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Published: August 15th 2011
After our trip to Machu Pichu we were forced to stick around Cusco for a week or so as we were waiting for replacement credit cards to arrive from Australia. Turns out some devilishly handsome yet occasionally forgetful young chap had accidentally left the credit card in an ATM in Bolivia. Fortunately, no harm done apart from the wait and Western Unions ridiculous fee structure.
We decided to use the opportunity to pay a visit to one of the world's more amazing regions, the Amazon.
Manu National Park in Peru is part of the Amazon basin that has a ton of tributaries that flow down into the Amazon River and eventually out into the Atlantic. It has massive amounts of Flora and Fauna and our kindly guide promised that he could show us some great animal life.
Departing on the first day in our minibus we discovered he had failed to mention that they had put us in a group of fifteen or so people. As the sun rose over Cusco we began our trip to the sounds of ten Israeli's bitching in Hebrew.
South America is jam packed with Israeli backpackers. After military service they just want to get out and live a little. Personally I think that sending highly trained, early twenties killing machines out to get drunk in a foreign land can only lead to trouble, but I totally understand where they are coming from. The Israelis have a pretty bad rap amongst backpackers from other nations over here. I had previously had words with a few people that were badmouthing them as I found it to be a little on the nose. The usual claims are that Israeli backpackers are clannish, exclusive and complain constantly about everything. Seemed a little stereotypical to me.
Turns out that three of the Israelis on our tour were lovely, four were tolerable and the remaining three were the biggest oxygen thiefs I have ever come across. Sooooo awful that I can't even begin to describe their obnoxiousness.
Needless to say, this didn't bode well for our trip.
We stopped off a few hours into our drive at four thousand metres and had a chat with our guide as he told us a bit about the incas and then we were on our way again, cruising the Peruvian highlands.
The trip out was a ten hour drive along some seriously precarious cliffs with rough dirt roads long them. We descended from highland plains down through what is termed "cloud forest". Just like the inca trail hike it is a habitat occurring at altitudes of around 2000m. It's what us Aussies would call rainforest if we had never seen real rainforest. We were fortunate here to stop off and check out a Peruvian bird called the Cock of the Rocks. These flashy pimps of the avian world are bright red and do an elaborate dance to try and score themselves some tail. A hide had been constructed near a river that they congregated at and we spent a great half hour watching them and the hummingbirds muck around in the trees. The three awful Israelis hung around at the van and smoked cigarettes and complained.
Eventually we reached our accommodation for the night. It was an awesome lodge built in the middle of the forest and surrounded by a coca plantation. The rooms were all constructed of rough wood with mosquito netting. We hung out for a while then hit the sack.
The next morning we took a walk through the jungle until we reached a sanctuary a few km up a road. The people here have a few animals they have semi domesticated (although they claim to have "rescued" them) and have a variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers growing in the garden. We had the opportunity to see some huge parrots and get some cracking pirate-esque photos as well as watching a two-toed sloth carry her baby up a tree.
Leaving the sanctuary we headed down to a little town on the river and jumped a boat and headed down stream. The trip was about two hours long and fairly uneventful apart from tons of bird watching. We did see a monkey by the river, but it was seriously dead.
We eventually pulled up at a stretch of bank that looked just like everywhere else, but had a path meandering off into the jungle. We began to unload our gear and this is where my dislike for one of the members of our group began. As one of the guys passed bags off he boat she grabbed mine from him and said loudly "Who's is this?". I was right behind her and told her it was mine. She turned around and looked me in the eye for a fees seconds and then threw my bag onto the river bank in the opposite direction and turned back to her friends. I was a little shocked to be honest so didn't say anything but it was just the beginning.
We grabbed our bags and looked around to discover that everyone except for Verity, the guide and cooks and myself had wandered off. As we were camping a couple of KM inland from the river we had to carry all our gear in with us. We surveyed the huge pile of food, tents and sleeping mats and realised the rest of the group had bailed without carrying anything and left it up to us. We loaded ourselves up like pack mules (I had about fifteen kilos of food on my shoulders, plus a tent, plus a sleeping mat, plus my pack and camera) and started to hike. Naturally, it began to rain. Sigh.
We got to our camp which turned out to be a big wooden platform with a roof perched on the edge of a steep hill overlooking a lagoon. It was a great location and the big roof and floor meant we could camp in our tents in relative comfort out of the rain. Vez, myself, our guide and a Danish girl decided to hike up to a town about 45 minutes walk away to get some beers and water. Www spent s very enjoyable hour or two hiking and then knocking some beers over at a local joint in town. Unfortunately we had to bail though as the cooks were waiting for us to bring water back so they could cook us all dinner.
On returning we discovered that the Israelis had taken the sleeping mats and tent we had carried up and set them up and put their gear in them in the prime position. We were left to chuck up a little tent on the edge of the platform over the hill. We were a little concerned as the edge of the platform was completely rotten and had no support struts but it held. It was still pouring so our tent was soaked very soon but we kept entertained by huddling inside and smashing the bottle of super sweet red wine we had gotten in town.
We were planning to go spotlighting for Caymen and Copybara But the rain was so torrential that we went to sleep instead. The next morning we found out that a local park ranger had seen a bunch of both during the night and came running up through the rain to tell us to come and look but finding us asleep just went back down. This ranger was insane, he spent his whole time with an absolutely massive wad of coca leaves in his cheeks chain smoking cigarettes and smashing bottles of Coca-Cola. Needless to say he wasn't sleeping much and was definitely not playing with a full deck of cards.
We spent a few hours the next day hiking through the jungle in the hope of finding some wildlife. It is a bit difficult to spot animals when you are in a group of fifteen people, twelve of whom are carrying on like morons. Vez, myself and a lovely Israeli girl were taking our time and wandered off and got "lost" (although the path we took was a circuit...). This worked out well as it meant we saw some squirrel monkeys and a hummingbird. We also took some rafts constructed out of logs across the lagoon with yours truly as punt man. That was fun.
After lunch we headed to another area of the park where a natural hot spring was located and set up camp. Here my tensions with the obnoxious girl escalated as we were carrying stuff back to the boat and the guide told her she had to take something so she took a bag with a bunch of lightweight mats in it. After a few hundred metres she decided she couldn't be bothered carrying it so started to drag it through the mud. When I told her to pick it up she dumped it and said if you don't Ike it you carry it. Being loaded down with tons of stuff there wasn't much I could do, so by the time she reached the boat our sleeping mats were caked in mud. Sigh.
This hot spring wasn't like the ones we had previously seen in Bolivia and Aguas Callientes, this is what you think of when you hear natural hot spring. A creek running down into a stone pond surrounded by jungle. Cold water came in through the creek at the top of the pond and from the side, running down the rocks, came scalding hot water that stank if sulphur. A couple of rough bamboo tubes had been set up to carry the hot and cold water to different parts of the pond in differing amounts so that there were different temperatures to sit in. Very cool. We got out after half an hour because we noticed our skin was crawling with what looked like Mosquito larvae.
That night we did a jungle hike. We saw a snake coiled up in a tree witting for prey but apart from that the hike was awful, too much whinging going on.
The next morning we did a hike up the path we had taken the previous night to check out a waterfall deep in the jungle. Only a few people could be bothered making the trek so this was actually really cool. Saw some great insect life and the waterfall was very beautiful. I again had an altercation with the awful girl and her boyfriend when i rounded a corner to find them chopping down a reasonably sized tree with a machete for fun and i told them not to act like children. The guy seemed a bit embarrassed and stopped but the girl pretty much told me to get fucked and chopped the whole thing down.
As we hadn't seen any cayman or Copybara yet our guide decided we would go back and stay in a roughly constructed lodge near the lagoon we had previously stayed in. This meant we could go back during the evening and hopefully see these elusive animals. We spent a good two hours that night cutting our way through jungle with Machetes but again, fifteen noisy people meant it was a non event. The highlight was definitely the thousands of fireflies we sat amongst near the lagoon. It was very surreal.
We headed home the next day and i can safely say that the trip was a waste of time and money. We didn't really enjoy it apart from getting along with our guide very well. The national park was amazing and we would love to go back again one day in a little group of hand picked legends.
Feel free to point out in the comments the hypocrisy of me bitching about the three awful Israelis bitching, I am prepared for it. I forgot to mention that there were two English girls in the group who both spoke fluent Hebrew and so were translating for us. The mouth on the obnoxious girl would have made a sailor blush.
Important note: Most of the people in the group were lovely, just really noisy. It was only three members that Vez and I both agreed were the biggest waste of Life ever.
I am reading: Wheel of Time - Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan
I am listening to: Pink Floyd - The Wall disc 2
Km travelled so far: 20,174
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Daryl Kerrigan
non-member comment
Intolerant or what?
Your blog seems to be more about the vermin than the wildlife. Your parents must be proud of your bigoted attitude. They wouldn't be intolerant, would they? (note sarcasm) PS Milo says Hi (or something like that)