind the waterfall.
His eyes widened at
the sight. ‘Well, bloody hell . . . ’
Nina’s radio
crackled, Eddie’s voice almost drowned by the noise of the
waterfall. ‘Nina, you there?’
‘Eddie! Are you
okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine.
Fucking soaked, though.’
‘What can you see?’
she asked. ‘Is there an opening in the cliff?’
‘Nope.’
A shock of
disappointment ran through her. ‘What? There isn’t an opening?’
‘Oh, there’s an
opening. There isn’t a cliff.’
The group exchanged
confused glances. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, it’s not a
cliff. It’s a wall.’