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As if we hadn't learnt from the first time, we
decided to go back to The Amazon for another nine days and what happens?
A mutiny of all things! Thank you to Pierre & Jean, Gaylin & Jeff, John,
Alex, Neil & Eleanor and our crew, Doñardo, Mauro, Hesus and replacement
guide, David, for helping to make the trip a great success!
We set off at 6:45am from our Hotel in Cusco in
a bus, built for dwarfs, and spent the next day and a half travelling up
and down a single track road over the Andes! The road to Machu Picchu was
bad, but this was far more scary at times! We had to get out and walk a
few times as the bus kept getting stuck, as it is a dirt track cut into
the side of the mountain and not very well maintained. One highlight of
the road-trip had to be "The Church of Wankar" in the Andean town of
Wankarini. Eventually we had to explain what the word meant as we
couldn’t stop laughing. We were treated to a couple of great sights on
the evening of the first day, seeing "The Cock of the Rock," a beautiful,
bright red bird and also some Brown Capuchin monkeys. That evening we went
on a bit of a night walk with Jean and Pierre and found an enormous snail,
bigger than my fist!
After seventeen hours travelling in the bus, we
arrived in Shintuya and boarded our boat. In the Amazon toilets are hard
to come by so you have to be at one with nature, not an easy task for
ladies as Angela started to find out. We then spent four hours on the
Madre Dios River getting to our camp in Boca Manu. One extremely comical
moment on the boat was when we got stuck and Pierre, Alex, John, Neil,
Jeff, Gaylin and myself had to strip off, get out and help lift and push
the boat off the rocks.
Without going into detail about specific
events, but after both the crew and guests were collectively and
individually spoken to by our first guide in a rude, bad tempered and
sometimes aggressive manner we had ourselves a mutiny and got a
replacement guide who was excellent.
An overview of the trip itself is that we
stayed in four different camps over eight nights and they ranged from very
basic to totally plush. The Manu Wildlife Centre wins the "we want to
come here again" award! We walked round various trails and went out on
both the boat and floating platforms on oxbow lakes to try and spot the
different wildlife. The birders tell me that they saw in excess of 300
different birds, whilst the wildlife we saw was also fantastic, in just
one morning walk we saw four different species of monkeys and a family of
eight Giant River Otters.
There are three very mentionable events that we
must tell you about. The first was when we were about to go and have a
nice cold shower in water pumped straight out of the Amazon again. Angela
stepped out of the tent wearing a towel to go to the shower hut and was
met by a huge Tarantula, it’s body literally the size of my palm.
Tarantulas are not an aggressive spider, unless provoked, so with this in
mind I gently tried to coax it off the tent with a stick. I lost it in my
flashlight for a moment and the next thing I knew it was a few centimetres
away from my hand! Thankfully it kept going and we went and had our
shower, but I needed it a lot more than I had a few moments prior!
Then there was the night Angela had a panic
attack in our room. Our final two nights in the Amazon were spent at an
amazing lodge, although of course it is still in the middle of the
jungle! Angela was having a shower and the next thing I knew she was
huddled in the middle of her bed, desperately tucking the mosquito net
around herself, crying and almost hyper-ventilating! On investigation
what had caused this was the shower roof, it appeared to be moving, what
it really was, was cockroaches, hundreds of them. Now we had been
infested with cockroaches throughout our time in the Amazon, but this was
ridiculous. Everywhere you looked they were running around, as they had
been all day, but until you really pay attention you don’t notice just how
many of them there are! I had to spend the next half hour or so making a
futile attempt to rid our room of them to make Angela feel better!
The highlight of our time at Manu Wildlife
Centre, other than seeing a beautiful Green Tree Snake take a bird out of
the tree and swallow it whole, had to be when we went to the Macaw
Claylick. We had to set off well before sunrise to get to a hide
stationed about 100 metres away from this dry river embankment.
Eventually dozens of Parrots swarm into the trees above the clay, followed
by the Macaws. The Parrots then move extremely slowly down the tree
branches, constantly looking up for predators, before very tentatively
moving down to the clay to get their fill. Once the Parrots have finished
it is the Macaws turn, who just as slowly and cautiously make their way
onto the claylick. This really was an amazing spectacle to see as dozens
of Macaws fly overhead and around the embankment to get the clay that
helps them with their digestive system.
I must mention that two separate troops of
monkeys decided to pee on me! Apparently they don’t like land mammals and
pick on the biggest one to try and scare off the rest! How rude! We,
well I, also went up a 105 feet tree canopy, ascended using a spiral
staircase tethered to the surrounding trees. One evening we were kept
awake all night by Howler monkeys, who make the most amazing noises
communicating with each other.
On our last night there was a tremendous
thunderstorm which several of our group got caught in! They stayed
overnight at an outdoor camp to wait for the Tapirs, but had no success,
no sleep and they got soaked. However, on the way to the Airport (well, a
grass strip and wooden hut) guess what we saw drinking on the bank, yes a
Tapir. You should have seen the look on the rest of the groups’ faces!
Finally we got flown back to Cusco, over The Andes by the Peruvian Air
Force!
We saw an enormous amount of Insects, Reptiles,
Mammals, Amphibians and Birds, including the following:
Howler, Brown Capuchin, Black Spider,
White-faced Capuchin, Squirrel, Woolly and Saddleback Tamarind Monkeys
White and Black Caiman
Giant River Otters
Turtles
Capybaras
Agoutis
A Brazilian Tapir
Blue & Yellow, Red & Green and Scarlet Macaws
Tarantulas
Spiders of many sizes and descriptions
Grasshoppers, insects and bugs galore
Plus dozens of Parrots and other birds
(Apparently 325+ of them!) |