High stakes in the high Andes - the young backpackers risking their lives in cocaine valley
By Linda Pressly
A remote valley east of the Peruvian highlands is the perfect place for growing coca.
Peru now produces more cocaine than any other country, and this is where more than half of it originates. But there is no easy way to smuggle it out, so traffickers hire young men to carry it on foot.
They are the mochileros - the backpackers.
At any moment there are likely to be hundreds trudging over mountains and through the rainforest with pure cocaine worth thousands of dollars on their backs.
It's one of the most perilous jobs in the cocaine industry.
A teenager rips an over-sized tropical leaf from a branch. He strips the stalk, then using both hands, he wrings it out.
The moisture runs as though from a tiny tap - pure and sustaining.
On a journey that will take him through dense jungle terrain, knowing which plants can quench thirst is one small survival technique.
Daniel is a mochilero - one of thousands of young Peruvians who hike an illicit cargo of cocaine from the valley of three rivers - the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro - to secret stash points or clandestine airstrips from where it will be moved on by other means.
Known locally as the Vraem - a contraction of the Spanish Valle de los Rios Apurimac, Ene y Mantaro - the huge valley is one of the poorest regions in Peru.
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