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First things first – there is no such thing as the source of the Amazon. There are hundreds of thousands of sources. What Luke and I were looking for was the furthest source from mouth of the Amazon. We knew from research that the furthest tributary is the “Queberada
Carhuasanta” which springs from the 5600m mountain, Nevado Mismi.

We found the valley without problem and set up base camp at 4990m in the Carhuasanta valley. As you look up at Mismi from the valley there is a long band of cliffs that effectively make a division between us and the mountain. We could see that the furthest headwater sprang from the east and so we set off to find the cross that we’d seen on Wikipedia.

Within minutes we could see the cross and scrambled up the rocks to get to it. On our way we found a plaque announcing we were at the source. We ignored it and pushed on as “Wiki” can’t be wrong.

When we arrived at the source it was as we imagined: a steady spring of water coming out of the cliff above us and a nice white wooden cross. We took lots of photos but as we were about to leave we saw, twenty meters below, an iron cross. On inspecting, this cross had been erected by another expedition, this time in 1971.

Anyway, we had “the source” in the bag and we headed back to base camp. Luke holds the stills camera and back at base he told me there was some bad news. None of the photos had taken, we had to go back tomorrow. No problem – we thought – we’ll come down via the source after summiting Mismi and take the photos again.

Luke has written about the summit, but on our way down the following day, exhilarated but tired, we headed right and entered the Carhuasanta valley from the east.
Lo and behold, a hundred meters before we got to our white-cross source, we found a further plaque announcing we were at the source. It did have water flowing from below it and it was indeed further in distance from the mouth than the white cross.

By now though Luke and I had started smiling cynically. Four completely separate teams have given four different locations as the source. The mountain is glaciated and covered in snow, there are water bodies and sub-glacial streams galore above all four “sources”.

So we decided to stop playing the silly “which source is the true source?” game and decided that we were happy that we had summitted the mountain on which the furthest tributary of the Amazon springs, and we were on our way to walking the length of the Amazon.

Ed