Return to the River GUAYAS COLOMBIA
DECEMBER 9TH , ,2019
I look up to see five guys rushing into our camp from upstream. I immediately know what’s wrong. Coca fields surrounded us as we moved frustratingly slowly through this cultivated corridor, and we were spotted. I drop my firewood and offer my friendliest “hola,” extending my hand. I catch a glimpse of Rafa doing the same. Ben arrives, followed by yet another group. More than a dozen baton-wielding individuals completely surround us, and I can’t help but wish we had paddled just a few more kilometers. We were so close to finally finishing the rio Guayas, and now we are marching up and out of the canyon into the abrupt equatorial darkness and the unknown.
PROLOGUE
Two years ago, Jules Domine, Ben Stookesberry, and I took a chance on the rio Guayas, one of the largest and most remote watersheds in Colombia’s southern Cordillera Oriental mountain range. It’s unique for its size, access, roadless beauty, and for its remarkable string of rapids visible in satellite imagery: the exact attributes found on the wishlist of big-hydro development around the world. But in Colombia, the land of world-famous narco-political conflict, the Guayas is still wild; maybe too wild. Three days into our attempt in October of 2017, with high water and legitimate reports of a or risky security situation in the remote jungle canyons still to come, we decided to hike out. For the next two years, I dreamt every day of returning to the Guayas and the 50 km of its rapids still to explore. When I saw the Guayas on the top of a hit-list for large scale dam development, I knew the chance to paddle a wild, free-flowing Guayas was now or never. Last fall, I got the requisite time off work and family, but the mission wasn’t a go until my next-door neighbor and kayak legend Rafa Ortiz said “in.” At the last minute, Ben became available for round two.
