Amazon Source - Post Script:

I was 21 at the time of this trip. I got the idea to walk to the source from the 1972 National Geographic artical on the first ever expedition there, led by McIntyre. I found the magazine whilst wandering around a market in Lima a few weeks before. All I had to go on really was the names of three towns, and one mountain. The mountain that held the trickle that would kick off the mightiest river on earth. Mt Mismi. I bought some topographic maps and simply set off in search of it. As far as I know it is a relatively unknown journey.

A few years later, in the comfort of my parents place in Sydney, I read another Nat Geo magazine which had another artical in it celebrating the 25th aniversary of the Amazon Source expedition. Like Jacques Coustou after them, the Nat Geo team had used four and six wheel drives to drive through the desert landscape and then walk a few kilometres to the source. All their gear was carried in the vehicles. Audaciously, all I had was an old army duffle bag, and another bag full of books and things that I really didn't need, but I didn't know where to leave them, whilst I was away. So I took them with me. That was another burden I carried.

But what was the most interesting thing in the magazine was the actual location of the Source. In '72 they believed that Mt Mismi which fed the lake beneath it (soon named Lake McIntyre) was the source. The Nat Geo expedition reached this source, the top of the mountain, and also traversed the mountain ridges from north to south just to make sure that they took in all the mountain's water courses. In the newer magazine it was revealed that the source was not the top of the mountain but coming from a creek further down the south ridge. I checked my map with the name in the artical. It matched. The snow drift that I spent the night at is the actual source of the river. All those years I thought that I had fell shy of it by a kilometer or so. What a surprize. What a reward.

The route I took, I believe, had never been done before. Even by the wandering locals. The usual route to the source is directly up the river, or steeply up from the Colca Canyon, directly behind the mountain. I came at it along the divide, traversing other mountains and ridges, crossing other creek sources to climb up the south ridge of Mismi. In the truck I could see the mountains in the slender moonlight and matched them to my map. I jumped out of the truck exactly where it rolled over the divide on its way to Cailloma. The only thing I had going for me was that I knew exactly where I was.