CHAPTER XXVI
Across the Andes—The End of the Trans-continental Journey
I was fortunate in obtaining some excellent Peruvian muleteers to accompany me on the expedition over the Andes. The trip might have been a rough one for the ordinary traveller, but for me it was a real holiday excursion, after the horrible time I had experienced in Brazil. This notwithstanding the disagreeable weather I encountered during the fourteen days' rough riding which I employed in reaching the Pacific Ocean.
I started at once with my pack animals on the trail which has been cut by the Peruvian Government over the mountains. Rain came down in torrents. Most of the country was swampy, the mules sinking chest-deep in mud. The travelling was not exactly what you would call pleasant. Your legs dangled all the time in water and slush. As that trail was used by caravans, the mules had cut regular transverse grooves in the ground all along, in which successively they all placed their hoofs. Each groove was filled with slushy water, and was separated from the next by a mud wall from one to three feet high. The mules were constantly stumbling and falling. After you had travelled a short distance you were in a filthy condition, the torrential rain washing down the splashes of mud and spreading them all over you.
After leaving Yessup we crossed first the Sinchhuaqui river, then the Aguachini. We began to ascend two kilometres after we had left Yessup, and marched steadily the entire day among gigantic aguaso trees and wonderful ferns of great height, until we reached the Miriatiriami tambo, 27 kil. from Yessup.
On January 19th we followed the River Azupizu along a narrow trail from 300 to 400 ft. above the level of the river, with an almost vertical drop by the side of us. Huge palms and ferns of indescribable beauty were to be seen all along, while waterfalls and streamlets constantly crossed the trail.
We encountered that day deep mud all the way, the mules sinking up to their bellies in the slush. The trail along the mountain side was cut in the soft earth, and actually formed a deep groove only about two feet wide, the mud and slush being held by the solid transverse barriers which succeeded one another at short intervals.
