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Fellow travellers - one big tip - if you want to go ANYWHERE in Peru, and get offered a cheaper option by a gormless whippet of a travel agent, be suspicious and DON´T DO IT!
The lessons just keep coming. So I wanted to visit the rainforest - in South America afterall, and Manu National Park seemed like the perfect option, as you could travel overland and had been told it is a ´paradise´, the most protected biosphere on the planet at 2 million hectares (very big).
We could only commit to 4 days and most tours were around the 350USD region - expensive for four days we thought. But to our elation (little did we know), a travel agent by the name of Daniel, who we later nicknamed Tim (Nice But Dim), said that we could do exactly the same things as on the 350USD tour, but instead of going by private tourist buses, as all of the tours do, we would be accompanied by him on public transport and when we arrived, we would join the tour group, with an English speaking guide, all lodges and food included. We were even offered mountain biking form the
Cloud Forest to Pilcopata, all for the price of 215 USD - could it get more exciting?! Add that to the immense bargain we had thought we had bagged, Lucinda and I were happy chappys to say the least.
So there we took the public bus - it all seemed fine until we reached a small town called Paucatamba when the bus to Pilcopata just never seemed to arrive. We had lunch, roamed the sleepy shops, went to the town church, pigged out on biscuits, watcehed dogs doing scandalous things to each other, truly living up to their infamous style…and still no bus. When is it coming Daniel? In half an hour he kept saying. Five hours later, still no bus, and we were really concerned when the locals told us that no buses run on Saturday direct to the rainforest. Nice one Tim.
Then he made us grab our bags apparently to catch this bus - there were no spaces, but we begged. I was happy until the bus driver said it wasn´t to leave for another two hours, when I flipped at Tim (who cannot string a sentence together in English) for being so disorganised and
not telling us the truth as to the travelling situation.
Then, as if a miracle from heaven, a tourist bus just happened to be driving past - I shoved the blond, very out of place Lucinda in front of the bus - and it stopped, out of sympathy and concern I think, seeing the red faced Tim stood next to us. Hurrah we were able to get on and the next five hours along the bumpy road to Manu was painful but we were just so relieved to be moving. Got to see the cloud forest at dusk which was pretty spectacular - but no mountain biking or observation of the parrot dance as the other tours offered.
The first day in Pilcopata, it seemed like Tim had things under control…just about - he had arranged rafting for us, with an English speaking guide - but no group, just us. Also we ended up leaving 3 hours later than planned.
The rafting was much more active than the one I had done weeks before, and got very unexpectantly wet. Ate some lovely local jungle food - even ate Lucy´s it was so good.
Then Tim organised
this ´local´guide, who was only 16, couldn’t speak English, and looked like he was about 11, for the following day. It was appearing evident that Tim was acting very last minute and didn´t know anything about the jungle. We did locally stuff, like fishing, playing volleyball with the locals, and random little trails that only pumas (Alex our driver said) had only stepped through. But as for doing stuff on the standard tours, like getting a boat further into the Madres de Dios, entering the actual reserve, and observing the renowned macays visiting the clay lick, canopy jumping in the thick virgin rainforest and staying in actual eco lodges - we actually stayed in guest houses, and on the final night, camped out in the driver´s garden! The only animals we saw were rabbits eyes (during our night time trail around Atalya), a dead snake, and lots of birds - names of which the 11 year old didn´t have a clue!
Everytime I asked if we could get a boat further in and join a group, Tim would say, a gutted look on his face ´son occupado´ - full. And without a boat, you can´t really get to see
the virgin rainforests - he obviously wanted to minimise costs. According to him, our rafting counted as the boating.
By the third day, when we didn´t really do anything, I began to realise, that although we had loads of laughs mostly at Tim´s expense (although a compulsive liar, he was harmless, and very dim!), we really hadn´t got what he had assured us and was just blagging it along, doing it the cheapest way possible, by staying in the outlying jungle towns of Pilcopata and Atalya.
We ended up hitch hiking a ride (nothing surprised us anymore), with, of all people local government employees. It was in a truck/car thing - and Tim, poor thing, but served him right, had to sit in the boot. We told the people in the car of our experience and they were horrified - little did we expect them to stop the car in the middle of the mountains, minus 5 degrees C, and start laying into him. I then had another argument with Tim, in Spanish about how he had not rendered the services promised. The people then took him to the police, but lucky for him, there was noone around
- it was 1am. After many exchanges betweem the lovely helpful Peruvian man in the front and Tim, myself adding a few words, he agreed to give us some money back. I then told him as he was leaving that it wasn´t right what he did, to which he replied, ´well you are a lawyer, that is your career!¨´ I had to restrain myself.
But all in all we had a good laugh, and a story to tell…and 10 million mosquito bites.
Sacred Valley Tour
Did a tour today - absolutely facisinating history of the Incas - and the scenery - the spectacular I have seen in all of my life. Really. Enjoy the pics.
Rx
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Sanj
non-member comment
Tim
No pic of Tim then, you could have aleast shown us what the poor fella looked like before and after you tore him to shreads!!, the pics of the valley`s look breath taking wow, you still saw alot, had fun and ate Lucinda`s Piccoro, all in all good trip i`d say, keep Njoiin! keep blogging keep taking care missing U here!!...Sanj