Manu national park

By Jaimy de Vries

In Peru you have three main Amazonian rainforest to visit: Iquitos, Madre de Dios and Manu national park. I went to the Manu National park. A huge 1,7 million-ha park. It is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I thought Manu national park would offer me a good first glimpse of the jungles in the world. And it did! Even though you have so many animals here, including the exciting Jaguar and caimans, you’ll need to be very lucky to spot them.

Manu National park was the first jungle I’ve been to. It’s a huge, 1,7 million-ha park, and one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. That’s why it is an UNESCO world heritage site. Most of the park is an unexplored paradise with indigenous cultures that haven’t made contact with modern civilization in the last 150 years. The Manu Biosphere Reserve consists of two areas. The biggest is Manu National Park, with full protection. The other part is the buffer zone, Manu’s Cultural Zone. This last area is only accessible for tours.

And that’s why, in Manuel National park, life can be witnessed in its purest form. There are 221 species of mammals, a thousand bird species and a variety of ecosystems ranging from lowland tropical forest to cold high grasslands more than 4000 meters above sea level. I thought Manu national park would offer me a good first glimpse of the jungles in the world. And it did! Even though you have so many animals here, including the exciting Jaguar and caimans, I haven’t had the luck to see them. That’s the thing you (and especially myself) to remember, even though the pictures can look amazing, it’s wildlife and they don’t easily show their face. You simply need to be on the right time and the right place and just have a good lucky charm to spot them.

I booked my tour with Treehouse-Inn. I read that they offer a trip farther into the jungle than the other jungle tours. Besides that: they have tree-houses! How cool is that!? It was more expensive than the other trips (around 100-200 U.S. dollars more), but I think it’s worth it.

Vamos!

The pick up was very early on 5:30 am. There was a long bus drive ahead of us to reach the Amazon rainforest. On our long drive we made a stop in a small colonial town called Paucartambo. Here we had breakfast and we took a short stroll. It was a lovely town with white buildings and blue painted doors and balconies with lots of colorful geraniums. We saw lots of locals dressed in traditional colorful Peruvian clothing. Most of the women were

carrying stuff or a child on their back wrapped in a blanket. This town has an important economical history for the Inca’s. It was the center for trading between the Peruvian Jungle and the Andes. Our guide explained us about a festival called the Virgin of Puacartambo that’s hold between the 15th to the 18th of July. He showed us the golden statues on the main square. Each statue represents one of 15 different clans of dancers who fill the streets by the hundreds during the festival. They include the Saqras, deer-antlered demons, along with clans of dancing maidens, Spanish conquistadors, regal indigenous nobles, suffering black slaves, and even bakers. It’s an interesting town.

Cloud forest

Then we drove higher to cross the andes mountains. We entered the manu mational park at 3600 m high. It was really foggy up there. It was the beginning of the jungle – the cloud forest. Before we headed down into the cloud forest we stopped at the map of Manu national park. On the picture below you can see that the green area is the Manu national park that is not accesible (only indigious tribes that were already living there). No people are allowed. The only part of the Manu national park that is accesible is the grey area around it – and that is where we are heading to. We headed down and I was amazed by the amazing sceneries of the Peruvian Amazonian mountain range.

Map of the national park

Views over the mountain range.

Half way of our trip to our accommodation we stopped along the way and walked on the road to spot some wildlife. There was one type of monkey and bird living in the high altitude cloud forest that we tried to spot. Because it was not possible to see it when we go down. We followed our guide on the road. He brought his telescope with him to see the animals from up close. We were very lucky, we saw both of them: the wooly monkey and the Andean bird cock-of-the-rock. I was suprised how much sound this bird makes. The sound was quite confusing too, it sounds like screaming monkeys. We saw around six cock-of-the-rock birds. But you need to look quick, they’re very shy and fly away quick. I was not able to make a picture of the bird, because it was just so damn quick. But I found one on the internet.

Then after two walkes along the road we had lunch on a parking spot. Our personal chef made a lovely warm lunch. We were even more lucky. We saw another type of monkey along the road: The brown capuchin monkey eating from the tree. It was actually really close, just 4 meter distance. This was a funny looking monkey. Because it was it made a funny movement with what it looked their eyebrows. I asked the guide why they do that, he said he was showing off for the ladies!

Our guide leading the way

Cock-of-the-rock

Capuchin monkey

Amazonian lodge

After begin fully concentrated to look for wildlife and after a good lunch I got tired. We still need to drive a while to reach our lodge. I took a little nap in the car. Later in the afternoon just before it turned dark we arrived at the lodge. It looked very cute. We went straight to our lodge and took some rest. I decided to read a book till it was time to have dinner and just enjoyed all the sounds of the jungle. We had dinner in the common area. There we saw a huge night butterfly with amazing colors, green- red- yellow. From a distance it looked like a hummingbird. Sadly the butterfly turned out to be dead, but we could have a real good look. That night I slept like a baby with all the jungle sounds (insects, frogs, birds). The next morning we woke up early, had breakfast and left at 8 to our next and final destination: the treehouse!

Boot trip to the treehouse

We stepped in the bus to take a small drive of approximately one hour to a small town called Ayalaya. We bought some snacks and soft drinks, because there wouldn’t been any to buy once we travel further. Then finally we stepped on a river boat for a drive of 2,5 hours deeper into the jungle. The river alto Madre de Dios is where we went on. I loved the boat ride. The temperature was warm but the wind was nice and fresh. With the binocular I tried to find some wildlife along the river coast. I saw different kind of birds, silver herons and an Osprey (river hawk). The guide explained us after a 1,5 hour ride that all the other companies go till this far, but we will drive 1 hour more deeper into the jungle. Nice!

After two hours on the river we needed to go on a smaller boat, because the river is getting smaller and shallower. All the others of the group went on one boat, and I got on the boat with the guide and all our lugage, so I had my own private boat ghe ghe. After another half hour we arrived at the treehouse-inn around lunchtime. First we checked our our tree house. I got my own private treehouse. I loved it! There was a tree in the middle, two beds and I had my own toilet and shower. Funny to take a pee in the treehouse with a wide view over the jungle.

After lunch we had a little siesta till 3 pm. I took a little footbath in the river and saw lots of fish. I enjoyed sitting their alone with the animals. I saw a macaw bird flying away, what a loud voice it makes. You can hear it from a mile apart.

First jungle hike

On 3 o clock we took our first hike through the jungle looking for wildlife. We heard macaws screaming and toucans singing…but unfortunately we couldn’t get a good sight of them. But we saw lots of fauna though. Beautiful plants like the heliconia and we saw some interesting trees. One of them was the mothers tree that’s hundreds of years old that stretches up to a height of 130 meters. The inside was hallow and we could stand in the tree. Another extraordinary tree was the penis tree. Natives use to cut one of these roots that looks like a penis and drink out of it. They do this when they are bad in bed. After drinking this for 50 days they got better. It’s like a natural viagra.

I was impressed by how many life the jungle has, it’s just so green and full of life. I got quite tired of the hike, maybe because you’re so concentrated looking for wildlife and you walk very slowly…but luckily there was coffee and popcorn when we got back. And there was something interesting on the planning: cooking with

bamboo. This is a technique the indigenous people in the jungle use to cook. Our guide showed us a stick of bamboo. It was hallow on the inside. I put meat it in and then we filled it with leaves, so the meat will steam. Then we put the bamboo stick in the fire and waited for 1-2 hours.

Night tour

In the meantime we went on a night walk, or let’s say insect spotting walk. We saw many spiders, some little some big. The same counts for the Ants. There were so many kinds of Ants: warrior ants, giant ants, normal ants.

I found the night walks really exciting, walking with your headlight looking for adventurous (and dangerous) animals. You can only see the things you’re light is pointing to. But you need to have eyes (and light!) everywhere. You need to know if there is something on the ground, for example a branch sticking out or a poisonous snake. But you also want to see what’s in the busses – a jaguar or puma perhaps?

Lots of animals get awake around night time to go hunting (or trying to hide). One of the hunting animals we tried to spot are the caimans. They can be spotted in one of the ponds. We were waiting there with our lights off (quite scary actually) and our guide tried to call them with a strange sound. But unfortunately we haven’t seen one. We tried it the next day but no luck either. But we did found a giant toad, twice, around the pond. And what a sound they make when the sun is setting down, calling for the girls. We had dinner and then I went to bed early, because we are going to wake up early the next day to see the macaws at the clay rock.

CLay rock

After freshening up and putting my pajamas on I closed the mosquito net and slept like a baby. I woke up at 5 and heard drops falling down. “Is it raining?”. The guide said if it’s raining the macaws won’t go to the clay rock because it’s too wet. If that would be the case we won’t go to the clay rock and we can stay longer in bed. But it wasn’t pouring rain…I walked outside and it didn’t rain at all. I was confused: “Huh? But where does that sound come from?” I walked to the meeting point and then we walked to the clay rocks. The others were confused too by the drops. So I asked our guide what it was. “It’s the leaves” he said. “It’s extracting water and then it drops down”.

When we were walking we heard a jaguar growling. “Wow!” What an incredible sound. The guide explained that pairs of jaguars split up at night to hunt. In the morning they’re growling to find their way back to each other. They were around 500 meters away from us, on the other side of the river. Unfortunately. It would be amazing to see a jaguar. But the change of seeing one is very little. The guide have only seen 5 jaguars in his whole life, and he lives in the jungle.

After 20 minutes walking we arrived at the clay rock. We were silently waiting in our camouflage clothing behind the bushes so that the birds would go to the clay click and didn’t got scared of us. When suddenly another group came in loudly with bright colored clothing. I was quite annoyed by that. We were trying our best not to get any attention and then they came. We only saw the red shoulder parrot and a yellow toucan. But more birds didn’t came, like the red macaw, probably because they got scared of the other tourists.

So close!

That morning we went for another hike. This time we saw a lot. Two different types of monkeys. One very rare to see. We saw a family of red howler monkeys who were climbing up high in the tree. And when they all got together they went down (not so) graciously, by just falling down into bushes of leaves and branches. You could hear the jungle cracking. So I told you before we heard a growl of a jaguar across the river. Well we saw a fresh footprint of a jaguar on our side. “Waaahh!” I was so excited, but maybe a bit nervous too. That time we forgot to bring our mascette too. Well, I had my go pro stick …I wondered if that would help me. But we haven’t seen the Jaguar itself and got safely out of the jungle.

Go with the flow

We arrived back and quickly got dressed in our swimming outfit to go river tubbing. This was so much fun! We got dropped of by a river boat a couple of miles from the treehouse-inn. After they dropped us off, we just tubbed back on the current of the river. Most of the times it was a relaxed ride with a soft current…but sometimes there was a big current with shallow water and lots of stones sticking out. “Butt up” I said, otherwise you get a stone in your ass. Everyone had fun. Sadly it was only 1 hour.

After that we were hungry and had lunch. Then we had a little siesta. I was not tired, so I decided not to sleep but to take a book with me and read while having a footbath in the river. It was like a little spa, because the little sardines fish were nibbling on my feet and legs.

Sometimes joy is just in front of you

The funny thing is that quite a lot of all the animals we’ve seen was just around the tree house-inn. One of the group saw a very big poisonous snake for example. With lunch we saw three squirl monkeys eating from the banana tree, that was incredible cute. Their face was all dirty with banana smush around their mouth. One of the three squirl monkeys was a baby and the baby was looking at us pealing and eating his banana. It was so damn cute! We’ve also seen lots of birds flying by, like cormorants and macaws. Another very interesting animal we’ve seen at the perimeter of the tree-house-inn was a big group of ants working. They we’re cutting leaves of a tree and carrying it down to their nest. It really looked like the Ants movie. This made us think about the Antz movie.

Jungle food

The food on the trip was great. A personal chef joined us from Cusco and he made all the meals on our trip. Our first big surprise meal was a breakfast outside on the balcony with a view over the river. We got a pancake with the text Manu wildlife Peru, fresh fruit, an oatmeal drink and a nice fresh cup of coffee.

Another amazing meal was the upcoming lunch. They packed out lunch in big leaves where they cooked our meal in. They put chicken, rice and water in it and then boiled it. It was delicious!

And we helped the chef out a bit, as I told you before we made our own jungle food with the bamboo stick.