Motorcycle Explorer September 2016 Issue 13 | Page 61

Arriving again at the Marañón river, this time we
were greeted by the ruins of a once modern bridge
and a suspension footbridge that had large
sections missing. The heat of the day was upon us
so what little breeze the river brought with it was
welcome. A young man wearing a light blue soccer
jersey and jeans supervised the northeast side of
the river, just down the road from the small town
of Urpay, in La Libertad. There was a steel cable
that ran across the river, and a small cage made of
wood and steel that made the trip back and forth
carrying people and goods. We inquired with
Pablo, the young man in the soccer jersey, and they
did occasionally take bikes across but none as big
as ours. We made arrangements with him to get the
bikes across at a cost of 6 USD per bike. The only
problem was that the cage was on the other side of
the river, and with no signs of life on the other side
our helper seemed out of ideas to get the cage for
our use. Thankfully for us about an hour later a
fisherman whose name was Yonan came by on his
way to the river. We watched as he slid down a
rope dangling from the broken foot bridge to a
sandbar in the middle of the river. Yonan walked
along the sandbar upstream until he was satisfied
with how far he had walked, then he jumped into
the strong current and swam to the other bank. The
river’s current brought him quite far downstream
and he was using all his swimming skills to reach
the other side. Once on the other side he collected
the cage and returned to us.
With the cage on our side of the river Alberto
helped Pablo and Yonan load one of the bikes on
the cage. Due to the leg-guards on the bike it was
too wide to fit in the cage front first. They loaded
the rear end of the bike onto the cage with the
front wheel hanging in the air, tied it down with
some weathered ropes and off the two men went
with my bike suspended high above the brown
waters. Once on the other side we watched
helpless as they muscled the bike up the steep
bank. It was a nerve-wracking 30 minutes as they
struggled to get my bike up safely. With the
experience from the first bike under their belt the
transportation of the second bike went much
smoother as this time Alberto joined them to help
get the bike off the cage at the other side. It was
almost comical seeing three men plus one bike in
the tiny cage fly across the Marañón River.
Thankfully we all, both bikes, Alberto and myself,
made it safely to the other side of the river. We
paid almost double the agreed amount for their
efforts and humbly thanked the two men for their
help. It took us well over four hours to complete
the crossing and would not have succeeded
without the help of Pablo and Yonan.