Boiling River Page 2

  I had completely forgotten about the legend until last year, when I visited colleagues at INGEMMET (the Peruvian government’s Institute of Geology, Mining, and Metallurgy). They had prepared a map of Peru’s known geothermal features—things like hot springs and fumaroles. Looking at it awakened the dormant memory of my grandfather’s legend, and the image of a “river that boiled.”

  When I asked my colleagues, they reported that they had encountered geothermal features in the jungle, but nothing as large as a boiling river. The consensus was that such a thing was unlikely and probably just an exaggerated tale. My grandfather was by now suffering from dementia and couldn’t help me find the source of the story. So I asked other geologists, from energy and mining companies, universities, and government institutions, if they had heard of a “boiling river” in the Amazon. They always answered no—but none as insistently as this senior geologist.

  “Tell me, what is needed to generate a boiling river? Significant water flow and a tremendous source of heat. Boiling rivers do exist in the world, but every one I have ever heard of is associated with an active volcanic or magmatic system—which we don’t have in the Amazon. You said you hope this geothermal map will help us understand why most of Peru’s volcanism ‘turned off’ some two million years ago. You of all people should know how unlikely it is that this legend has any truth to it.

  “Again, you’re a bright kid. But as a friendly recommendation: I’d stop asking stupid questions. It makes you look bad.”

  I walk out of the office building with as much dignity as I can muster and hail a taxi.

  I must have sounded so naive, I think. The old geologist is right: if I want to be a well-respected scientist, I can’t go around asking stupid questions. I can’t find the legend in any written accounts, the science makes it unlikely, the experts have never heard of it—it’s time to lay this thing to rest. Sometimes a story is just a story.

  4

  A Detail in a Story

  It’s early June 2011. I’ve been in Lima with my wife, Sofía, for two weeks, preparing for the next few months of fieldwork in the oilfields of the Talara Desert in northwestern Peru, where we’ll be temperature logging abandoned oil wells for the Geothermal Map of Peru. We’ve been staying at my uncle Eo and aunt Guida’s house, and this evening they’re having a small farewell dinner for us. I find myself sitting next to Guida.

  “Andrés, querido!” she says, her Spanish marked by her native Brazilian accent. “It feels like you just got here!” I assure her that we will be back in Lima in a few months.

  “You’ve been at your research for two years now,” Guida says. “Have you found anything that has really surprised you?”

  I take a sip of pisco. The professional answer would be something about mapping Peru’s geothermal energy potential. But last week’s meeting with the old geologist had been on my mind. Maybe it was the pisco, or my still-injured pride, but something made me open up to her about my attempts to find the truth about my grandfather’s story, and the stupid questions I’ve been asking eminent scientists.

  “It’s probably just a story,” I conclude. “But I’m still curious about it.”

  Guida looks puzzled. Slowly, she says, “Andrés, but there is a large thermal river in the jungle. I’ve been there. I swam in it!”

  I know Guida to be a joker. “C’mon, tía,” I say, laughing.

  “It’s true,” she says, her face serious.

  My uncle Eo, sitting on Guida’s other side, chimes in: “She’s not kidding! You can only swim in it after a very heavy rain, and then in certain parts, where it’s cooler.”

  I’m stunned. Eo is a well-known psychoanalyst. He speaks precisely, and he wouldn’t embellish for the sake of a story.

  “You’re serious?” I ask firmly.

  “It’s a sacred place, protected by a powerful shaman,” Guida says.

  “Your aunt is friends with his wife, who is a nurse,” Eo continues.

  Guida nods. “They have a healing center there called Mayantuyacu, and the river flows right in front of it. As wide as a two-lane road, and fast!”

  I know my aunt used to do social and conservation work with native communities in the Amazon. Still, I’m skeptical. I grab my iPhone and search for “Mayantuyacu” online. There are no results. This surprises Guida and Eo, who insist that foreign patients regularly visit the medicinal center. They were invited to visit by a friend who works with the Asháninka community there.

  “Where is it?” I ask, pulling up Google Earth on my phone.

  “In the jungle somewhere in the central Peruvian Amazon,” Guida says. “It takes about four hours to get there from Pucallpa—you have to take a car, then a motorized canoe, and then walk.”

  I study the terrain on my phone, trying to zero in on Mayantuyacu’s most likely location based on my aunt’s and uncle’s descriptions, and my own geologic knowledge of where geothermal systems generally come to the surface. The resolution on the satellite imagery is very low, but I am able to make out what looks like a large oval landform some three by five miles across, and about thirty miles south of Pucallpa. It has a prominent rim, and a broad dome rising from its center.

  “At the river,” I ask, “is there any smell of sulfur—like rotten eggs?” It’s hydrogen sulfide that gives many volcanic systems their characteristic stench.

  “There is no sulfur smell,” Guida says, looking at Eo, who nods in agreement.

  “Do you remember how long the river flows for?” I urge them.

  “I’m not sure how long it is,” Eo replies, “but it flows very hot for at least two hundred yards. There are a number of curves, so it’s difficult to guess the true scale, but it is a formidable sight.”

  I continue searching on my phone, hoping to find any leads about Mayantuyacu or its sacred river somewhere online. Still nothing turns up. Though I know how unlikely it is, the dim hope of stumbling across the river I once heard of in a story is intoxicating.

  I’m ignoring the party. Guida puts her motherly hand on my arm and says, “Maybe Mr. Google is just having a bad night.” I give her a weak smile, my disappointment clear.

  “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ll get you Mayantuyacu’s telephone number and e-mail. You can contact them tomorrow.”

  I reel my mind back to the present, but I’m impatient for the night to pass. I need to find out more.

  The next day we rise early to catch the plane for our months-long stay in Talara. Before we leave I call the number my aunt gave me and leave a message. Phone lines in the jungle can be less than reliable, so I send an e-mail, too. When we land, I check my voice mail and e-mail. No response.

  Over the next few months I repeatedly try calling and e-mailing Mayantuyacu, but I don’t get a single response. My hope and excitement have turned into frustration.

  I review the geologic literature for reports of a large thermal river anywhere near Pucallpa. I find nothing. There is no such river on Peruvian government maps. The only study I can find that even mentions a geothermal feature in the area is a 1965 United States Geological Survey (USGS) compilation of the hot springs of the world. This USGS work makes a vague reference to a “small, warm spring” on the Agua Caliente (Hot Water) Dome, the feature I had noticed on Google Earth.

  The USGS’s reference to the “small, warm spring” cites a 1945 study, but that earlier study doesn’t mention any geothermal features. The 1945 study leads me to a 1939 study, from which I learn that the dome was the site of the first oil development in the Peruvian Amazon—but which also makes no mention of any hot springs. However, it leads me to the first and only geologic study on the Agua Caliente Dome, conducted prior to oil development—a 1933 report by Moran and Fyfe.

  This Moran paper proves to be a dead end. I look everywhere but can’t find a copy. I’ll have to continue my search back in the United States.

  Months pass, and our field season in the desert comes to an end. It is now late October, and we’re back at Eo and Guida’s hous
e for a last week in Lima before returning to Dallas.

  “Have you heard from Mayantuyacu?” Guida asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. I open my laptop to search for Mayantuyacu yet again. “I keep checking online, hoping to find something, but—oh wow!”

  Guida quickly leans in to see my screen. There it is: www.mayantuyacu.com.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I exclaim. “The shaman got a website!”

  “El Perú avanza.” Guida laughs. Peru advances!

  The website lists a phone number, an e-mail address, and a physical address in Pucallpa. I realize with disappointment that it’s the same number and e-mail I’ve been trying to reach.

  “Now you have an address,” Guida says hopefully, as she sits down next to me on the couch. “Listen, Andrés—I have worked with indigenous peoples in many parts of the Amazon. The people there have an interesting relationship with the modern world. The Amazonians resisted the Inca, and for the most part resisted the Spanish—until they were rounded up and treated worse than animals. Honestly, I’m not surprised that they never responded. I’m sure they received and read all your e-mails and listened to your voice mails. But what did you say? ‘Hola, my name is Andrés Ruzo, I am a geologist studying geothermal energy, I have a grant from National Geographic, I have been working in Talara, I want to study your site . . .”

  As I hear this aloud, my foolishness is clear. Guida goes on, in a softer voice: “I know why you became a geologist. I know why you do what you do and why you study geothermal energy. I know you are a good kid who is honest, who can be trusted, who would never put their sacred place in danger—but they don’t know that. Think of all the big developments in the Amazon. Geologists have been on the front lines of ‘progress’ in the region since oil, gas, and mining development began. Remember that Mayantuyacu is a sacred site, and put that in the context of historical abuses of the Amazonians . . . well, is it any wonder that they haven’t returned your phone calls?”

  “So what should I do?” I ask, exasperation creeping into my voice.

  Firmly, Guida says, “We need to go into the jungle.”

  5

  Hidden in Plain Sight

  A few isolated peaks emerge through the low clouds like brown islands in a sea of white. The peaks become more frequent, until they come together to form long chains—a great wall that keeps out the coastal clouds. We are flying over the Andes, the longest continental mountain range on earth.

  From up here I can read the ridges and landforms. The mountains tell of tectonic forces—invisible hands that created alpine lakes and fertile valleys. These valleys were the breadbasket of the Inca and are still farmed by their descendants. Colossal geologic folds shape the land, bringing precious materials close enough to the surface for humans to mine.

  My aunt Guida is asleep in the seat next to me. “They will never get back to you over e-mails or phone calls,” she had told me last night in Lima. “It’s easy to be tricked over the phone or by e-mail, but when someone is looking at you in the eye and you spend time with them, you can see their true colors pretty quickly. You need to meet them in person. I’ll take you there.”

  There were plenty of reasons not to go. I leave for Dallas in less than a week. I’m on a grad-student budget. We don’t even know if the shaman will be there—and even if he is, will he want to talk to me?

  But if there is a boiling river out there, I’m convinced my best chance to see it is to buy a plane ticket right away, show up unannounced at the address in Pucallpa from the website, and ask permission to visit Mayantuyacu and their sacred river, four hours into the jungle.

  Gradually the Andes become lower and greener. The plane descends through the clouds, and when we reemerge the world has transformed. Greens have replaced browns, trees have replaced rocks, and Amazonia stretches before us in every direction.

  It’s November, peak wet season. Engorged rivers and streams rush through the jungle, and rays of sunlight reflect off the inflated marshes. My eyes follow the flat, green jungle as it stretches to the horizon, my mind brimming over with questions. Where in this vast landscape could Mayantuyacu be hiding? Could this really be the river from my grandfather’s legend? Does it actually boil?

  On landing in the city of Pucallpa, we procure a ride. The driver of the weathered, rickety, three-wheeled motorcycle taxi is a round Amazonian man. He keeps his ear pressed to the latest smartphone—which looks more expensive than his taxi. We squeeze into the backseat.

  As we make our bumpy way to the Mayantuyacu Office, Guida and I don’t say much and I wonder if we’re both thinking the same thing: I hope the address is the same. I try and push the thought away by looking out the window. This is my first time in the Amazon, and any travel fatigue I was feeling has now been driven out by excitement. Peru is often called three countries in one: coast, mountains, and jungle. Though Pucallpa’s colors and landscape are clearly different from the coasts and mountains I know well, I am surprised by how familiar it feels.

  Pucallpa is a large, modern city of the developing world—globalization decorated with the traditional. Modern buildings and installations, good roads, and a plethora of shopping centers all speak of progress. I watch many new, well-kept cars and motorcycles whiz past us. Our driver has been chattering nonstop on his phone since we left the airport. His radio plays Amazonian Cumbia, while the taxi’s old plastic covering flaps beat noisily as the engine whines.

  We putt our way through the city and into Pucallpa’s suburbs. “Almost there,” the taxi driver yells to us over his radio, still on the phone. We turn off the paved street and onto a reddish dirt road with occasional large, water-filled potholes.

  “There it is!” Guida suddenly cries. The taxi comes to a sharp stop. I follow where Guida is pointing: a green wood-paneled building on the left. “All these years, it hasn’t changed!”

  We send the taxi driver off, and Guida knocks on the windowless, knobless door.

  “Who is it?” comes a woman’s apprehensive voice.

  “Hola! This is Guida, an old friend of Sandra and Maestro Juan’s. Are they home?”

  The green door opens slowly to reveal a young Amazonian woman with light mahogany skin, dark upturned eyes, and jet-black hair. She introduces herself and tells us that Sandra and Maestro are away. “But we can call them,” she offers. We nod excitedly and she opens the door wide, ushering us through a dim, narrow wooden hallway and into a large office. As Guida and the woman make the phone call, I take in the room.

  Everything has been organized with care, from the trinkets on the shelves to the pictures on the walls, each depicting happy faces with broad white grins and dark, piercing eyes. Intricate geometric patterns of Shipibo design also decorate pots, figures, and textiles. An Asháninka robe and headdress are displayed on a wall, surrounded by bows and arrows, seed necklaces, snail shells, tropical feathers, and thick dried vines.

  Along with the traditional ornaments are signs of modern Peru: small Peruvian flags and large posters of the “Wonders of Peru.” To my surprise, a framed poster of the Monument to Humanity, Marcahuasi’s iconic human-faced monolith, hangs between those of Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines. Marcahuasi—where I succumbed to altitude sickness as a boy and was comforted by mate de coca—is less well-known than the world-famous sites displayed on the wall. I was glad to see it there—my connection to that place runs deep.

  My great-grandfather Daniel Ruzo devoted the latter part of his life to understanding Marcahuasi and is attributed with revealing it to the world. A philosopher and explorer by nature, he worked tirelessly to protect this mysterious Andean plateau, full of ruins and seemingly carved monoliths. Thanks to his photography and publications, the virtually unknown, unprotected site became a cherished national park, where tourism has become an economic lifeline for the local people.

  Along with traditional honor and Peruvian pride, the decorations here tell a surprising third story. A golden Chinese money-frog sits next to a ceramic Indian elephant
with American dollar bills tucked into its trunk. A large Mexican painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe watches over the room, flanked by postcards from Canada and a Spanish wineskin. Decorative images of Italy, Argentina, and Brazil hang next to Navajo ornaments from the American Southwest. I briefly wonder if Maestro Juan is a master of the Amazon or of amazon.com, but written notes and dedications identify the decorations as goodwill gifts from grateful tourists.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I laugh to myself. “Can all these people really have visited? This might be the best-known ‘unknown’ site in the world.”

  “Andrés!” Guida calls. “We were unable to reach Maestro—he is at Mayantuyacu, in the jungle, where there is no phone service. Normally they would not let us in without his approval, but we got ahold of Sandra, who recognized my voice and gave us the okay. Maestro is leaving Mayantuyacu today, and if we are lucky we can catch him before he leaves—but regardless, you’ll see the river today.”

  I can barely contain my excitement. I hug her tightly, and she laughs. “Aye querido, we are not in the jungle yet! We still have a long journey ahead of us, and we had better get moving—I don’t want you saying I brought you all this way just to show you the river in the dark!”

  We spend the next two hours in another taxi, avoiding large, flooded potholes on a bumpy, reddish dirt road. I gaze at swaths of lush, impenetrable jungle interspersed with vast, verdant fields where a few cattle peacefully ruminate. The drive ends in the small town of Honoria, where we park in front of a large, grassy open space that slopes down to the mighty Pachitea River. At the bottom of the sloping bank, the chocolate-brown Pachitea stretches over a thousand feet wide and flows with the power of a freight train.

  I stretch my legs and watch the taxi speed away, red dust pluming behind. There is not a soul in sight, thanks to the midday sun beating down on the town. The only sign of life is music from a muffled radio in one of the houses. The buildings are made of wooden planks with corrugated metal roofs. Many are built on stilts to protect them from flooding.