What We Did During Our Summer Vacation
June 20 - July 5, 2002
Part Two (of three)
Rain Forest Visit with Manu Nature Tours
Our trip with Manu Nature Tours was private. Their staff outnumbered the two of us with a guide, chef, waitperson, and up to two boatpersons. They see to the excellent care of all details and hire only the most personable, professional and knowledgeable people for all aspects of the trip. All meals, transportation and porter service were included. We only carried our daypacks. It was obvious that their guides really love what they do: sharing their knowledge of animals and conservation of their country. We are still talking between ourselves about how great this jungle trip was due to them and we highly recommend this tour company.Itinerary
- Two nights at plush and comfortable Cloud Forest Lodge with full private bathrooms, hot water and the rush of a stream outside our window
- Two nights at comfortable Manu Lodge with screens for windows and bathroom facilities in a separate building (sorry Ladies, no hot water); this was formerly the site of a timber camp and is situated on the edge of Cocha Juarez, an oxbow lake.
- Two nights at Manu Tented Campsite with very large tents, mattresses and sheets with blanket (Sorry, ladies, no hot water and no toilet seats) and situtated a short hike from Cocha Salvador.
Food
We wish we could eat like this everyday! Most meals began with soup and finished with fruit. All meals included sweet oropeso bread which is yummy but filling (one piece was plenty). Leyla, Mateo and Manuel prepared excellent Peruvian dishes - now we're fans. The food was hearty and I learned to say "Estoy llena" after my first meal ("I'm full"). If we were served box lunches, they were also well prepared. There was rarely any need for all the Cliff Bars we brought except for the pre-breakfast excursions we took. The staple foods in Peru are corn and potates, both of which grow in many shapes, sizes and colors. Here are a few potatoes.
Guides
- Herbert "White-Faced Capuchin" patiently answered every single question we had and even gave us Spanish lessons ("Me gustan aqui!" and "Como se dice blah-blah-blah?")
- Alvaro (single Ladies, you would have loved this good-looking young man); Tien taught him to say, "Yo, ese!" Pretty funny.
- Leo "Howler" went to medical school but did not find the relationships fulfilling. His research includes the effects of tourism on nature and we expect that he will make many positive changes in his country. Leo is married with a beautiful 4-year-old daughter named after his wife Peggy (also a naturalist guide), and they have another child on the way. We spent the most time with Leo who is extremely good at his job due to his great knowledge. We were shocked to learn he is only 27 years old. Leo has a take-charge demeanor and is now our standard for all future tour guides - those are VERY BIG shoes to fill!
We intend to remain friends with them - they are each fun, funny and great to be with.
Boatsmen
- Julio hardly spoke, is handsome and young with a hat pulled low over his eyes, walked barefoot in the jungle and skillfully maneuvered our craft through the shallow waters of the Madre de Dios.
- Wilburt, the assistant boatsman, also handsome and young… he was chatty among his friends.
Waitpersons
- Jeni at Cloud Forest Lodge is cute and giggly
- Jannet at Manu Lodge is young, friendly, chatty and fun. She taught me "refrigerio" which means snack. Our last memory of her is her tee shirt: "Sex and Sun."
- Giraldo who also served as an assistant boatsman has classic Indian features, is 30 years old, quiet, reserved and shy, and he can repair anything.
Tio Esteban
- Uncle Esteban arrived at Manu Lodge intending to stay for 15 days and has been there for 15 years. He believes himself to be about 70 years of age. Tio has good energy, is physically slight but is as strong as an ox, sharp in mind and with an excellent memory. One of his many duties includes clearing jungle paths. Tio is unafraid of most things, including jaguars, peccaries and snakes, except he fears natives and has sometimes encountered human tracks during his trail clearing. Manu Lodge is his home and Tio is the heart of Manu Lodge.
- "Benito" is a toucan.
- "Bicky" was a baby tapir when Tio adopted and raised her. A jaguar had killed Bicky's mother and Bicky ran right into the arms of Tio. When Bicky was six years old, she went for a drink in the lake and was eaten by Clotilde. Tio cried for weeks after Bicky died.
- "Clotilde" is a black caiman, about 14 feet long with a missing foot
- "Maria" is a pale-winged trumpeter bird.
- "Marsalino" is a black caiman, about eight feet long
- "Verjeña" the peccary was relocated after attacking several tourists.
- Bamboo lives in the jungle. These varieties look different from Asian bamboo and are equally beautiful.
- Bromeliads grow everywhere, as do orchids. Orchids were not blooming during our visit.
- Fungus and epiphytes: so many types, textures and colors! We rarely saw the same kind twice.
- Ginger and heliconia grow profusely.. We think they look so unusual in our tropical floral arrangements and they are everywhere in the jungle.
- Mimosa plants! Have you ever touched one? It's short and delicate; when you touch it, the leaves immediately expire.
- "Strangler trees" grow beside a host tree, eventually surrounding and killing it. We stood inside a strangler tree that had already devoured its host.
- Trees in the rain forest are long limbed with foliage at the top. Favorites include cecropia and, the giants of the jungle, Ceiba. Capirona trees shed their bark three times annually in a successful effort to keep climbing plants from adhering. The surface is red, smooth and beautiful. Many rain forest trees do not root deeply and their trunks spread wide for balance.
- Unusual begonias amazed Lauren. The leaves look familiar, but the flowers are different.
- Butterflies, more beautiful and colorful than any we have seen before, among others, Blue Morpho and transparent Ithomiidae
- Caimans (both black and white varieties). These became quite common to see and the largest one was about 15 feet long.
- Capybaras (three sightings)
- Crabs (in the jungle?! Yes, the forest variety!)
- Frogs
- Giant otters (three sightings of each two, eight and three animals)
- Glass fish
- Lizards
- Monkeys (Wooley, Howler, Squirrel, Brown Capuchin, White Capuchin, Spider, Dusky Titi)
- King Vulture (very rare, first sighting of the year for our guide Leo!)
- Mosquitoes, termites, flies, bees, wasps, ICK!
- Nests of birds, termites and wasps
- Possum, which scampered onto the dinner table in our dining tent in an unsuccessful attempt to help itself to a serving of oropeso bread
- Parrot flock of about one thousand (noisy!)
- Peccary herd of about 60 wild pigs (scary sounding, smelly and dangerous)
- Side-necked turtles, called this because they are unable retract their heads. Usually, several are stacked head-to-tail on a log taking in the sun.
- Stick insects
- Tayra (one sighting)
- Urania moth
- Wild turkeys who freeze in their tracks when they sense your presence; if you stop for a few minutes, they begin walking again (Hey, where did THOSE come from?!!!!)
- Worm we named "Alvaro's Halloween Fluke"
- Tracks of a jaguar (two days old), tapir tracks and peccary tracks
- Peccary attack required a female tourist to receive stitches on her back thigh.
- Male tourist strayed from the group when Nature called ("numero dos en la selva"). While crouching, a fer-de-lance snake bit him on the butt. He felt a sting but did not give it much attention. As the day wore on, the poison caused more and more pain. Eventually, he was taken to the hospital and his leg was amputated.
- Yellow-rumped cacique birds are skilled imitators. During the construction of Manu Lodge, workers heard the sounds of hammering, a creaking door and a circular band saw even though no equipment was in use - the clever mimicry of this bird!
- While doing research alone, Leo found himself stuck in the middle of a herd of peccaries. He managed to climb an arched vine and hold onto another vine while being surrounded by an inner ring of vicious males and an outer ring of females. It was two and a half hours before he was freed. How frightening!
- Mateo, the chef at the Manu Tented Campsite, slept alone in a tent. During the middle of the night, a tapir that was unable to see the tent bumped into Mateo sleeping inside! Here's someone else's photo of a tapir.
- Natives attacked a Manu Nature Tours boat as it traveled along the river. The arrow stuck in the wooden side of the boat after being shot from the trees above. The arrow is now in the office of Boris Gomez-Luna, owner of Manu Nature Tours.
During a party where cuy is served, the heads are also devoured. Inside the cuy there is a tiny ear bone shaped like a dog. This bone is dropped into a shot glass and filled with a strong sugar cane alcoholic beverage. The shot must be downed in one swig along with the bone. If not, the glass is filled again until the tiny bone is swallowed!
Dumb Tourist Award
"What's this?" Lauren asked our guide Leo as she turned over a large leaf. The item that caught her eye swarmed. "Be VERY CAREFUL and leave it alone. It's a wasps' nest." Here's a picture of another wasp nest in the viewing platform.
Cool Thing To Do in the Jungle
Take a walk alone. Stop in the path and don't move except to observe with eyes, ears and nose. Listen to leaves fall, birds sing and fly overhead, lizards move, wild turkeys come to life, insects buzz… The jungle is alive!
We wore chest and leg harnesses and, with mountain gear, we were pulled 100 feet up onto a platform built by Giraldo in the safety of a giant Ceiba tree. The sun rose, the mist cleared, and we could see the tops of the trees. We had breakfast up here on white china and a red tablecloth.
With Leo's knowledge, we identified the following birds on this activity:
| We saw a great many other birds throughout the entire jungle trip. Here are more which Leo and Alvaro identified for us:
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This endangered animal is similar to those we are familiar with, except this species averages six feet in length. They live in family groups of about four or five individuals, live in burrows on the edge of oxbow lakes ("cochas") and sometimes rivers, and are fast swimmers. They are good bio-indicators and, if they've left the area, the quality of their surroundings has declined. Due to fur trade, they have been hunted and few animals remain. We were lucky to visit three oxbow lakes and view three separate otter groups.
- Juarez Cocha: In our catamaran, we followed two otters who disappeared into the grasses at the end of the Cocha. Thinking we missed them, we disembarked the catamaran to climb into another boat for traveling up river. As we departed, the otters came out to "say goodbye" from the bank.
- Salvador Cocha: We had the rare opportunity to view for over an hour eight animals near their burrow while they went about their daily duties of fishing, eating, snuggling, grooming each other, peeing, playing, barking a warning when we got too close and hearing their cubs "mew" from the nest. This kind of viewing NEVER happens - it was "Discovery Channel" without commercial interruptions!
- Otorongo Cocha: We watched from a steel viewing platform as a trio fished. One otter caught a 15" white piranha and carried in its mouth to the end of the lake to enjoy.
- The high-pitched hum of mosquitoes at Salvador Cocha surrounded us for miles. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!
- Howler monkeys at Manu Lodge woke us at 5a each day to howl for thirty minutes to mark his group's territory. The females in his group barked in response. We are told that the dominant male howler eats his male offspring to prevent competition.
- Frogs at Manu Tented Campsite croaked from about 6p to 9p (perhaps longer, but we were asleep).
- Birds, crickets or monkeys? After a while, it was difficult to distinguish between sounds!
- Peccary herd: a herd of about sixty wild pigs was frightening after listening to stories of injuries they inflict. In addition, we heard the ground rumble as the herd moved nearby. There is something really horrible about listening to these unpredictable animals as they cracked hard palm seeds in their teeth and grunted uncontrollably. Oh, and the smell -- the SMELL!
- A bird whose song sounded like a Casio watch alarm
- Another bird whose song sounded like an old-fashioned telephone ring
- The rushing stream alongside Manu Cloud Forest Lodge provided a soothing white noise to sleep to.
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