Blogs from Manu National Park, Cusco, Peru, South America - page 2

Throughout the last 8 and a bit months we have done, day by day, exactly what we wanted to do. If we fancied visiting a temple we could, if we fancied a beer at 12pm we could and if we wanted to do nothing more than spend all day in bed we could (although we didn't). It has been incredible to do that but for us we decided we needed to do something productive and a little more structures for a while and so when the opportunity to work in the Manu Reserve came up we jumped at the chance. We saw the opportunity in in the most bizarre of locations, a local pub in Toogoolawa, Australia whilst visiting Laura's uncle. 5 months later and on a whole different continent we were boarding a tourist bus ... read more

Jungle jungle here we come! At 5am our tour guide, Marco, picked us up at Hostel Andrea to begin our trip to Parque National del Manu. Along with our 4 traveling companions we slept through the first 2 hours until arriving in the small town of Paucartambo. Marco, who we soon found holds an incredible amount of knowledge about everything in the area, gave us quick walking tour and explained the huge yearly Virgen del Carmen festival that now attracts thousands of tourists to the tiny town. People from all parts of the jungle and adjoining towns come for the ultimate dance-off and at the end the dancers get into a WWF style fighting competition until a victor prevails, usually a dude from Cusco. Perhaps Dancing with the Stars could add a new twist next season? ... read more

AMAZON DAY 4 - Returning to Cusco Sunday, August 22nd We woke up very early to have breakfast and be ready for our return to Atalaya by boat, then to Cusco by minivan. Unfortunatley, the boat guys got their wires crossed and we didn't actually leave until after 8:30am. When we arrived in Atalaya, our trusty minivan driver was waiting for us and assured us we'd be back in Cusco by 5pm. He was right, but the ride was worse than it was on the way here, I think because he was trying to hurry, on those horrendous, scarey roads! We made a couple of "stretch your legs" stops, plus one for lunch where our "new" guide (Jamie stayed with a couple that arrived the day after us) fed us a delicious lunch of chicken, rice, ... read more

AMAZON - DAY 3 Saturday, August 21st Today was to be an even longer day, so its a good thing we both slept well... in our mosquitoe netting. I should say here that so far we have not been bitten by any insects, inside or out, with or without insect repellent. Thats not to say there are never any mosquitoes, just that we apparently didn't encounter any. We woke up quite early again for a cruise down river to watch the clay licks that the macaws especially like to use every morning. They have a sort of blind set up across the river from the clay licks so we don't disturb them. The rules of the blind is that you have to arrive by 5:30am and depart no earlier than 7:30am. We sat there for a ... read more

Amazon - Day 2 Friday, August 20th After a good night's sleep, we reloaded the minivan and after a nice walk down the road to observe wildlife, we got back on the road in Manu heading to Atalaya, the little town where we'd get our boat to our lodge for the next two nights. Along the way, we stopped at a coca farm for a brief talk and met the owner's two Macaws and her picary. They were sooo cool. One of the macaws walked up my arm and played with my hat, and the picary nuzzled me for a bit to get some scratching on its tough hide. Pilcopata was gigantic compared to Atalaya, and the road was better than in the mountains, but not by much. We reached Atalaya well before lunch, and while ... read more