the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 III .. � � I� � .. �. r � � � � r·· � •• 0 0 (/) UJ J: (/) :2: « � :2: ,.., a:: UJ t9 >- III TH E RIO WI LD ECUADOR'S RIO , AMERICAN OPTION: WHILE THE USUMACINTA IS CLOSEDSl THERE'S A NEW SOUTH , TO RIDE THE UPANO IS TO BECOME A CURIOSITY IN POLYPROPYLENE, A WHOOPING FOOL CHALLENGING GRAVITY AND GEOLOGY FOR THE RAW, GIDDY RUSH OF ADRENALINE. FEWER THAN 200 PEOPLE HAVE RAFTED THE UPANO since Idaho-based River Odysseys West (ROW) started running tours in 1992, joined four years later by Mountain Travel-Sobek. With Chile's famous Bio-Bio River threatened by dam projects, and most South American waterways too flat or too extreme to run, the Upano-which includes Class IV rapids-appears destined to take its place as one of the world's classic river trips. When visionary adventure entrepreneur and ROW president Peter Grubb made an exploratory descent in 1992, there was no definitive verbal history of the river and n'o map. Local residents-Andean colonists and Shuar Indians-had never seen a rubber raft. Locals still look up from fish traps and sluice boxes and stare with bug-eyed incomprehension at visitors. It was Juan Fernandez Rodriguez, an Ecuadorian mountaineer with the tongue of a poet, who first convinced Grubb to have a look at the Upano. "I HAD A FEELING ABOUT THIS RIVER," SAYS RODRIGUEZ. "IT WAS ALIVE, UNTOUCHED-IT SPOKE TO ME." He contacted 30 adventure outfitters. Only Grubb seized the chance to run trips on the Upano. The rest missed the boat. When ROW first explored the Upano, it was a watery Eden of beaches untrod­ den by new-tech amphibious footwear. The guides christened camps at whim: Papaya Beach, to commemorate their first contact with a Shuar who offered the fruit in friend­ ship, and Waterfall Beach, named for its towering cascade . Whitewater isn't the only thrill. Ecuador's six-decade-Iong border dispute with " � � � '

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