Manu Biosphere

"Of all the peoples whom I have studied, from city dwellers to cliff dwellers, I always find that at least 50 percent would prefer to have at least one jungle between themselves and their mothers-in-law."
~Margaret Mead

Wednesday, October 22th to Wednesday, October 29th 2008

Along the eastern base of the Andes is a great red and winding river named Manu - the life blood and main highway for the Manu Biosphere Reserve. Cascading down from the dry, grassy plateaus at four thousand meters, and falling dramatically into a tangled cloud forest of dwarf trees, giant begonias, orchids and fern, Manu emerges into a spectacular land replete with howler monkeys, skimmers, egrets and macaws. To be honest though, I was not very enthusiastic about this trip. It was very expensive and sounded too touristic for my taste - something that suites old European bird watcher rather than a real jungle adventure. But the choice was between staying in Cuzco for eight days, continuing to Bolivia on my own or going to Manu, so I went to Manu - especially after hearing that this is one of the only places on earth where you can see the mighty Jaguar in its natural habitat.

Although I booked the tour in Cuzco, the park is actually quite far to the north, past the Andes and the rain forest so the journey started with a 10 hour bus ride to our first lodge. On our way we made two stops: one to see the century old "Tombs of Ninamarca", commonly know as Chullpas or burial chambers, of the Pre-Inca Lupaca people. Those are small round stone building about a meter in diameter and 1 and a half meter high overlooking the fertile valley below them from a high ridge. The next stop was for lunch at Acjanacu pass from which we had a superb view of the cloud forest engulfing the slopes below us and the jungle plains far below. After the pass we drove for about 3 more hours on a narrow dirt road on the edge of a few hundred meters drop, crossing waterfalls and descending deeper and deeper into the cloud forest and getting further and further away from civilization. Finally we arrived to our first station: the Cock of the Rock Lek. The Lek is the place where those weird red headed birds come to mate so we watched from a short distance away, standing on a wooden platform, about a dozen males showing off their feathers in this "birds pickup bar". Afterwards we continued on foot to our lodge enjoying the view of the dense cloud forest vegetation, the waterfalls on the way and the multitude of colorful butterflies. We were even lucky enough to spot a couple of monkeys on our way. We got to our lodge shortly before sunset, put our thing down in the comfortable rooms, took a flash light and went searching for some nightly action near the lodge. Our search brought up some frogs and water spiders.

On the next day we woke up for another short walk in the cloud forest enjoying the views and butterflies again until we boarded our bus again and headed down to the town of Pilcopata, stopping in a Coca plantation on our way to see how this controversial plant is grown. In Pilcopata we exchanged our bus for a rafting boat for a short (50 minutes) ride to Atalya port. The river, who is usually calm, was fast flowing with brown waters after recent rains, the level of guidance and equipment was very far from the professional expedition I had on the Apurimac river, but luckily the river didn´t have rapids higher than level 2 so we made it to the port safely although a little wet. After changing clothes and unloading the equipment it was time to meet our boat team and start our journey up the Alta Rio Madre de Dios river. Our boat was a 10 meter long canoe about a meter and a half wide with mattresses covered wooden benches and a plastic sheet stretched over a wooden frame as roof. In the back holding the controls of a speedboat engine sat our boat driver next to our food and water while in the front, covered in plastic sheets, lay our equipment and the driver assistant. It took us four hours of sailing down the river to reach our first jungle lodge called Erica. The Lodges we stayed in where a cluster of wooden huts with straw roofs and nets for windows. Some lodges offered bathrooms inside the rooms and in others those facilities where shared but in all of them we stayed two in a room with comfortable beds covered with mosquito nets. In the center of every lodge stood a central big room which housed the kitchen and dining room and each lodge had nice niches with sofas overlooking the jungle mere meters away or the river bank that the lodge stood on. The jungle proximity also meant that we had some visitors in the lodge rooms, bathrooms and paths in the form of giant insects, reptiles and birds - it was not a good idea to walk around barefoot...

As we settled into Erica lodge the sky got darker and darker and a than a tropical storm broke in such an intensity that it looks like someone is pouring buckets of water from the sky. From the safety of the river observation deck the storm looked quite impressive and although it continued while we ate our lunch, it was over shortly after and the sky cleared - it was time to taste the jungle for the first time. The next thing on the menu after lunch was a canopy zip line - sailing on steel cable between platforms installed high above ground just below the rain forest canopy. We met by the dining room and our guide handed us the equipment for the ride, a small bag with pulley, harness and gloves. It was recommend to wear rubber boots for this activity but I choose to wear my waterproof hiking shoes. As I entered the jungle for the first time and started walking on the narrow path, I quickly found out that I made a mistake, the tropical storm has passed, but the trail were flooded after the heavy rain and in more than one place the water was higher than my shoes... at first I let Oded carry me through the deep parts, but after we almost fell in one of the crossings, I changed tactic and simply took off my shoes and socks and crossed barefoot. The 40 minutes walk to the first platform took us almost an hour and a half due to the high water, at some point we had to cross a half meter deep stream. When we finally climb up the hill to the starting point it was starting to get dark and by the time we reached the 5th and last platform, night has descended on the jungle around us. The ride itself was fun offering 4 cables, the longest one more than 100m long and over 40m high, but due to the time visibility was limited. From the last platform we rappelled 20m down to solid ground and walked back with flashlights through the flooded rain forest with me walking barefoot most of the way.

On the next day we woke up very early before sunrise and sailed 15 minutes to an observation post on the river bank opposite a clay lick - a place where parrots and macaws come to feed on minerals from the clay walls. We watched the colorful birds for almost two hours using telescopes and binoculars and returned to the lodge for breakfast. After breakfast I had a chance to do the zip lines again, walking the now dry trails and not believing that I traversed them barefoot just few hours ago. From the first Platform I got a rare view of an eagle and two macaw who flow almost at eye level near the trees canopy. We returned to the lodge and boarded our canoe again and ventured deeper into the park going up the Manu river and into the reserved zone - an untouched wild jungle. We saw many birds on our way and impressive jungle landscapes, but no jaguars. We settled into another great lodge and again toured the jungle at dusk finding a giant ficus tree, a giant stick like insect and a giant spider among other insects. The next days were more of the same with boat rides and jungle walks, seeing more of the jungle from the canoe and paths and seeing more birds (including a king vulture) a caiman or two and monkeys. The fifth day was the best in that regards we saw a lot monkey including an angry territorial woolly monkeys who throw branches as us from the tree tops and a group of red howler monkeys who attacked another group of white fronted capuchins while making the unique howling sounds just over our heads! All in all I saw 6 different types monkeys most of them more than once. There was also a small lake near our camp on the 5th and 6th days that we paddles on primitive catamaran to see caimans at night and giant otters at day time. Somehow I managed to fall into the river in one of the mornings when I tried to enter the canoe while it was too far from the river bank

On the 6th day we started to head back, sailing up the Manu river, stopping at an observation tower and searching for a Jaguar and failing to find one. The rain which left us alone since the storm in our first lodge came back for a short but forceful visit while we were on the boat. The lodge at that night was one of the best with rocking chairs in the dining room and good shower inside the rooms. The 7th day we sailed back to Erica lodge against a strong river current which doubled the time we spent on the boat compared to trip down river. In Erica we went for a short walk to meet a local shaman but unfortunately he was drunk and not really impressive. On the 8th and last day we returned to Atalya port after an hour and a half boat ride, said goodbye to our boatmen and boarded the bus for a long and tiring 12 hours bus ride back to Cuzco. While going up the narrow path up the cloud forest, our bus lost two wheel studs and the hammering on the wheel hub induced landslides form the steep walls around us. We backed through the pass again and the Andes mountains and found ourselves in Cuzco at around 20:00 - tired, satisfied and without seeing a single Jaguar...