Manu National Park. Miércoles 3 de octubre – miércoles 10 de
octubre
DAY 1. Start from Cusco at S 13o 4’ W 71o 33’ Elev 3225 m.
Due to a planned strike today complete with road blocks, the pickup for
the Amazon is scheduled for 4-4:30 am,
instead of 6-6:30 am. So I am ready and waiting at 3:55, Raquel having got up
with me and made me breakfast. My ride comes at 5 am. It goes well. There are
four of us in the group, although I will be changing groups in 2 days because
this group is not going for as long or as deep into the rainforest as I am, but
four others that are, are starting out a day later. (You can see that logistics
can be complicated, especially as the tourist season is really over.) I have
eaten a big soup and salad that I made at the hostal last night and I can tell
that I ate too much. I feel bloated and every time we stop for various reasons
and I get out, I try to get alone for a bit to burp and fart out all the gas
building up in me. By noon I am back to normal. Note to self: Do not overeat
especially do not overeat before a long bus ride. Besides our group of 4, there is a high
school group from Lima on a Grade 12 field trip. Our group consists of Pili, a
female engineer in her 30s from Spain who has spent a couple of weeks volunteering in Cusco and
who now has a couple of weeks before returning to Madrid, Michael, a British
free-lance artist, about 40, who is on a several month journey of
self-discovery; and Olaf, a 70-ish semi-retired Austrian businessman who is
importing semi-precious stones from Brazil and Peru giving himself an
inexpensive way to travel. Michael and Olaf do not speak Spanish and Pili’s
English I finally reluctantly conclude is much better than my Spanish, so most
is conducted in English although Pili and I still speak mostly in Spanish,
which shows that she is patient. In all my travels, Nifi, the guide we have
here is the first I have who is not excellent. He is actually pretty awful:
uninterested, uninformed, and uncommunicative. Fortunately I will not be with
him for long, although the others will. Michael and I take out our frustration
with him with parodies of his behavior which is probably not the right thing to
do but is kind of funny.
We have a lot of bus travel today. We finish the day still at 3200 m in
cloud forest at in a southern strip of the park where people live and where
restrictions are much less and therefore the forest is not so pristine. Our
first stop is at Ninamarca, another site of pre-Inca burial tombs, this time in
the form of little towers built of mortared rocks. I spot a couple of Mountain
Carcaras soaring by, a large, common and quite beautiful bird of prey related
to falcons. We eat lunch by the side of the road. We stop to eat a prepared
lunch by the side of the road in a little flat area. Mostly the road is a
narrow track with enormous drop-offs to one side. In fact, there are a couple
of vehicles that we could see that plunged off the road, and this is considered
as one of the most dangerous roads in Peru. However, this is not yet the rainy
season so it much less risky.
We stop at a blind set up near a lek of the Gallina de Rocas (aka the
Cock of the Rock), the national bird of
Peru, a largish bird of which the male is brilliant scarlet and has an
overhanging crest which obscures its beak. A lek is a mating method whereby
males all do their mating display together in one place, and females come by to
select a male, mate, and leave. All the rearing of young is done by females in
these species. (In Canada, two grouse species do this too.) We sit and watch them for a while; while they
do congregate and are noisy and obvious, there is not much of a display of any
kind. Nor are we able to spot any females, while there are 5-10 males that are
very obvious here. We also begin to see nesting trees of Oropendulas, which are
trees with 10-50 hanging basket like nests. Oropendulas are birds related to
our orioles, and they nest in groups.
A male Cock of the Rock, Peru's
national bird
We stop a little further on and we have the option of walking the rest
of the road from here to the San Pedro Lodge where we will stay for the night.
Pili and I are both taking our time on the road and have lagged behind. There
are a lot of strange and interesting insects, many colourful butterflies, a
number of different birds, and all kinds of strange and wonderful plants making
it hard to go fast. As the sun goes down, we hear and then spot a huge flock of
parrots very high up in the sky. They are undoubtedly flying to a communal
perching spot to spend the night. They are almost all flying in pairs, and I
see this pattern repeat itself throughout my stay in Manu Park. When Pili and I
get close to the lodge, it begins to rain. We are able to grab our gear from
the (parked) bus, and run the 200 m or so to the lodge. The rain soon turns to
what I now recognize as typical rainforest rain: super intense. Some of the
high school students change into swim suits and stand under the down spout from
one of the buildings to take a shower laughing all the while. It is amazing to
see so much water coming down.
There is a mess hall and we head there shortly after lights come on as
there are only 2 hours a night of electricity here. One of the students leaves
the door open behind him and the room begins to fill with a variety of insects.
A little later, a very large Orthopteran of some description 3-4 inches long
alights on the outside of the screened building. I climb up (on the inside) to
have a closer look and make some kind of loud exclamation of surprise (at its
size and beauty). One of the students starts trying out all the exclamations he
knows in English. When he comes to the F word, I reach down and swat him on the
head: it is a teacher thing. The other students laugh. I do talk to a few of
the students but only in English as they all want to practice. Some of them are
extremely good.
DAY 2. We are up early the next
morning and I go for a run before breakfast, and see a number of interesting
birds. Also many butterflies puddling on dirt road (a behavior where moisture
is sucked up from wet mud to gain salt, much like cows and most other
herbivores go to salt licks). This behavior
is unbelievably common in the tropics: probably because there are more
individual butterflies and more species and there are many places to puddle
along river banks. Possibly too, rainforest flower nectar is even lower in
sodium than nectar in the temperate zone. I also spot a family of motmots
stroll across the road in front of me and I follow them for a bit. When I get
back, Olaf, who had been out photographing flowers, tells me that one of the
Peruvian teachers has seen a troupe of monkeys across the river.
After breakfast, we continue our bus trip for a couple more hours until
we arrive at the riverside town of Pilcopata. Here we get out of the bus to do
the next few hours on a whitewater raft as the river is still quite fast here
with lots of rapids. It is called the Rio Alto Madre de Dios (Upper Mother of
God River).
The four of us are joined by the four that I will be traveling with for
the rest of the trip. They are Brad, a civil engineer from Melbourne; Anna, who
is Czech and lives in Holland, with an engineering background but I forget what
kind of work she does; her identical twin sister, Jana, business consultant
(and engineer), who lives in Australia; and Matt, her husband who is a foreign
policy analyst for the government of Australia. I got the impression that Matt
and Jana will be moving to a farm in New Zealand in the near future. They are a lively bunch, on a 4 week whirlwind tour of
South America arranged by Anna for 4 weeks. The twins are adventurous, positive
and yet worriers, an odd combination.
The rafting is a lot of fun, and we finish by floating down the river IN
the river while the guide pilots the boat by himself. We reluctantly leave the
water at Puerto Atalaya and get into a wooden motor boat, with a canopy, 5 ft
wide and 40 ft long, locally built, to go from here onward. We arrive in a couple of hours at today’s
destination: Erika Lodge, a set of simple buildings like last night’s and owned
by the tour company we have booked with. We have now descended to much closer
to rainforest altitude.
S 12o 50’ W 71o
23’ Elev 620 m. Soon after arrival, we are given a packsack each with gear in
it and the five of us head off with
another guide to do a canopy zipline. We hike for about half an hour and are
going way too fast to see all that there is to see but there is not too much
daylight left. We finally arrive at our destination. Willy, our guide who is an
Ecotourism student, prepares us for the Ziplining. I had actually thought that
we would be traveling slowly through the forest canopy to get a better look at
the plants, insects, and other critters that live there but that was not the plan.
This was simply a thrill thing, although I was not particularly thrilled by it.
(I guess I just wanted to spend some quality time in the canopy.) The others
especially the twins seemed to find it pretty exciting. On one of the platforms we land at (we zipline four
times and then rappel down to the ground after the fourth), the tree has a
large colony of Fulgorids, bizarre looking insects related to cicadas with
enlarged alligator like heads. Willy tells us they can sting and explains the
local myth (actually found throughout Amazonian Peru and Bolivia) that if you
are stung/bitten, you must have sex within 24 h or die. Interesting excuse but
I know that these insects do not bite (or sting). These particular ones are
big, maybe 3 inches long, although they do not move much. Willy, our guide, is
a bit of a show-off or bored, and he zips down hanging on with one hand. When
we rappel down, he does so upside down. I take some photos of him as he wants
some for his college course.
Fulgorids hanging out on a
tree trunk. These insects sing loudly during the day like their relatives, the
Cicadas.
DAY 3. We have some beer (warm)
before supper and I discover a very large rotten log dwelling beetle although I
forget its proper name. Impressive beast. It begins raining that evening and is
still raining by morning, which is good news and bad news. The good news is
that we would make better time going downstream because the river had risen
(and was therefore faster): the river had risen by 1 m at Erika Lodge, and 3 m
!!!! at the camp we would get to that night. The bad news is that the higher
level means that once we reach the confluence of the Rios Alto Madre de Dios
and Manu, we will be going upstream and therefore slower. The other bad news is
that the boat canopy does not really keep us from getting wet. I am not sure
how this happened but I end up sitting with Juan, our guide, a former
microbiologist and excellent guide, at the back of the group where we got a
little less wet. Apparently it is highly unusual to have this much rain in the
spring (2 months before the rainy season begins).
The day is mostly rainy although the rain does stop at times, and no one
is complaining. The rain is not as intense as the previous evening. As we
travel down river, the current is very swift and in spite of the flat water,
there are rapids to negotiate: not exactly what you think of when you think of
an Amazon tributary. At lunch, Gloria, our cook, passes out lunches to us. This
consists of a Tupperware container of rice and some kind of meat, with some pop
and some kind of cookie for desert. It is pretty good (or we are pretty
hungry). By the afternoon, my Tilly hat is very wet, and the nylon tape I have
used to tape up the rips has come off. For the rest of the trip, I have a hat
with big rips in it. Won’t keep out bugs but at least it still shades my head
from the Sun.
Three times we (the guide or the boat driver) spot capybaras along
shore. In all cases, there is at least two, in one case 5 (a family). The first
two times we see them on Alto Madre de Dios Alto, and they are the larger
blonde species. The last time, the family of 5, they are the smaller darker
species and on the Rio Manu. In all cases, they appear to be foraging along the
river shore. These rodents (world’s largest and get over 200 lbs), are hunted
for food but also are eaten by caimans, pumas and jaguars. They are strong
swimmers too and will escape to the water if threatened on land. They have very
broad snouts, guinea pig-like (although not related).
On the upriver travel along Rio Manu, we come across many more birds.
There are 5 species of heron, an osprey,
several very large bird species (which probably get thinned out in other areas
for food) including an Orinoco goose, a horned screamer (strange call), and a
jabiru stork. We see Muscovy ducks, green ibis, grey tinamous, large billed
skimmers (similar to a tern, whose large bill has a yellow-orange streak), lots
of sand-coloured nighthawks perched on marooned dead trees in the middle of the
river, terns and swallows.
We get to the official entrance of the park a little ways up Rio
Manu. We sign in and I begin to realize
how regulated this park is. In Peru, there
are few game laws and many laws are poorly enforced. The result is that
wild animals are few and far between outside of well-regulated parks. The same
is true of freshwater game fish (outside of the Amazon, where the abundance is
spectacular and commercial fishing is only for local consumption; same as in
Colombia).
One of the most amazing aspects of this park is the local inhabitants.
Throughout the world rainforest peoples have been slaughtered, had their
rainforests cut down (think of the Penan people in Malaysian Borneo in the
1990s), and have been decimated by the diseases of outsiders. This is also true
in the Peruvian Amazon. However, in this area, the Yora have been contacted (by
oil companies, loggers, and missionaries) resulting in a deadly flu epidemic,
yet a part of the tribe has returned to
live in the Amazon in a traditional way and has no contact. Another group, the
Machiguenga, lives from slash and burn agriculture, fishing and hunting, and
has established a lodge where they play host to tourists and also sell some
handicrafts to tourists. Still other tribes, including the Mashco Piro and the
Nanty, have never had contact. The former is very aggressive (which is why they
have had no contact). One tourist boat was attacked by these people last year
with arrows and two crew members were killed. Official park policy is that
Peruvians and foreign tourists alike are not allowed to have any contact with
them to safeguard their health and way of life. I am guessing that if these
groups exist here that there are others as well. To me, this is exciting to know:
some fountains of knowledge and knowhow will persist if and when world-wide
civilization collapses as I think it quite likely will. The local people who do
live in settlements refer to these uncontacted groups with a slang term (which
I forget) which means the ‘naked
people’, because they do not wear clothes.
We begin to see the odd white caiman (about 10 in all on our way up the
Manu), either pulled out on a beach or in very shallow water near shore. They
are pale gray in colour. In South America, there are 6 or 7 species of caimans,
which are more closely related to alligators than to crocodiles. South America
is also home to the American crocodile and the Orinoco crocodile, (and there is
also the Cuban crocodile found in Cuba; all three grow to 4 m or more), but
both are only found in rivers and estuaries emptying into the Caribbean, not
the Amazon, and all three are recovering from near extinction a few decades
ago. Only one of the caiman species, the black caiman, is big. The others are
all limited to at most 10 feet long (3 m), although quite a bit smaller in some
species. The black caiman can grow up to 6 m or 20 feet long, which is
monstrous. In this area, there are white and black caimans. Juan tells us that
the white caimans are out of the water during the day today only due to the
unusually fast water. The caimans barely look alive even when moving but
especially when not. I find crocodilians fascinating but I think of them more
as automatons, than animals, kind of like giant insects. They have changed
little, of course, since before the time of the dinosaurs.
Several times along the way, we spot troupes of monkeys. Today it is
squirrel monkeys combined with brown capuchins and more squirrels combined with
white capuchin monkeys. The different species seem to be traveling and foraging
near each other but still seem to keep separate. The squirrels especially seem
to be in groups of many individuals. Obviously there is an advantage to two
species being near each other in terms of spotting predators. However to travel
close together, I would guess that they are feeding on different things. We do
not often get real close so only on a couple of occasions did I actually see
what they were feeding on (or see the evidence on the forest floor). I have seen
them feeding on leaves of trees, and I know that they also feed on insects and
fruits, and probably any small animals they can get their hands on.
When we get to the lodge where we will stay for three nights, I have a
half a bungalow to myself: a thatched roof, raised floor, bamboo wall
structure. It will mostly keep out the rain and little else. There is though a
mosquito net. There are no reports of malaria in this area so I am still not
taking any antibiotics for malaria prevention. However, there are a variety of
other night critters that the net is useful for including the assassin bug that
spreads Chagas disease, and vampire bats that spread rabies. The camp
caretaker, a fellow who lives in a riverside village not too far away, is the
one that tells us that the river has risen 3 m in the last 24 hours.
Astounding. As we have made our way up the Rio Manu, it is unbelievably swift
flowing (not normal at this time of year) and choked with foam and debris,
mostly logs and large pieces of trees.
We are at: S 12o 0’ W
71o 10’ Elev 379 m.
We go out for our first night walk that evening. On our way out of the
camp area, Juan points out a male tarantula in its webbed lair on the trunk of
a palm tree. It is large, but being male it is not huge. It is the only
tarantula that we see on this trip. All of us really enjoy the sounds of
cicadas and frogs mostly with some night active water birds as well. We all use headlamps, although mine is
getting dim because it has been turning on in my luggage. I check for spare
batteries but I am one short to replace them, and so have to make do. (In
future, I take out a battery between uses so that it cannot turn on by
accident). Anna has a head lamp and a
very bright flashlight. This is great for spotting things including spiders,
and a couple of lizards. Many of the spiders are orb web weavers and are
weaving their evening’s web. Many are large;
not huge yet impressive in both size and colour. We are all on the
lookout for snakes too but do not see any. Anna spots a fairly large lizard on
a branch hanging over the trail which seems to ignore us and our lights. Anna
has guilt pangs about her bright lights, fearing she is blinding the lizard but
also other critters at the same time she is observing them, but is never guilty
enough to stop using the lights.
I correctly guess which of the twins is the older (Anna), a trick I
learned from Kristina, my ex-wife and herself an identical twin. She was always
able to do this, as she said the older is always a little less child-like, a
little more responsible, when the two are together. She was inevitably right.
At supper that night, Anna and to a lesser extent Jana, cannot eat their
entire meals. The food is good but not enough for me and I start getting into
the habit of finishing their meals. At times, it seems that the two get full
just looking at food. Not that they are thin or fat, which is also surprising. I do not understand why Matt is not eating
the extra meals like I am. He is 20 years younger, tall and an ex pro rugby
player. Anyway, I am happy he is not. It seems to me that the cool climate in
Cusco (not to mention Bogota) combined with a lack of central heating has
caused me to speed up my metabolism. I have noticed that my appetite is up, and
that I do not get cold when other people do, like when traveling in the rain
today. Fortunately I have not been suffering more than others in the heat,
either.
Later that evening, I come across a walking stick, the biggest one I
have ever seen. Big insects are common and very impressive here.
DAY 4. In the morning, we head
off by boat to Otorongo Lake, one of two oxbow lakes that we are permitted to
visit in the park. The oxbows are rich areas for a variety of wildlife that
prefer still water. This includes many species of wading birds, turtles,
caimans (although the black caimans being bigger have usurped this habitat from
the white caimans- by eating them), and giant otters. There is an observation
tower here, about 10 m tall and we climb it. We do see many turtles (none that
Juan or I can identify), many wading birds including anahingas and cormorants,
and new species of herons, and one 6 ft black caiman (the skin is mostly very
dark, different than the pale gray of the white caiman) which suddenly appears
out of the partly submerged grasses close to shore. On the way back, we see
troupes of the same kinds of monkeys plus one red howler, sleeping draped over
a branch hanging over the river. With the noise of our boat motor as we move in
close to observe him, he gets up and watches us for a while and moves a little
higher. All of the bigger monkey species in Central and South America have
prehensile tails and the howlers are among them. (Monkeys with prehensile
tails, like hummingbirds, are only found in the Americas.) It is amazing to
watch the tail in action. It is like a safety line for the monkey.
At around 3 PM, we walk a trail to Salvador Lake, the other oxbow, which
is only a 20 minute walk from the camp. There are two docks here, and a wooden
camaran for use of visiting groups. We observe from the close dock. On the
under side of the exposed part of a dead tree in the water, we observe a few dozen bats hanging snoozing. We do see a
couple of giant otters swimming briefly along the far shore. Juan informs us
that the otters (like our river otter, but twice the weight, and endangered)
make many dens along the lake. Clearly this family is using this den. We walk to
the other dock where the catamaran is. The camaran is actually two of the
typical canoe-like boats commonly used here, with a dugout log for a bottom,
and about 8 m long. Over the two, a platform has been built in the middle
section. Voila! A catamaran. We find the catamaran full of water and we bail it
with what we find: a cut down plastic container, a pail, and the paddle we have
brought with us. After about 15 minutes it is relatively dry and we launch. At
first, Juan paddles it (from the stern of one of the canoes) and then several
of us take turns. As we are traveling it rains. We travel to where we had seen
the otters but not too close to shore so as not to scare them. As we get close,
we spot a pair of black spider monkeys feeding on young leaves high up in a
tree (30 m or so).
As we watch, the rain ceases, and the otters appear first near shore,
and then swimming in various directions. They surface and dive and are clearly
looking for their afternoon meal. We
count 8 otters in all, and the young are fairly easy to distinguish from the
adults. We see one surface with a fish in its mouth, of about the same size as
its head. It stays on the surface, floating with its head out of the water as
otters often do, and eats. It eats the fish one bite at a time but quite
rapidly and within about three minutes the entire fish has disappeared. Reminds
me of feeding a frozen fish (a sucker) to a Reserve dog named Angel and seeing
it gnaw away the whole fish like a popsicle. The otters continue foraging and
after 15 minutes or so, the parents call from fairly close to the den. The
youngsters respond with a higher pitched and whining type of noise and start
heading for home, calling all the while (whenever they surface). It is quite a
striking picture, seeing five of them all heading for home, whining loudly. So
similar to North American river otters:
very social, very vocal, very focused on fish.
Our catamaran on Lago Salvador
Soon thereafter we spot and hear several toucans crossing the river, and
then more. In the distance, we see lightning flashes but it is not coming our
way. We see a rainbow above the far shore, and then a second one underneath. We
watch a multitude of shore birds mostly perched on dead trees in the lake including
anihingas, great egrets, cucoys (white-necked heron), green ibis, sand bittern,
and hear the strange call of the chincharra (fulgorids, a large and bizarre
relative of the cicada I mentioned earlier). At dusk, we begin to see bats
flying. On the way back, we spot a large opossum in a tree. With lights trained
on it, it heads upwards. With the lights off, it appears to relax and move
closer to ground. Likely it was on the ground before our arrival.
In thinking about opposums and marsupials in general, I was reminded of
their origins. Marsupials originally evolved in South America, and spread to
Australia which was connected to it at the time. When the continents separated,
their marsupial fauna evolved separately. At some point within the last 100 million
years, Central America collided with South America and placental mammals
flooded into South America, outcompeting the marsupials resulting in the
extinction of all but the Opposum family of which there are still many species. Also, South America, like North America, had
30 species or so of very large mammals all of which had disappeared by 10 000
years ago or so. The largest mammal currently is the tapir, a relative of the
rhinoceros of which there are four species
in South America; the largest can weigh up to 400 kg.
While we were eating supper, one of the staff locates a fer-de-lance,
the second most dangerous of four poisonous snake species known to be in the
park. We run out to find a thin, ca. 75 cm long snake, with brown and gray
cryptic patterning, coiled up under the crew cabin. While the crew went looking
for a stick, I suggest to Juan the broom lying nearby. He attempts to pick it
up with the handle end of the broom and it gets off, and begins slithering
away, using the sidewinder motion typical of pit vipers (the same family to
which rattlesnakes belong). Some of us scatter out of its path, but I do not
move, judging that it is still too far from me (2 m) to be a threat. I am
fascinated more than scared of snakes, having spent a lot of time around
rattlesnakes. I am still out of its range when Juan is able to pick it up with
the brush end of the broom. A few
of us take pictures (that is what
tourists do) and then the snake is unceremoniously flung into the Rio. From
there we watched it swim upstream, with its serpentine lack of concern about
its recent brush with death at the hands of two-legged creatures, the most
deadly animals on the planet.
That night, I check around the cabin for snakes before retiring, and I
also begin looking where I put my feet when about to enter or exit the cabin.
It is not fear, only prudence. I know that everyone else is doing something
similar.
DAY 5. In the morning, we wake to
the territorial call of a male red howler monkey around 5 AM. (I do not realize
what it is until Juan explains later.) It sounds like a Darth Vader breathing
sound except that it goes on and on monotonously with pause, so unlike a
breathing sound. It lasts for a couple of minutes.
We realize today that there is another tourist camp (only 8 or 10 of
these have been permitted in the park) only a couple of 100 meters upstream and
that people are arriving there today. It is a bit of a shock that we are not
alone, but there is a lot of forest to share.
At about 6 AM and before breakfast, we walk to the catamaran and paddle
til about 9:30. We spot a couple of the otters again and 2 swimming black
caimans although none too big. We see a striated heron , a capped heron, an
agami heron (which is a deep blue with purple and very beautiful) and a sun
bittern. We also see several ‘stinky birds’, whose more common name is the
hoatzin. What I cannot forget is that they are called this because of their
habit of regurgitating their food (like a cow) which gives them a strong smell,
as well as their call which is like deep breathing. The birds in general are
unforgettable for their beautiful colouration, their varied and unusual calls,
and in some cases their large size.
On our way back, I am walking a ways behind the others as I tend to
spend more time inspecting plants and insects, and things on the forest
floor. I also like staying back so that
I cannot smell the sun block and insect repellent that some of the others are
using. This is important to me as there are a lot of odours mostly of plants
that I am picking up. It is to the point where I can sometimes tell that a
particular plant is close by because of its smell. I am not the only one
picking up smells. At one point, Juan announces that peccaries have passed
through the spot we are at recently due to the smell. We have not seen any
peccaries (two species here). They can be at times in big groups and around
mating season or when they feel that their young are threatened, they can be
dangerous.
At one point, I hear a
Dendrobatus frog species singing (although it is not particularly
musical). I know the call because Juan
had identified the call for us the day before. It is quite close and so I move
slowly into the forest in its direction until it stops. When it starts up
again, I move again. Then I spot it: a black frog with lime green stripes,
sitting on a small log which is underneath another log. Beautiful. I call the others as we have not yet seen any
Dendrobatus species although we have been looking for them. These are the
poison arrow frog species, whose toxic skin secretions have been and are used
by some Amazonian native groups to add poison to their blow darts for hunting.
Some species are so poisonous that touching them can be fatal but Juan informs
us that this species is less so. I noted too, that while frogs in Canada will
generally stop singing for about 5 minutes as you approach them, this frog only
stopped for about 15 seconds as I approached (and then stopped). I presume that
the lack of prudence in this species is probably related to its poisonous skin.
On the way back, we see a few spider monkeys high up in the trees. The name is
apt for the arms and legs are extremely long for their body size. Back in camp,
I spot a very large blue metallic plant hopper, bigger than any planthopper I
have ever seen.
Around 11:30 AM and before lunch, we take a trail and hike to the
Machiguenga native-run lodge. On the way, we spot and watch troupes of spider,
saddleback tamarin, and woolly monkeys. We arrive at the Machiguenga lodge
where there is a Dutch couple staying. We meet a few of the local people, and
they have a display of some of their handicrafts. I am struck by how basic,
poorly constructed and even ugly their offerings are: necklaces, a few woven
bags, and some bows and arrows. I gather they think (or maybe have found) that
tourists will buy any kind of junk. Still, it is sad to see. One of them has a
bow and arrow and sets up a target (an old basket) on the ground about 10
meters away, and fires: he hits it. Matt tries a shot and comes fairly close. I
do the same but my fingers slip on the string, so I cannot pull the arrow back
too far. I also am fairly close but the shot is not satisfying as the arrow
does not fly very fast. Matt and I try again. This time I try a different grip
on the arrow so that I can pull it back and get a good fast arrow flight. I do
so, and the bow snaps in my hand. This would not happen if the bow was sound,
but clearly it is not. I feel
embarrassed (both that it happened and for the craftsman because it is
not a good bow). The other locals get a good laugh out of this. I decide to
purchase one of the necklaces: not because I like it (I do not) but for the
peccary tusks it contains. When I find out the price (10 soles) and pay for it
with a larger bill, the person taking the money has no idea how to give change.
Clearly they do not use money very much. Juan tells me that mostly they use it
to purchase alcohol (or even other non-edible products which contain alcohol,
which sure sounds like Reserves back in Canada). I also give the owner of the
bow a few soles for the damage I caused.
We get picked up at the lodge by our boat and get a ride back to our
camp.
Later in the afternoon, we get dropped off on the other side of the
river. I ask Juan if anyone swims in the rivers around here. He is pretty
emphatic that no one does because of the caimans. When the water is flowing
like it has been the last few days, there is a bigger threat: the speed of the
current, and all the debris that is being carried with it. We spot some more
woolly monkeys. The woollys, another large monkey species with a prehensile
tail, are in a group of 10 or so it looks like although we never see all of
them. They are high up, 30-50 m up and we stop to watch them for a while. They
are beautiful to watch, as they move through the trees. They make huge leaps,
aiming for areas of dense foliage, which they grasp at with both arms and legs.
I end up separated from the others as I am following one monkey and I keep
moving to keep him/her in sight. At some
point, they decide that we are a threatening presence, perhaps because they
have been hunted by people before. In any case, several of them start throwing
sticks at us. I decide to get out of there as there are sticks landing
dangerously close. I weave through the undergrowth (which is never that dense)
and get back on the trail towards the others, hearing sticks land not far from
me. Finally I get to where the others are, which is further from the troupe.
Brad points to a stick, that is caught in a branch about 10 feet overhead, and
tells me that that it came down just as I came through that spot and he was
pretty sure I was about to be hit.
We come upon a small flock of scarlet macaws feeding in a monkey comb
tree. These trees are fairly common, and the fruit, the monkey comb, looks
exactly like a green sea urchin (found in the inland protected waters on the
west coast of BC) in size and shape, and in the surface spines. The spines are
shorter though, and where the urchin mouth would be, there is a slightly bigger
opening. This outer shell is filled with large seeds inside. The macaws are
eating the seeds. They use a foot to hold on to the fruit while they break it
open and pull out seeds with the beak. (I have also seen semi-tame macaws with
wing feathers tied so they cannot fly, using their beak as a third foot as they
climb trees).
There is no rain today but it is hot and very humid. I am feeling
uncomfortable too because I am feeling a mild allergic reaction probably to some insect bites and some of the plants I
have been touching. It is nothing serious just uncomfortable.
Othopterans (as well as butterflies and moths,beetles, ants and
termites) seem to be one of the more obvious insect groups that we encounter.
Among these, we see katydids which come in many different sizes, shapes and
colours, but all of which are mimics of some kind of leaves. In my cabin alone,
I have spotted 2 species of cockroach
and 1 kind of cricket.
On our walks, I have seen lots of fireflies, many long-horned beetles,
and several kinds of buprestids (shiny metallic beetles whose larvae are
wood-borers). On the ground this afternoon, I
find a pupal case. It looks like a dipteran (fly) pupal case but it has
long raptorial front legs. I do not know of any flies in Canada that have front
legs like this, but clearly there is one species here that does. This is
definitely not Canada.
Our last evening here at the camp, we have time and daylight before
dinner, so I change to go for a run. Daylight is beginning to fade, so I bring
my headlamp to illuminate the path, mostly so that I will see any snakes which
happen to be lying across it. The run is uneventful, but on the way back I
definitely need the light to see what I am going to step on. My head lamp is
too dim to help much so I take it off my head and hold it as close to the
ground as I can to illuminate the ground. I get back in time to take a (cold,
gravity fed) shower before supper. The cold water feels great! There are one or
two electric lights fed by car batteries in the mess cabin, both for the cook
and one bulb is also used when eating after dark. Other than that, we are in
the dark after dark.
All of us sleep unbelievably well for our three nights in the camp. The
sounds of the rainforest are loud and varied but give all of us a deep sense of
peace, and when we leave this area on Day 6 of our trip, we all miss these
sounds profoundly.
There are a lot of insects that we (or I) have seen and examined and
here are some of them. We have repeatedly seen solitary wasps digging burrows
in the ground to bury prey with their
offspring. We have also seen huge waps nests hanging from tree branches. We
have frequently seen very small species of bees with their nests within a tree
trunk and a chewed wood, exit chimney on the side of the trunk and heavy bee
traffic going in and out. We have come across fire ants, with very large chewed
wood nests on the side of a tree trunk and thousands of very tiny fire ants
crawling up and down it. (I also saw what I think are the same ones in Bolivia
which our guide there called ‘crazy ants’ but more about those later.) We
frequently saw soldier ants with large yellow abdomens moving rapidly in a 5-cm wide column. We were warned
to stay out of their way, and did, so I am not sure what happens when you
don’t. They are voracious foragers and can attack other ant species. There was
one small species of ant that Juan had a couple of us try eating (me, of
course): they had an odd minty taste. Arboreal termite nests were everywhere,
extremely common. As well as the nests themselves, the trails on tree trunks
were also covered with chewed wood giving the termites a good deal of
protection from predators. We continued to see butterflies puddling in the wet
mud along the river’s edge any time the weather was half decent. At one point I
noted a number of the butterflies were blue and green with swallowtail style
tails. There was something odd about them but I could not put my finger on
what. That is, until Juan pointed out that they never folded their wings butterfly-like
vertically behind them, leaving them always out-stretched flat. These are
Urania moths. I can only assume that they are mimics of a distasteful butterfly
species, but I did not clearly identify the species. (If correct, this is an
example of Batesian mimicry; like the palatable Viceroy butterfly which mimics
the toxic Monarch). On the last night at
the Manu camp, I found a very large assassin bug with very long legs, again
unlike any I had seen before.
There were also a lot of tree species that Juan pointed out many of
which we grew to know. Others, we had more difficulty with, because their huge size precluded using leaves for
identification (too high up) and the various growth habits of trees seemed to
be shared by many species. This is of course made harder by the sheer number of
species (over 200 species in a single hectare).
I am convince though that a lot of trees can and are identified by smell
or taste or some other less obvious character trait.
We did learn to recognize the huge kapok tree (one study found 1000 spp
of insects including 40 spp ants living on a single individual). These trees
can be over 60 m tall and generally stick up above the canopy; they have huge
buttresses holding up the tree, as rainforest trees generally have very shallow
roots but ones that can extend for great distances.
A
kapok tree
There is also the aji ajo tree, another giant tree which smells like garlic
and almost invariably has a huge, rotten centre. While the cacao tree was hard
to identify in the forest, it would not as soon as the fruits start to grow, as
they grow right out of the trunk. When we were there, though, the shells of the
fruit were to be found (commonly enough) on the forest floor. The Naked tree
was easy to identify with its naked trunk, the bark peeling for a good distance
up into the canopy. The monkey ladder
vine was another obvious one, a vine (of which there are many kinds) whose
growth habit made it look like a wooden chain.
The holy tree was another obvious one, but not for what it has, but what
it doesn’t: neighbours. It has a
symbiotic relationship with ants which live inside it. The ants attack all
creatures that would eat some part of it. But the ants also trim away any
plants that start to grow near it, so that the forest floor for a considerable
distance around the trunk is devoid of anything living. On a subsequent trip
into the Amazon rainforest in Bolivia, a guide tells me these are fire ants:
the sting of one is very painful and if attacked by a lot the stings can be
fatal. More about these later. There
were Brazil nuts, the large shells of which we found a few times on the forest
floor. There were Spanish Cedar and Mahogany trees, both of which were fairly
distinctive and which, Juan assured us, were rare outside of strictly protected
reserves because the wood is worth a lot of money (I mean A LOT of money, like
maybe $50 000 standing, and maybe $500 000 delivered to Europe). There was the strangler fig, a vine which
attacks trees, eventually killing them and taking over the tree trunk. This
tree more than any other to me epitomizes the rainforest. There is an intense
struggle for survival in the rainforest, and it is not just among animals.
Every group of living things is fighting hard, as growing conditions are
excellent, and innovative evolution is everywhere. Necessity is, after all, the
mother of invention. Some other Amazon plants that we did not see but that we
know are out there include: rubber, pineapple, breadfruit, starfruit, cotton,
cassava, avocado, and sugar cane.
DAY 6. The red howler wakes us
again on schedule around 5 AM. We have breakfast at 7 and are ready to leave by
8 AM. I do not think any of us are really eager to leave. We slowly make our
way downriver which is still fast but nothing like when we arrived. We arrive
at the Ranger Station and check out. At
another location, Juan points out where the Mashco Piro or the Nanty people
have camped. He says that the Park staff set up their own camp to keep an eye
on them from a distance. We arrive back
at the confluence between the Manu and Alto Madre de Dios, and continue down
the Madre de Dios a short distance to the town of Boca Manu (Manu River mouth).
It is a sleepy little town with three ways of making a living (other than
agriculture, fishing and hunting which I
am sure everyone practices). First there are boat-builders here. We notice the
crudely prepared hulls, which are great slabs of tree trunks which have been
pointed at both ends, and hollowed out with a chain saw. To these will be
nailed 2 or 3 rows of planks on each side which will be heavily caulked to form
what are the standard Amazon boats. Second are the several (at least 8 and maybe
more) general stores which supply not only the townsfolk but people that live
all along the river within traveling distance. Third, there are log salvagers.
When the river is high like now, and also during the summer rainy season, trees
are frequently carried away to be stranded somewhere on a sand bar, and these
are cut up and used or sold.
When we find our hostal in the town, we shower, change, and several of
us decide to wash our clothes. When a couple of the local women start giggling
and I want to know why, I find that they find it funny that men are washing
clothes. In traditional societies in the Amazon and in the Andes, this is
women’s work. Most of us feel that we
are in town and can put on shorts. This is a mistake. There are large numbers
of no-see-ums, known as sand flies in many parts. All of us get quite bitten,
and the bites are extremely itchy, and some last for weeks. For me, the last
bite does not stop itching and heal until almost 4 weeks later. I check into boat prices as I am considering
doing an Amazon canoe trip in about 2 years time, and I think that these boats
will be the best way to go. The 40 ft boats go for about 15 000 soles ($6 000),
and the 30 ft ones for about 10 000 soles ($4000) although Juan thinks the
latter are too small. I am still not sure nor am I sure that this is where I
would want to start a trip (Rio Madre de Dios to Rio Beni to Rio Amazonas to
Santarem). A pica-pica, the little outboard motors used here with a very long
shaft and a propeller protector, sell for about 3000 soles. I was not thinking
of using a motor. Juan seems to think that one is needed to maintain a breeze
and keep the flies off in the lower Amazon.
Brad sitting in the bottom part of a modern dugout canoe. Although there
are still lots of traditional ones in use, this style, with a hollowed out log
bottom (hollowed out with chainsaw), will then have plank sides nailed on and
caulked.
Later, we watch the sunset from a high river bank on the tile floor of
what was once a house, but now half of it is in the river. The town is on the
outside of a river bend, where the river inevitably cuts: the houses are
disappearing into the river on an annual basis. When I asked why the town was
built on this side I was told that the other side belongs to another group. The
sun, as it always does in the tropics, goes down extremely quickly. After
supper, Matt and I see that all the food has been left out in the open in the kitchen.
Thinking about the rats, we start to put all the food where the rats cannot get
at it. Gloria, the cook, comes in and seems to approve. Thinking about it
later, we should have left the bread out. It was purchased on Day 2. Four days
later it is getting stale. By the next day, I am probably the last person to
decide that it is not worth eating.
DAY 7. Today all our travel is
upstream, about 7 hours worth, and the river Alto Madre de Dios is still
extremely swift with many rapids. The day is mostly sunny, hot and humid. The
boat driver has to balance off two concerns. The rapids are very strong and
hard to go up. But beside them are many areas of shallow water. So he manages
by traveling on the side of each rapid, each area of very strong current. A river
this big does not behave as one; rather they are many big and small currents,
and depending on the bottom, they do not all go in the direction of the river
bed. As we make our way up each rapid , I am hoping that the motor will not die
as that would put us in a very precarious position, and we have had some motor
troubles earlier in the day. Part way through the day we meet up with another
boat going toward Manu Park, and the drivers trade boats. They also trade spare
outboards as their spare is problematic. (All boats operating in the park use a
60 HP motor and have a second one as a spare.)
On the way up´river we do not see that much: some shorebirds and a few
turtles. I am already missing the Park. We do at one point see three men and a
truck on a sandbar. There is a small barge that has been used to bring the
truck there and the men are salvaging wood from logs that have been stranded on
the sandbar. On one bathroom break on the shore, Juan points out Mimosa pudica,
otherwise known as the sensitive plant, a small low herbaceous plant with thin
compound leaves. The leaves of this plant will fold up when touched, presumably
an anti-herbivore device (for insects). It is pretty amazing to see this. We
also see many stands of balsa trees, a fast-growing tree with very large
maple-like leaves which grows in large stands close to the river. Juan explains
that, when people are in a river to build a boat, they will used balsa wood
because it is so easy to work. However, boats made of this soft wood will only
last for a week or so. (Another man I travel with later explains that the balsa
boats can last a long time if properly braced with cross bracing. It seems that
the quick and dirty method of bracing is just to use thin rope or forest
equivalents.
The scenery is different than on the Manu. There are many planted trees
including bananas and papayas. Many of the big trees are absent including the
highly prized cedar and mahogany. Of course, far fewer birds and monkeys.
We arrive back at Erika Lodge which is a bit anti-climatic. I get
Willy’s email address so that I can send him the photos of him on the zipline
that he wants. I borrow a fishing line
and a hook from an older fellow who works there and another line from our boat
driver’s assistant, along with a small sliver of meat. I use small stones
wrapped in plastic which I tie to the line as a sinker, and throw out the
baited hooks. There is a lot of current and the water is shallow close to
shore. After a number or tries along the shore, I try from our tied up boat. I
hook a fish, feels like a pound or two, but the hook comes off the line and I
lose it. Several snags later I have lost both hooks and I am done. I return the
lines and pay for the lost hooks. Note
to self: buy some line and hooks before returning to the Amazon. Finished the
evening by playing cards again. Jana does not know this game (similar to
euchre) and is very reckless in her card
playing and because of it, she and her partner (first Brad and then Anna) lose
badly.
I find a rhinoceros beetle crawling along through the grass. I pick it
up and allow it to crawl over my shirt. It is enormous and the tarsal claws
that you barely feel on most insects, actually are somewhat painful as it
crawls over me. Eventually, after a few photos, I let it go. That evening we
also spot a cane toad, which is enormous. This toad, which has poison glands
behind the head making it safe from most predators, was imported into Australia
and is now one more scourge that Aussies have to deal with.
A rhinoceros beetle.
DAY 8. We travel upstream to Port
Atalaya for an hour and then hop back in a large van for the 7 or 8 hour trip
back to Cusco. As we travel, the mountains which had appeared in the distance
yesterday are soon all around us. We make one interesting stop at a Rescue
Centre for illegal, confiscated animals for the pet trade, unwanted pets, or
injured animals. There we have the chance to see and interact with macaws
(feisty as usual), 2 kinds of peccaries (2 immature males which are continually
wrestling with each other), a coati (ceaselessly exploring, not unlike its
raccoon cousins), a capybara (the blond type which is extremely tame and
friendly), a spider monkey and a white-fronted capuchin monkey (which perches
on my shoulder and proceeds to groom the inside of my ears). We are back in
Cusco by about 6 PM and I arrive back at the hostal in a daze.
A semi tame spider monkey. You can see where the name comes from. These monkeys just fly through the trees.
Jana with a blue and yellow macaw. Macaws are very intelligent as well
as beautiful birds.
The following day I meet up with the Aussies for supper and to exchange
photos. They are frantically getting ready for the Inca Trail hike to Machu
Picchu the next day. Still, Brad, Matt and I go out to a bar and have a few
drinks. It is too late for me by the time I get home (1:30) and I do not sleep
much and am in a daze the next day. In the second day, I need to get ready for
my hike coming up. I spend a good part of the day in the area of the Mercado
San Pedro where Raquel has explained to me where to buy what. I purchase a spare
flashlight, some batteries, an extra flash drive, a new sun hat (to replace my
badly ripped one), some playing cards, some fish hooks and fishing line, a
jersey and a bit of food. I have just time to catch up on emails but no time to
work on this blog which is getting further and further behind.
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