THE ECHO OF LIQUID THUNDER

I observed, not without a certain amount of envy, Angel’s reaction to what he was seeing. José Carlos Tamayo and I had already passed through on our expedition in 1998; but for Ángel Martínez it was his first visit to The Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge1, and in those first moments of the hike, everything appeared new and fascinating to him all at the same time. He marveled at the sun’s play of light and the luxuriant forest that hid from our vision a river we sensed was impressive to judge by the powerful roar that came to us from the bottom of the abyss. It was an inextinguishable roll of liquid thunder that would accompany us along the trail for over a month, devouring even the slightest bit of silence all around us. We began advancing into an almost virgin area containing various peaks of over 7,000 meters (22,960 ft) with an impenetrable jungle that provides shelter to innumerable plant species –some of which are yet unclassified– and varied fauna. In moments such as these, one would like to have the ability to erase certain memories from your mind in order to once again experience the pleasure and intense excitement that is only felt when facing a prodigy of nature like the Yarlung Tsangpo River for the first time.

Our faces glued to the windows of the plane which flew us from Peking to Lhasa, we had already made out, through the tattered clouds, the river winding its way through an impenetrable forest that would be our home for the weeks to come. We landed at the airport of the Tibetan capital lays right in a valley irrigated by the Tsangpo, the mother river of the Tibetans. There, as for many more hundreds of kilometers, the river is a gigantic extension of water that flows gently through the elevated Tibetan plain parallel to the Himalayan mountain range.

We had just left the village of Tziga with twenty-nine porters, after various days of all-terrain travel from Lhasa. Our intention was to complete the distance between the Yarlung Tsangpo where the river cuts a slash in the most formidable mountain chain on Earth before turning towards the plains of India and Bangladesh.

This adventure would provide the material for making several documentaries for the television series Al filo de lo imposible (“At the Edge of the Impossible”). In 1998 we made our first attempt, which we had to abort due mostly to diverse problems with our inexpert porters. Four years later, we returned with a little more confidence because of everything we had learned on the previous expedition. But total assurance was quite far from our minds. A project of the magnitude of the one we were beginning always brings with it many more uncertainties than certainties. Not surprisingly, no one up to that moment had managed to entirely cover, by foot or canoe, the approximately 240 kilometers (126 miles) of this canyon which symbolized –as very few did– the spirit of the greatest geographical mysteries confronted by human beings throughout the history of exploration.

IS IT THE BRAHMAPUTRA ?

Before arriving at the canyon in the extreme east of Tibet, the Yarlung Tsangpo flows for over 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) from its beginning at the foot of Mount Kailas, parallel to the Himalayan mountain range, through the Tibetan high plateau at an altitude of over 4,000 meters (13,120 ft). However, precisely at the point where we started, the river abruptly redirects itself, making an impressive 260º turn, tunneling into the deepest and most unknown gorge in the world. It is a phenomenon so difficult to justify that for over more than a hundred years militaries, geographers and explorers have tried to confirm whether or not that calm and mighty river that crossed Tibet was the same one, known by the name Brahmaputra, that penetrated the Indian plains in the opposite direction, and ended emptying into the Gulf of Bengal next to the Ganges.

The testimony of the incredible adventure of one of those who tried is enough to give one an idea of the magnitude and effort involved in arriving at an explanation to a geographical mystery such as the Yarlung Tsangpo. It’s the story of the pundit Kintup. In the second half of the 19th century this man entered alone into the same jungle we were crossing through now. Today, mountaineering expeditions such as those made by the British during the first decades of the 20th century are world famous. They crossed Tibet and introduced the rest of the world to a rich culture and captivating landscapes, unknown until then. But before that time, geographical science and mountaineers themselves owe enormous gratitude to a number of adventurers who are mostly anonymous. They were the European explorers and the natives of these frontier areas, brave and tenacious, who faced innumerable dangers in order to obtain reliable information for the empires that hired them. These explorers were known as pundits.

It’s easy to imagine how complicated the job of topographically mapping the Himalayas must have been with the means available at that time. Furthermore, the fact that the three powers at the moment –the Chinese, Russian and British empires–, had entered into a conflict in the territory made traveling difficult for the explorers when not altogether extremely dangerous. The participants of “The Great Game” as this rivalry between empires is known, turned geographical information into a necessity of State, vital to its geostrategical interests; and those put in charge of compiling it in the Himalayas were the pundits, whom someone had also named the “calibrated men”-2. They centered their work in territories where the use of measuring devices was prohibited. They were British explorers, some by profession, who at times would dress up like natives to get themselves into the more dangerous areas; or natives who traveled through the regions disguised as Tibetan monks or religious Buddhists or Mohammedans. They were able to collect information because they had received very precise training by which they could calculate that each step they took, and even those of their horses, was equal to an exact measurement which they wrote down in secret notebooks or scrolls later hidden in their tunics, or in prayer wheels, where they also hid their compass and other instruments used to complete their measurements. But they did not stop at pure measurements. They also provided descriptions of the landscape, the inhabitants, types of crops, or the methods of communication. This mass of information, transcribed with incredible accuracy, was later passed on to the British Geographical Service, who translated it in order to reproduce in some cases with astonishing accuracy, what the territory explored by the pundits was like.

Kintup was put in charge of the mission to discover whether or not the Yarlung Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were the same river. To achieve this he was to enter into the river canyon and cast off a series of marked tree trunks on a determined date, which his British superiors would already be waiting for in Indian territory. It took him four years to complete his mission, a period of time in which he suffered every kind of hardship, such as being betrayed and sold as a slave by his expedition partner. But Kintup never thought of giving up. He escaped from captivity and returned to the eastern Tibetan jungles to cast off the logs, as he had been ordered. But his enormous effort was of no use because the message he sent to his superiors telling them when he would complete his task never arrived. They didn’t believe his frightening story after his return either, and Kintup died without his loyalty and dedication ever being recognized.

Without a doubt, the fact that we were following in the footsteps of adventurers as exceptional as Kintup himself added excitement to our expedition. Today we rely on more sophisticated methods, and the authorities, in this case Chinese, only put a few bothersome bureaucratic tangles in our way. However, the habitat of the Yarlung Gorge remains just as impenetrable and wild, converting our advance into an arduous hike that obliges us on some occasions to climb the hills that lay above at an altitude of over 3,000 meters (9,840 ft) only to descend again to the riverbank, an effort that strains our legs day after day. There are no roads; one can only advance by slashing through with a machete and using their ingenuity to improvise the steps to take in order to dodge numerous streams of water that rush down towards the great vastness of the river. The ground is damp and muddy, and at times one sinks up to the ankles. We hardly get a respite from the fog and the rain to be able to enjoy the two gigantic snow-capped mountains of over 7,000 meters (22,960 ft) that flank the river forming an extraordinary natural gateway: the Gyala Peri, which we attempted to climb during our previous expedition, and the Namcha Barwa, the highest unclimbed mountain in the world until 1992 when it was topped by a Japanese expedition. When we saw the location of our base camp at the foot of the Gyala Peri, memories returned of those exceptional days when we attempted to scale that mountain. Alone facing that giant, we fought its slopes and terrible weather: it hadn’t stopped raining for the past month. We couldn’t get above 6,000 meters, but what we went through trying to reach that peak now forms part of our most cherished memories.

Where it passes between the mountains, the river narrows into a ravine three times as deep as Colorado’s Grand Canyon. Right at that spot the Earth’s largest walls rise up, from the riverbed to the peak of the Gyala Peri there is a 5,000-meter (16,400 feet) drop-off going straight down.

IN "THE FAIRYLAND OF THE RHODODENDRONS"

The Yarlung’s higher volume of flow this year forces us to adjust the itinerary we remembered from our previous journey frequently. For example, a beautiful beach that had served us as a crossing point now lies under furious waters. We look for an alternative in a rather inclined and slippery slope with the help of a rope, but soon realize that it is impossible for the Tibetans to make it up with the loads they carry on their backs. The following day we equip a different route –which is also very steep– that one of our porters, Shin-Go, had told us about, having used it before on a hunting excursion. We used one hundred and fifty meters of rope. After many hours of hard work, we all manage to reach the highest point of the pass. Ángel and Tamayo, followed by various porters went ahead of the group to continue roping the route, this time descending. A surprising run-in with a wasp nest provoked a scuttle in the group as they tried to flee from the stings of the violent insects. One of the porters, in his rapid escape, pushed Ángel down the slope, who ended up with a small wound on his head. Luckily for them both, a patch of bamboo stopped his rapid descent towards the abyss. At that moment, it was impossible to imagine that that accident would become a prelude to something much more serious for Ángel, and that it would change the outcome of our expedition.

Without further scares from the native fauna, we continued advancing until we reached the ruins of the Buddhist monastery, Pemako Chung. Long ago it was an important temple and center of pilgrimage. According to an ancient Tibetan tradition, this region is one of the sixteen paradises on Earth. An old Buddhist text dug up by a Tibetan monk in the 17th century states that taking seven steps towards Pemako with pure intentions will ensure reincarnation in this same place. It also confirms that just one drop of water or a bit of grass from this sacred area will prevent reincarnation into an inferior caste. Perhaps the earthquake that devastated the region in 1950 and whose intensity was nothing less than 8.5 on the Richter scale destroyed it. Time and vegetation have taken hold of its crumbling walls and buried the splendor of this sacred place, where only a few decrepit objects of worship remain. But neither time nor jungle has managed to remove the magical aura that permeates this area. For us it is also a special place. It was this point that we reached on our expedition of 1998; for us, beyond it begins the unknown.

After leaving the ruins, we began to descend towards the river again. During the hike some of the porters stopped for a moment to show us one of the canoes they carried on an American expedition in February of 2002, which they had left hidden there. The seven canoeists in the group managed to descend the first eighty kilometers of the canyon in fourteen days assisted by a group of porters who kept them supplied from the riverbank. It was, without a doubt, a meritorious achievement taking into account the enormous difficulty and risk which the rough waters of the Yarlung entail. This was something we were able to verify in our previous expedition when we participated in the unsuccessful search for Doug Gordon, an expert American canoeist who disappeared, swallowed up by the rapids just minutes after making his first entry into the river.

We continue the hike confident in the skillfulness and experience of our native companions. They are incredibly adept moving through such an unfavorable and rugged environment. Besides knowing the way, they seem to be able to read into this impenetrable forest. We especially trust Shiro, since he was already with us before in the Gyala Peri and during that experience we had forged a great friendship with him. His parents moved to this region fleeing Chinese repression after that country’s invasion of Tibet in the middle of the last century. In reality, our coexistence with all of these men during the journey was excellent, and after a long day’s work we would all end up together around the campfire struggling to overcome our language barrier with enormous doses of goodwill and sense of humor. We’re convinced that only due to their effort and collaboration were we able to make it as far as we had.

The relationship between these men and this environment goes much further than pure exploitation for the purpose of making a living. The intimate contact that they maintain with it is reflected in their religious beliefs. One day they brought us to a hill where there was a small lake that to them was sacred. Some hundred meters away from that lagoon and after crossing a forest of rhododendrons, we accompanied them to a cave where they stopped to pray. According to tradition, Pema Sambaba, one of the gods of the Yarlung Tsangpo would retreat there to meditate.

According to the guides, after just five days of hiking we would arrive in Tsachu, where we had planned a stop for provisioning. The route wanders through fallen moss and fern covered tree trunks which shine emerald-colored in the sun. Lianas hang from the branches of the rhododendrons turning the landscape into a magical place, which is what probably led the botanist and exceptional British explorer, Frank Kingdon Ward, to baptize this region as “The Fairyland of the Rhododendrons”. Ward penetrated these jungles in 1924. Back then, it was believed that the legendary waterfalls of Brahmaputra were in this area of the Himalayas which for the natives were equivalent to, should they be found, the Tibetan version of Victoria Falls in Africa. Kingdon Ward took it upon himself to solve this fabled geographical mystery. After weeks of difficult hiking, he became convinced that the cascades did not exist. But he was unable to do away with the myth, having not been able to make the entire way through the gorge. To him, this place with its extraordinary beauty and variety of plants seemed like a botanist’s paradise. The British official’s vivid descriptions contributed to keep the attraction to this gorge alive to the present day…

THE BRAHMAPUTRA FALLS

As the sun rose on November 27th we prepared ourselves for a long day’s journey. We had to climb the Sachen peak through a watercourse covered by a thin layer of ice, due to the rain of the night before. As we gained altitude, snow began to appear and at one point we had to make use of the rope in order to facilitate the progression of the porters. When we reached the mountain pass, the view it offered to us was spectacular, dominated by the gigantic mountains which line the river, separated by a 5,000 meter deep gash created by the power of the liquid thunder that flies at their feet. At last, the soul of the Yarlung Gorge presents itself to us in all its glory.

We began the descent, which we sensed would be long and complicated, towards a group of trees that lay below a rocky area. While we ascended through one of the conduits we’d chosen as a route, an enormous rock came loose and hurled down the hill at full speed as the caravan passed. The shouts of warning did not manage to impede the rock from striking an unprepared Ángel with force. Fortunately, the rapid intervention of one of the porters, who caught him practically in mid-air, prevented the rock from dragging him down as it fell but he had deep cuts on the index finger of his left hand, as well as injuring his side and hip and causing a small cut on his head. We took some time to recover from the scare and give him his first urgent medical attention before continuing the hike. Nightfall slipped over us before we had been able to see clearly in which direction we should continue. We decided to split into two groups to see if that way we could find a route that would get us out of there. Our group camped at the first available spot and we had something to eat thanks to the charity of our porters, as our food is in the bedrolls with the other group. We treated Ángel’s open wounds as best we could and prepared a place next to the fire where he could rest in the only sleeping bag we had. José and I shared the blanket that a porter lent us. We spent the night in Shiro’s, watching over the fire while we waited for a sunrise that seemed would never arrive.

It was nine-thirty when we got going again. Angel felt as if he’d been run over by a freight train (in fact, he’d at least been run over by one of its cars), but he can walk with a bit of difficulty. After descending a while, we finally caught sight of the other group. We could also see an impressive waterfall at the bottom of the canyon. It turned out to be Hidden Falls, whose discovery is attributed to Kenneth Storm, a member of the American expedition of 1998. The Chinese authorities came out to refute Storm’s announcement, arguing that a team of Chinese explorers had already photographed the falls in 1987 during a helicopter flight through the canyon. This little incident over the authorship of discoveries is very revealing as to how attractive and esteemed this little part of our world has become.

That view would have made Kingdon Ward extremely happy; but then we didn’t even think of going to the foot of the falls due to our companion’s condition, and we settled with filming some shots from where we were. After another day of hiking, we finally got to Paiji, which is not even a village since it only has two houses. In one of them a young mother treated us to a comforting tea accompanied by champa, a type of bread made with toasted wheat that is kneaded with water with a bit of bacon. We drank the tea surrounded by pieces of pork that hang from the wall which constitute their stock of food for getting through the very harsh winter. From Paiji we climbed the Chata-La, latter descending again to a spot where there’s a tyrolese for crossing to the other side of the river, as it was impossible for us to continue along the bank on our side. It was nothing more than a simple steel cable with an ingenious system of pulleys composed of a wheel with ball bearings, enclosed by a piece of iron whose ends fold upwards through which a rope passes which holds the person being transported in a precarious safety harness. Over one hundred meters (328 ft) are crossed above the liquid abyss in a matter of 15 seconds, which left none of us indifferent. Without greater setbacks we got to Tsache where six families live, and one of them received our battered bones with enormous hospitality. From there, Ángel could leave the gorge accompanied by four porters. We stayed on to continue our expedition. The village offered us a spectacular view above the great curve drawn by the river. According to the beliefs of these people, it is the home of the goddess Dorje Pagmo, “The Diamond Burier”, consort of Buddha. A beautiful legend converts geography into a divine anatomy. The gorge is her body, the mountains that surround it her breast and the river forms her spine.

One of the inhabitants of the village kindly offered to lead us to the mythic Brahmaputra waterfalls, the same ones Kingdon Ward searched for with such determination. We soon left the settlement as we had a long day of hiking ahead of us. We crossed the Po Tsangpo River, a tributary of the Yarlung, on another one of those exciting tyrolese used in these parts. The first to cross was José Carlos, who took with him a hundred-meter rope to help tow the supplies. To our surprise, we discovered that the rope was shorter due to the fact that someone had decided to borrow twenty meters of it. In spite of the setback, we crossed without further difficulties and arrived in Mendong, a village in the process of being abandoned by its inhabitants. The authorities have decided to depopulate this region and convert it into a protected natural park. The eagerness of the Chinese government to “normalize” this region is clearly perceived in actions such as this one or in maps, on which a nomenclature different from the traditional one used by its inhabitants is used. We have preferred to maintain the latter here.

Shortly after, we arrived at a place from where we could see a waterfall in a river that heads down from the Gyali Peri. To our disappointment the guide informed us that these are the falls we were looking for. Our protests were futile and we returned to Tsachu. There, more bad news awaited us. Our guide, Dawa had not resolved anything regarding the porters who must accompany us on the completion of the trip through the gorge. As if that wasn’t enough, he told us that the tyrolese situated in Luku had been destroyed by an avalanche, which made it impossible to continue down the river. We decided to use up the time that had been granted to us by the Chinese authorities, and so formed a small group to get at least to Brahmaputra Falls. In order to get there we depended on the help of Karma-Shiro, great-grandson of the man who guided Kingdon Ward in 1924. We advanced through continuously uphill terrain. It is so inclined that we had to build a platform with logs and weeds to camp and be able to sleep in a position that was at least somewhat similar to horizontal.

We topped various mountains such as the 2,890 meter (9,479 ft) Tsundo Kopma La, or the 2,995 meter (9,824 ft) Güeisum La, followed by their corresponding descents, until finally we found ourselves before the famous falls. The noise of the Yarlung Tsangpo is absolutely deafening to the point where it was impossible to sleep. In barely twenty meters the entire immense volume of the Yarlung is wedged with a fearsome white fury. We found ourselves gazing upon Kingdon Ward’s dream with a bittersweet feeling; for us it was also the final point of our expedition to the deepest canyon on Earth. The mysteries of this piece of “terra incognita” will continue waiting for us beyond this marvel of nature.

Antonio Perezgrueso