Walking in a jungle wonderland MANU

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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?

Past Paucartambo we continued 4 more hours until we reached the enterance to Manu National Park and the beginning of the cloud forest. These are types of forest consistently in a foggy/cloudy state therefore lots of moisture, mosses, ferns, waterfalls, flowers, and it just so happens, monkeys! Both wooly monkeys and squirrel monkeys live in cloud forests and are somewhat easy to spot becuase they jump from leafy tree to tree creating lots of movement to catch your eye. The monkeys we saw were launching themselves from tree to tree and at times hanging by their tails while snacking on leaves. Incredible to watch! Onwards to our jungle lodge for the night which happened to be owned by Marco´s family so small, quaint and free of other tourists. It turned out that every place we stayed during the tour was owned by his family (family business) so we avoided the masses and loved our lodging.

Early the next morning we continued along the dirt and gravel road towards Atalaya. To say it was an interesting van ride is an understatement. At times it felt as though we were on a water park ride (think splash mountain or log flume) as the van drove through small waterfalls - shut the windows!- and across small creeks. We were wobbling, sliding, shaking, accelerating, and stopping seemingly all at once. Just your standard Toyota van. In Atalaya we transferred everything to our low-riding, sleek river boat and started our cruise down the Madre de Dios. It is rainy season now so the water level was high and the current was moving quickly. With the sun shining brightly, the clouds perfectly white and the jungle at our sides we spent 4 hours soaking everything up. Marco had the boat driver stop when he spotted cool wildlife- howler monkeys and numerous birds, primarily. A short stop in a tranquil clear natural hot springs and afterwards we arrived at our stop. I´ll include a picture beacuse it was funny to "arrive". There was a three foot gap in the bank where the vegetation had been cut to form a trail but otherwise it looked exactly like the last 4 hours of riverside jungle. It seemed miraculous that the driver knew where to stop. We carried everything for 10 minutes into the jungle and then.. a paradise lodge appeared with lush pink flowers, beautiful wooden huts, colorful hammocks, papaya and banana trees, and jungle all around. Is this real? Since the weather was muy bueno we would actually trek further into the jungle to spend the night. Marco and his family had built a 20 foot high platform even further into the jungle (3hr hike) next to a mud lick. During the night, tapir and deer come to the mud lick to eat minerals (salt, etc). The platform was placed so that we could watch the animals without them seeing/smelling us. We each took one hour shifts during the night to stay awake a listen and watch for approaching animals then wake the rest of the group. This lasted until about 1am when the torrential downpour began, but we got to see both deer and tapir! The jungle sounds at night were so exotic and intense!

The next day went as follows: hike back to paradise lodge @ 6 for another outstandng breakfast, hike around the lodge to learn jungle plants & see animals, paradise lodge for another outstanding lunch, try not to move for a couple hours to stop the profuse sweating, outstanding snack, hike in the dark 6p-8:30p to see different animals (fer-de-lance snake, matt so happy), paradise lodge for an outstanding dinner that i could only take 4 bites of becuase of exploding stomach, bed. also another snack earlier in the morning. The moral being that we ate so much and so often that everyone literally asked/begged for less food everyday because we absolutely could not eat it all. I never thought the day would come.

We returned to Cusco via the same route - boat up the river then rockin&rollin van. I attempted to keep track of all the animals we saw but its a tough task in such an inhabitated place. Some of the highlights: capybara (largest rodent in the world), brazilian tapir, red brocket (jungle deer), softball-sized snails, mice, scorpion spider, wolf spider, 6inch tarantulas, vine snake, fer-de-lance snake (one of most deadly snakes in world), parrots, mccaws, parakeets, toucan, cock-of-the-rock (national peruvian bird), wild pig, black capped squirrel monkeys, red howler monkeys, brown capuchin monkeys, wooly monkeys, a monkey that Marco called dusk monkey, frogs, toads, jungle mouse,

We had been mixed on whether or not our time in Peru would include a jungle visit but it was one of our best decisions on this trip thus far. Marco and his incredible knowledge of animal habitat, medicinal plants, trees, tribal culture, history, fruits, etc, etc absolutely made the trip. He grew up in the jungle and had spent his life living on the enormous piece of land owned by his family. His buisness is in the early stages so I will put a plug in for it: anyone looking for the ultimate adventure jungle tour that takes you further into the jungle than any other company, talk to Amazon Tours Peru on Calle Plateros N 341, Cusco.

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