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The past few days here have been incredibly busy. They have been a lot of fun, but non-stop. We spent 4 days in the Manu National Park and then a day climbing Machu Picchu. Manu National Park is just a little ways northeast of Cuzco and is a small part of Peru's slice of the Amazon River basin.
We were up and on the van on the way to Manu by 6AM on the first day of our jungle adventure. There were 4 other tourists travelling with us. There was a young American college couple, who were very easy-going and adventurous, and a pair of Aussie women. A mother and daughter who had no idea what they were in for. They didn't even know that we were going to be camping.
The first day consisted mainly of travelling. Cuzco is in a valley in the Andes and Manu is in the basin on the east side of the Andes so we had to drive over the rest of the mountain range and into the basin. The road that we drove on was both the most beautiful road I've ever been on, as well as the most dangerous road I've
ever been on. It went through the Andean highlands, through quiet farming villages, then through a dense cloud forset and then into the deep jungle. At one point, when we were going through the cloud forest, we drove through a thick fog and the visibility was reduced to less than 40 feet. The road was about 10 feet wide, wet, muddy, and had a sheer cliff on one side that was at least a 1000 foot drop. It was sketchy but the driver was good.
We stayed at a homestay along the river the first night and then were off via small motorboat the next morning. The river that we were on was not actually the Amazon River, but one of the smaller river that feeds it. The first thing that we did was motor a few miles up river to a small rock that we were told that it was safe to jump off of. The rock was only about 12 feet high, but it was a big river and running quickly. We were told to just swim hard and meet under a waterfall on the opposite side of the river to get picked up. We jumped, swam
hard and made it. However, for some reason the boat couldn't meet us so we had to swim back to the other side to get picked up. The whole time we're thinking "Aren't there pirannahs in the Amazon Rivers?" but this just helped us swim faster. On the other side, we found a rock that was about 25 feet high and also got to jump off this one into the river. It was a fun start to our river adventure.
We then motored down the river a ways until our main guide, Julio, spotted a bolsa wood raft along the bank that the locals use to get down river. He decided it would be a good idea to steal the raft so we could float down river. Julio was a nice young guy who seemed to be an expert on local plants and birds, yet somewhat of a pansy (he was too scared to jump off the second rock). Either way, we floated down river for a wile on the raft before we got to our campsite and se up camp. Afterwards, we went for an evening hike where we got were told that there was a large waterfall
a little ways from the river. When we couldn't find it after walking along the trails for a few hours, Julio decided we should just leave the trail and forge our own in the direction he thought it would be in. He marked our path with nicks in trees with his machete. However, we still couldn't find the waterfall and it quickly got dark. Pitch black. Then of course, we couldn't see any of those nick marks he made and we were completely lost. We wondered around for a while in the dark (The Aussies were semi-panicked) untill we found the trail again and successfully made our way back to camp.
We were camped next to a natural hot springs so we went there in the morning to bathe. It was straight out of a fairy tale since the hotsprings and the entire surrounding area was covered in a blanket of floating yellow flowers. That day we went on a bunch of medium length hikes where we saw dozens of parrots, some macaws, monkeys and other animals. We rarely used a trail and usually just made our own path through the jungle with the machete. At one point, the
guide spotted a caiman in a small swamp so we chopped down a small tree with the machete to use as a bridge to cross the swamp. We found an enormous tree that was around 150 feet high and swung from it´s vines as if we were Tarzan, We found a termites nest, opened it up, gathered the live termites on a stick and then licked them off. As if that wasn't eough, we then licked them up straight out of the nest. We hiked up to a small lake at sunset and then floated out on it after sunset on small rafts looking for animals in the dark. We spotted some capybara and caiman (essentially small alligators). When one of the guides spotted the caiman he jumped off the raft, in the dark, and tried to catch it. He didn´t catch it, but it was bold of him either way.
We got back to the boat well after dark and and the guides had previously told us that we can't drive the boat at night because there are no headlights and it's way too dangerous. However, we weren't at our campsite so they just decided to go for
it anyways. We boated back in the pitch black with no lights except our flashlights. We went through a small rapids section at one point but eventually made it to our campsite safely.
The next day was mainly just another day of travelling. We went all the way back to Cuzco driving all day. Hesam and I then decided to book it to Aguas Calientes which is at the base of Machu Picchu. We wanted to spend the night here so we could get up early and see the sun rise over the ruins. However, we didn't get into Aguas Calientes until 1:30 in the morning and then counldn't wake up by our planned 4AM start. Either way, we were up by 5:45, made the hike in the early morning and didn't see another person on the entire trail. The hike was essentially like climbing the stairmaster for an hour with a backpack at altitude without eating breakfast with almost no water. Yeah, Hesam and I are always well prepared. Either way, we got there and it was beautiful. Thick forest, steep mountain sides, with snow capped Andean peaks in the distance. We hiked up a secondary peak, Wynapicchu,
to see the ruins from above. Once we got up there we just hung out for a while taking it all in. Then we hiked back down to get some food, I fell in love with a young Peruvian-Swedish girl, we had lunch, drank some beers at 11AM, watched the end of the world cup game, chatted with a gay American couple and then called it a good day. We hiked back into town, caught a 20 hour bus back to Lima, where we are now. Now we are waiting for a bus to Trujillo to start making our way north to Ecuador.
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Chrissie
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True life adventure
No need to read any adventure novels this summer..just tap into your blog periodically to get the next chapter!