Adventure of the Week: man vs scorpion on the River Apurimac

Team ‘man vs scorpion’, with the unlucky Dave on the far left

Last weekend two Australians, one American and a Brit signed up to challenge the mighty River Apurimac: three days of big rapids, non-stop rafting, and camping on pristine river beaches away from all the luxuries of home.

However one of the members of our team got a little more than he was bargaining for.

After four hours driving on a dirt road we’d finally reached the remote river get-in point and rafted to our first campsite, a beautiful sandy beach by a calm stretch of the river. We lay out all our gear to dry on the rocks and sat round a campfire under the stars until getting an early night so we were prepared for the big rapids tomorrow. The next day we started early and had already run some of the most technical rapids before getting out the raft to walk round one of the short unrunnable sections.

And that’s when Dave realised.

After feeling intense pain on his leg,he pulled back his wetsuit to find a scorpion nestled inside and a big bite on his leg. Neil, our guide, came over to see what all the swearing was about and soon worked out what had happened.

”You have ten minutes to live” he said.

Julio, our other raft guide, came over.

”You have five minutes to live”

The Apurimac had finally beaten Dave. Or so he thought, until both guides started laughing. Peruvians have a brilliant sense of humour.

The ‘hilarious’ Julio and Niel

Despite Julio and Neil’s jokes, our whole team survived the Apruimac, even Dave.The next two days went smoothly and the bite briefly swelled into a perfect map of South America before disappearing completely.

Moral of the story: shake out your wetsuit before you put it on. I can safely say that none of us will ever forget that again.

Thanks to the two Dave’s, Robbie, Efrain, Neil and Julio for another fantastic adventure. I can’t wait to do it again…

Early morning view from the campsite.