Carhuasanta is a small river located in the

Arequipa Region Arequipa ( ay, Ariqipa; qu, Ariqipa) is a department and region in southwestern Peru. It is the sixth largest department in Peru, after Puno, Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto, its sixth most populous department, and its eleventh least ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

. It is known as the

headwaters The headwaters of a river or stream is the farthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or downstream confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. It is also known as a river's source. Definition The ...

of the

Amazon River The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile. The headwaters of t ...

. The brook is fed by the winter snows of

Nevado Mismi Mismi is a mountain peak of volcanic origin in the Chila mountain range in the Andes of Peru. A glacial stream on the Mismi was firmly identified as the most distant source of the Amazon River in 1996; this finding was confirmed in 2001 and again ...

, (5,597 m), some 6,400 kilometers from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. Of all the possible river sources in the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

, it is the snow melt of the Carhuasanta that has been calculated by

cartographers Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

to be one of the furthermost water sources from the mouth of the Amazon. The Carhuasanta joins with the Quebrada Apacheta, becoming the Rio Lloqueta. The river has several more name changes before it becomes the

Apurímac River The Apurímac River ( que, Apurimaq mayu; es, Río Apurímac, ; from Quechua ''apu'' 'divinity' and ''rimaq'' 'oracle, talker') rises from glacial meltwater of the ridge of the Mismi, a mountain in the Arequipa Province in the south-western m ...

. The mining town of Caylloma lies near the junction of four rivers that form the Apurímac river.

National Geographic expedition

The

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...

sent a three-man expedition to the region in 1971, headed by

Loren McIntyre Loren McIntyre (March 24, 1917 – May 11, 2003), was an American photojournalist who worked extensively in South America. His photographs and writing appeared in '' National Geographic'' and hundreds of other periodicals. He has numerous b ...

. The expedition travelled from Caylloma by four-wheel drive, but soon got bogged. Continuing on by backpacking up the river, they climbed up the Apacheta Trail and traversed onto the mountain

Mismi Mismi is a mountain peak of volcanic origin in the Chila mountain range in the Andes of Peru. A glacial stream on the Mismi was firmly identified as the most distant source of the Amazon River in 1996; this finding was confirmed in 2001 and again ...

, taking in the mountains

Kiwicha ''Amaranthus caudatus'' (also known as ''Amaranthus edulis'' and ''Amaranthus mantegazzianus'') is a species of annual flowering plant. It goes by common names such as love-lies-bleeding, pendant amaranth, tassel flower, velvet flower, foxtail a ...

and Pumachiri. This is, as McIntyre describes it in his 1972 National Geographic article, "a semicircle rampart of the

continental divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

. All that trickles from the inner rim joins to form the Apurimac."MacIntyre, L. "Amazon - The River Sea", ''National Geographic Magazine'', 1972 Mismi makes an unreliable source of water in the dry season. Laguna McIntyre, as the lake was called, is deemed the 'true source', as it is permanent. However, it is known that the source will change over time, perhaps in a single season, due to the changes of the weather and its impact on the

microclimate A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few squ ...

. In the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

the mountains and undulating

altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechua and Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extensive high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. The plateau is located at the ...

are covered in snow. In the

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

it resembles a desert as the mountains crumble slowly to dust. The effect of

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

will no doubt accelerate the changing of the Amazon's source water.

Other expeditions

Pre-1971

Very few people have visited the headwaters of the Carhuasanta. A walking track called the Apacheta Trail, used by locals, runs across the continental divide 13 kilometers to the west of Mismi, linking the villages of the

Colca Canyon The Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru, located about northwest of Arequipa. With a depth of about 1000 - 2000 m (3300 - 6600 ft) (whereas bottom is at cca 2000 m and edges are at 3000 - 4000 metres above the sea lev ...

to the isolated valleys of the altiplano used by

alpaca The alpaca (''Lama pacos'') is a species of South American camelid mammal. It is similar to, and often confused with, the llama. However, alpacas are often noticeably smaller than llamas. The two animals are closely related and can successfu ...

herders and their families, and to the mining town of Caylloma, 60 km distant (which can be accessed by a road from another direction). Mismi was frequented by the

Incas The Inca Empire (also Quechuan and Aymaran spelling shift, known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechuan languages, Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) wa ...

. "A gold figurine was discovered in a ''pirqa'' (

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

for "wall", here a burial pit) on the summit by a South African father and son who were working in the Colca Canyon in the early 1970s." They didn't seem to know of the significance of the mountain as the source of the mighty Amazon, nor of the interest invested in it by others in the decades before.

1982

The third team to reach the top of the Mismi, in search of the 'true source', was

Jean-Michel Cousteau Jean-Michel Cousteau (born 6 May 1938) is a French oceanographic explorer, environmentalist, educator and film producer. The first son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, he is the father of Fabien Cousteau and Céline Cousteau. Life and care ...

and his crew in 1982. McIntyre writes, "Despite support by a helicopter and a monstrous six-wheel truck carrying five tons of equipment, Jean-Michel and his puffing lowlanders barely made it to the top."

1985

In 1985 a five-man team from the Los Angeles Adventurers Club, led by the late Emil Barajak, erected a heavy iron cross at the source. In the same year, a 9-member international team organized by South African Dr. Francois J. Odendaal climbed out of the Colca valley and hiked up the Apacheta Trail with grandiose and expensive plans to run the Amazon by raft and kayak all the way to the sea. The team was torn with dissension - not to say mutiny. Odendaal, a South African, pulled out after they reached flat water at Atalaya with 3600 miles/5,794 km yet to go. Only Polish Piotr Chmielinski and American Joe Kane completed the journey to the Atlantic with Kane documenting it in the classic book ''Running the Amazon'' (1989). Kane documents in his book that he hiked for an hour to the top of a mountain, off the Apacheta Trail, and "touched the source" (a frozen river of water).

References

{{Authority control Rivers of Arequipa Region Amazon basin Upper Amazon Rivers of Peru