Mother of God, what a rainforest!

Pre-Inca graves, Chulpas
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After reading about the Manu National park and it´s huge unspoilt rainforest reserve and protected wildlife, we decided to book an 8 day trek before we left Britain. We were both very excited about this trip.........

Mary and Matt, a couple from San Fran had also signed up for the trip The journey in to the rainforest took 10 hours by minibus and another hour by boat and this was just to the first lodge on the banks of the Madre de Dios river (Mother of God to you and me!). The Madre de Dios river is one of the tributaries of the Amazon river and was called this by the Spanish explorers. The explorers had been searching for gold in the rainforest but all they discovered was malaria and other nasty tropical diseases! Finding the river and a way out of the rainforest was an answer to their prayers and so they named the river "mother of God"!

It was only half a meter long and wouldn´t bite unless provoked

Welcome to Manu!
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It sounds a lot 10 hours on a minibus starting at 4:30 in the morning but we were stopping all the way to look at pre-Inca burial sites as we crossed the Andean mountains at 4,000 m, cloud forest on the other side and finally down to rainforst at 600 m.

By the time we got to the rainforest we had already seen a grey fox, 2 types of monkey (Wooley & Spider) a beautiful emerald Quetzal bird (national bird of Guatemala), loads of "Cock of the Rock" birds (the national birds of Peru), an Olive snake and lots and lots of mosquitos!

Cloudforest Waterfall
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Our first night was spent in a lodge a short boat journey down the Madre De Dios river. After of couple of warm beers (there was no electricity) we ventured on our first night walk to find... snakes and spiders of course oh and huge, huge moths. (For those of you that didn´t know, Claire has a moth phobia). We learn´t rapidly that head torches were best held in the hand unless you liked being divebombed by every damn creature in the rainforest. The rainforest was alive with insects the size of your hand with scary antenna and painful stings. After seeing plenty of frogs, locusts and spiders we did see a rather cute possum with huge night eyes, very cute.

Beautiful Quetzal
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The next few days were spent getting up really early to catch the best animals, usually at clay licks. Most birds and a few mammals like to lick clay mud as the minerals contained help digestion, so if you want to see lots of birds you need to head to the mud!

Every evening we headed off for a night walk mostly to see common sites such as frogs and spiders, however on one such nightwalk we hit lucky, our guide managed to spot the eyes of a very rare cat......a Puma to be exact! We were all so stunned all we managed was a mouth open gawp for a couple of minutes before the cat effortlessly dissapeared into the night......so no photos to prove it!

Flathead
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The low point of our trip has definitely got to be the Tapir lick, a mud hole in the middle of the rainforest where Tapirs visit in the dead of night. To observe these creatures you have to sit on a platform undercover and wait....and wait..... We arrived at the platform after running through the intensly humid rainforest for an hour, by this time it was already dark (only 6.30pm). The platform was basic to say the least, with matresses on the floor covered by canvas mozzie nets (basically a human oven) and very little else. As soon as we arrived our guide told us to get into our beds, be quiet and turn all our lights off! He was going to wait up to watch for the Tapirs while we were told to get some sleep.

One of many pretty flutterbys
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.........the next morning we awoke, covered in sweat, at about 5am. No Tapirs had visited the lick, or that´s what our guide told us! Funnily enough after waiting all night to see a wild Tapir that night we stayed at a lodge with a tame Tapir, which we could pet and feed carrots for as long as we wanted!!

After this this the weather turned and we experienced tropical downpours, some of which happened when we were on the river. Luckily we had plastic sheeting to protect us, unlucky for us when it rains all the animals hide too.

Hairy Monster
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We went out for a night walk after a day of heavy rain to find that most of the paths were flooded, luckily we were fine beacuse we had wellies on or so we thought........after 30 mins of walking the paths became more and more flooded until we ended up waist deep in water......wellies were no use here! Exciting for some, our guide spotted a Caiman whilst we were wading. It was only meters away, and promptly sank to the bottom as we approached. Our guide spotlight it for us as we stood next to it. It was only half a meter long and wouldn´t bite unless provoked our guide reassured us. Shortly after this Matt was emptying his wellies out when a bug landed on his neck. He forgot the "swat it" mantra in his moment of desperation and picked it off his neck. It promptly stung him (like slamming his hand in a door was his description of the pain), luckily the guide had experienced more pain than this before and gave no sympathy apart from a brief lecture on what it was like to be bitten by 4 bullet ants. Phew.

In the "Cock of the Rock" hide
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Our second to last evening was spent at a luxury (for us) lodge, with a social area protected with moth nets and decent ensuite huts with no cockroaches. The wine flowed and we stayed up late (at least 10pm!) before heading to bed. A commotion from Matt and Marys room disturbed us. They had a surprise roomie.... a Tarantula which had made it´s home near Marys pillow. Henry our boat captain saved the day and airlifted it out. Releasing it under the hut therby teaching the aggresively territorial beast a lesson, never to return, well for a least a few minutes.

The Cock of the Rock!
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On our last day the only highlight in the rain during a long day of travelling was a visit to the hot springs. Callum & Matt got in the hot pool, whilst the ladies were satisfied with paddling in the hot shallows. Randomly some South Koreans and their film crew turned up doing some MTV style docu about their travels, bizarre. Our crew had been busy and caught lots of fish whilst we were in the hot springs, sadly not for our pot. Though we did get to taste one of the bony things later.

Coca Farmer Callum
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We returned on the same winding roads, dodging buses by inches and with breathtaking views as we passed through the mountains back to Cusco..