I woke from my dream of raiding a cruise ship’s supply store to feel the faint patter of rain on my face. The nearby embers of our fire hissed and puffed as it duelled with the droplets. I looked over at the squirming forms of my travel companions, Robbie and Jasper, and cursed at them in their sleeping bags
That’s the last time I listen to one of Robbie’s bright ideas.
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Let’s sleep under the stars.
I plodded away from our fire and dragged my tent out of the tuk tuk.
Once it was up I fumbled around with the zips and dragged my sorry looking mattress and sleeping bag inside.
Despite the grit and damp, my exhaustion from climbing the largest sand dune in Peru the previous day meant I was asleep soon enough, and happily looting that cruise ship once again.
The next morning I woke up with my face forming a sandy imprint on a wet pillow.
Although this was a bad start to the day the answer to my problems was mere footsteps away. If I could just make it to the river, I’d be fine.
I unzipped the door, found my flip flops and began my waddle to the brown river that snaked past our camp.
Despite the fact we were camping in one of the driest places in the world, the Nazca desert, the banks of the river were brimming with fruit trees and life.
These desert dwelling Peruvians had inherited the Inca’s knowledge of irrigation, funnelling the river off into nearby fields. The water transformed the surrounding desert into a green ribbon of bountiful farmland.
I collapsed to my knees in the shallow flow and began scooping handfuls of water over my head.
“Last night was lame as hell” Jasper was striding towards me, stripping off items of clothing as he walked.
Upon reaching the river he stretched out his arms and landed face down in the water.
“What’s the plan today then?” I asked his limp body as it floated past me.
He flipped himself around and clasped his hands behind his mop of unruly blonde hair.
“Tubing.”
He shuffled over to a rock where he had stashed his valuables and picked up his phone.
“You remember the sandy river we camped by just outside Ica?” He was pincering and thumbing his way north across the map to find the exact spot.
“Well look what’s upstream of that.”
He flicked his phone screen around to reveal what was clearly a canyon of sorts, with desert mountains on either side.
The morning sun was already intense enough to make my skin tingle. Spending the majority of the day in a river sounded lovely.
One of our team, Ivo, was bussing to Lima to meet up with a French girl he’d fallen for in the desert town of Huacachina, which meant there was just the four of us. Jasper, Robbie and I driving the tuk tuks and Matty Teng, an American motorcyclist we’d bonded with in Patagonia. After months of travelling together we’d given him the official position of “Tuk South Outrider.”
After we’d dropped lover boy at the bus station, blasting out “Je ne regrette rien” through the speakers, we packed up camp and began our journey north along the Pan American highway.
The Pan-American is a road that stretches from Alaska to the very southern tip of Chile. It’s one, continuous bit of tarmac with only a small break due to the mysterious bit of jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darien Gap.
Although it may sound quite romantic, cruising North along the Pan American in a couple of Kenyan tuk tuks, I can assure you it’s not. If we drove for one hour without being driven off the road by a trucker, one of our tyres exploding or a gust of wind whisking our possessions into the desert, it was a good hour.
With our shirts now soaked in sweat we finally pulled up to our old camp spot and tried to wrap our tired brains around the ordeal ahead of us.
“It is 3 o’clock” said Robbie, holding three packs of cigarettes and inspecting our dry bags. “I’m gonna hedge our bets.” He finally decided, putting a pack of ciggies in each.
I stuffed beers and rum into another dry bag whilst Matty Teng began pumping up tyre tubes.
“God dammit.” Both of his motorcycle tubes were hissing at him.
“I guess that means we’re all going down in tuk tuk tubes.” I said holding up the small ring that could be mistaken for one of those pregnancy pillows.
“Hope there’s no rapids.” Grinned Rob.
It was a good point. We had no idea what this river looked like and were about to blindly float down it.
“Or waterfalls…” Matty Teng replied with a smirk curling beneath his impressive moustache.
Sensing a safety debate on the horizon Jasper started the single cylinder engine to drown out any common sense and started to drive.
By the time we reached our drop off point, above the canyon, it was four in the afternoon. We ran across a farmers recently ploughed field, leaving Wesley (passenger tuk tuk) under a mango tree.
I couldn’t help noticing our shadows as we ran across the dusty earth. They were getting quite long.
“How far away from camp are we Rob?”
“About 14 Ks”
“So we have to float 14 kilometres through a canyon with two hours of daylight?”
“No” panted Rob, “That’s as the crow flies, we’ll be floating for longer than that.”
With the scale of our odyssey beginning to dawn on us, we padded down the powdery white river bank and waded out into the water. It was deep enough to float in and flowing at a decent rate. That was lucky. Having done zero reconnaissance there was a chance we’d find just a muddy trickle.
We each sat back onto our tuk tuk tubes and began our float downstream.
Occasionally my foot would bump into the riverbed but thankfully it was all sand. No rocks or thorny tree branches yet. The sides of the river were covered in reeds and trees that were tangled in multi coloured scraps of plastic bags but, apart from the rubbish, it was lovely.
The tubes weren’t big enough for our bodies to be floating but as long as they kept our heads above water, that was good enough for me.
We were making good headway.
Robbie grappled with his phone whilst shouting “Best guess for top speed.”
3, 4 and 5 Kilometres per hour, were the replies.
“3.8… that’s not bad.”
The sun was already low enough that it had dipped beneath the western bank and we floated in the shade.
“Is that the start of the gorge?” I asked Jasper who was zipping along next to me drinking a Peruvian “Golden” cerveca .
“I think so”
The mountain I was pointing at was at least 5 kilometres away.
I flashed a smile at him, thinking of every adventure we’d ever embarked on as Tuk South. All of the best ones had been poorly planned, worse executed and ended in us almost dying.
Rob and I were still dealing with the effects of our camping expedition into the Amazon last November. Both of us becoming infected with a nasty little skin parasite known as Leishmaniasis. Granted, Rob had received the short end of the stick on that one — with twelve weeping pustules to my one.
After a quick start to the mission the river widened and became more shallow. The four of us tried our best to bum shuffle across the sand but this was an undignified sight and we all gave up. We walked to where the river narrowed once again and the flow was strong.
We were picking up speed. Rob shouted out new records as we barrelled towards the canyon.
“7.2!” “8.5! Damn we are really motoring now.”
I was at the front of our merry band when I could hear the unmistakable sound of rapids. I dug my feet into the sand and waited for everyone to catch up.
“Rapids!” I shouted over the din.
Nobody said anything back but I could see everybody’s smiles start to fade.
With my tube under my belly I approached them head on… which was foolish looking back. In my left hand I filmed with the action camera, in my right I tried to keep my can of beer above the water. I don’t know what I was expecting. Vessels designed to go over rapids, like kayaks and rafts, make it seem so easy.
It turns out rapids form because of rocks. In a car tube, you float over these no problem. Not with our tuk tuk tubes.
As soon as I hit the first rapid I realised my mistake.
The tube took the brunt of the first rock but this was enough to flip me broad side.
There was no stopping at this point so I just held onto my belongings and howled in pain. The other three didn’t have enough time to make it to the bank — behind me, I heard a barrage of swearing and screams.
Thankfully the bad patch only lasted for 20 metres or so and everyone made it to a sandy beach at the bottom.
We were all bleeding from somewhere but it was just a few cuts and bruises. I felt a burning pain in my left knee, which was surprising, as my leishmaniasis wound was on the right. Well now I was symmetrical once again, with a healthy scrape on both.
“Hopefully that’s the last of the Rapids.” Matty Teng was gazing up at the steep sides of the canyon we were about to enter.
If we hit rapids in there that were slightly more powerful and a bit longer in length we were in serious trouble.
We all took swigs of our beer for courage, realised they were now just cans of river water and got back on our tubes.
As the river approached the canyon two things happened which made my pulse quicken. We started to go a lot faster and the sun set.
“14 Kilometres per hour!” Came Robbies update as we left the farm fields behind and saw the moon poking above the hills.
“Thank God it’s a full moon.”
The water we were floating in transformed from a brown snake into a channel of silver mixed with midnight blue. The oranges and reds faded from the mountain side and our eyes strained to adjust to the darkness.
I stretched my feet down to where I could normally feel sand but there was nothing. The trees on either side stretched over the waterway and occasionally a shout would come from the front to “Swim right!” Or “Go through!”
It reminded me of Crash Bandicoot, a game I used to play on the playstation one, dodging obstacles from above and below.
In the moonlight the branches were easy enough to spot. It was the rocks that scared us. Every so often one would catch you by surprise. Getting hit by a rock on the shin at 14 kilometres per hour is not fun.
I could feel my anxiety morphing into excitement as we zigged and zagged our way through the switchbacks until I heard the faint rush of water from around the next bend.
“Rapids!”
I shouted back to the boys, who were now passing half a bottle of rum between them.
“Bad?”
I couldn’t tell, but was once again unfortunate enough to be at the front.
The first ripple I went over sent me rolling off my tyre.
Hearing my screams as I went over the rocks with zero floatation device the boys made the wise choice to grasp onto the boulders at the top.
After a few tumbles I managed to grab onto something and wedged my feet against the flow.
Although the sides were too steep to get out, the river was now at least shallow enough that we could navigate the rocks below using our feet and hands — like rock climbing… in a river, in reverse.
Eventually we arrived at the bottom and ran out of rocks to use as hand holds.
“We’re gonna have to go for it.” Said Matty Teng whilst losing his tenuous grip and being flung into a plunge pool.
“How is it?” I asked once his head reemerged.
“Deep, we’re good.”
The sun had now been gone for three hours and we encountered a problem none of us had considered. It was getting cold.
“This canyon goes on for bloody ever.” Jasper ’s teeth were chattering.
We’d now been in the river for five hours.
Every corner we flowed around we thought had to be the last, but they never seemed to end. It felt like we were flowing past a beautiful, yet repeating movie set and if the camera zoomed out, you’d catch the illusion: the backdrop sliding past, a man in the corner holding a fan and spraying us with water.
Finally though, we broke through the canyon’s grip on our reality. A concrete dam with a small opening at the bottom, a metre in height.
“Do we walk around the dam?” I asked the others, worried at how fast we were moving towards the small opening.
“I’m going for it.” Matty Teng laughed, spiralling straight into the hole and disappearing from sight.
Seeing as this wasn’t followed by any screams I decided to follow him.
As soon as the concrete passed by over head the river dropped over a weir and I came barrelling down to join Matty Teng, floating in a large, man made channel.
Robbie and Jasper followed soon after. We were almost there.
My back was beginning to stiffen and I felt the shameful longing for my sandy bed.
We floated away from the concrete and entered a corridor of reeds. Their stems were so thickly packed that they almost completely blocked out the stars over head. Luckily, we weren’t very floaty and flowed silently beneath them, enjoying this strange perspective.
Different scenes from Vietnam War films passed through my mind as we brushed through the leaves. Platoon and Apocalypse now. With my nose just above the water, it felt like a view of the world usually reserved for anacondas, caimans, and river otters.
The river seemed calmer since the gorge and was now deeper than any of us could reach with our feet.
But it had one more challenge for us.
A kilometre from camp we rounded onto a pale tree that had fallen across the channel. The ease with which we were passing through the reeds must have given us a false sense of security because me and Matty Teng hit the tree at speed.
“Jesus!” I shouted feeling the impact of solid wood and reaching to grab the branches before being forced under.
Matty Teng’s branch snapped and he swore and flailed to grab another as he was pushed past me.
I couldn’t help but laugh whilst reaching out for his arm. Eventually we were both stationary and advised the others to get out before the tree.
“Here you go.” Robbie held out the flimsiest bit of bamboo to Teng.
To our surprise, the improvised tow rope worked.
“Your turn bud.” Robbie extended the bamboo over to me as I struggled to hold on. He pulled me ashore and I panted on the beach.
“Ciggie?” Rob asked me, delving into the dry bags.
“Ahh.” Turns out all of our dry bags had holes. The phones and action cameras would be fine but the one dollar packs of Inca cigarettes were more delicate cargo.
We looked up from our sad discovery to see Jasper sprinting up the bank and across the desert in an attempt to get warm.
“Come on.” I looked back at Robbie, setting off on a jog.
“I hate running,” grumbled Rob as he broke out into the weakest run possible.
By the time we’d caught the shivering Kenyan boy we were another 300 metres closer to camp.
“Let’s get back in the river.” Rob heaved once he reached us.
“It is warmer in there said Matty Teng,” watching Jasper clasp his shivering form.
Jasper weighs less than a bag of rice, has about 10 percent body fat and was brought up on the equator. There was a tiny part of my brain that began going through the timescales for hyperthermia to kill you… I came to the conclusion he’d be fine.
We returned to the river, which was indeed warmer than the night air, and tried to finish what we started.
Every sandy bank looked like the one beside our camp until finally, after six hours of barely floating, we saw it.
“That’s where we ate Jasper’s birthday cake!”
We dragged ourselves out of the water and gingerly stepped through the night towards the tuk tuks.
Jasper, vibrating from head to toe, wrenched one of the petrol jerry cans from the side of Princess Buttercup, doused our stash of logs, and created one of the largest fire balls I’ve ever seen.
After everyone had checked to see if their eyebrows were still there we gathered around the warming glow and began to process the evening’s activity. Yes, the beautiful part of the float had started in the dark, we’d soaked our cigarettes, were all bleeding and Matty Teng had lost his sunglasses… but we had made it.
Jasper was soon unconscious, huddled slightly too close to the roaring flames, with Matty Teng sat next top him struggling to keep his eyes open.
“I think if I had to do it again, said Rob, sipping on his final beer of the evening and staring into the fire. “I’d do it exactly the same.”
And I was with him.
Going into the unknown alone is scary. Doing it with your friends is an adventure. Although I think this will be the last time I go tuk tuk tubing in the dark.
The Tuk Tuk Dispatches - Life on Three Wheels is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Thanks to Ben Ulansey for helping with edits
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