Margaret’s Travel Log 10: Manu Biosphere Reserve – First Days

The final stage in our Peru trip involved a visit to the Manu Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage site that is located at the foot of the Andes about 250 km northeast of Cusco. The reserve, which contains the Manu National Park and Manu and Amarakaeri Reserved Zones, boasts the highest diversity of plants and animals of any park on Earth and forms part of the headwaters of the mighty Amazon River. (A map of the region can be found at http://www.inkanatura.com/mapmanu.asp.)

Our trip into the Manu Wilderness was a genuine adventure: physically and mentally challenging and full of unpredictable situations. You can only get into this area through a licensed tour operator. We chose Pantiacolla (www.pantiacolla.com), a founding member of Ecotour Manu, an alliance of operators working towards improving the infrastructure and the sole coordinator for Earthwatch throughout Peru.

A minibus collected us from our hotel early on Sunday morning and headed out of Cusco, stopping en route to collect some fresh bread for the trip. On board were our guide, Ruby, whose biological expertise and practical knowledge would be essential for our enjoyment of the trip, our cook, Luis, whose challenge would be to produce enjoyable and nourishing meals for us under very primitive conditions and the bus driver, whose job it was to get us safely to Atalaya, where we would transfer to a river boat for the rest of the trip.

Before leaving Cusco, we were each given a guidebook on the area containing details of the animals, plants and ecology of the region plus a checklist where we could tick off the species we had seen at the end of each day. The focus of the entire trip was on seeing and experiencing the diversity of life in the rainforest and, for us, obtaining some memorable pictures in the process.

The road from Cusco to the entry point for the Manu Biosphere Reserve passed through a dry, isolated region, where settlements were sparse and dust was an ever-present risk for our cameras. The trees in the foreground are Australian eucalypts, which have become the most common trees in the region.

Leaving Cusco also meant saying goodbye to most traces of modern civilisation. For a week we would be staying in jungle ‘camps’ with no electricity, no hot water and little in the way of creature comforts. Aside from the torches we had been instructed to bring, the only lighting at night would come from candles or kerosene lanterns. We would sleep under mosquito nets in single beds in huts with thatched roofs and wire-meshed walls with bamboo-leaf covering up to waist level. Some ‘camps’ provided sheets and a light blanket on the beds; for others we had to carry sleeping bags.

On the fringes of Cusco we also left the sealed highway and began climbing through the hills on a narrow, rutted road that twisted back and forth across the hillsides. Our first stop was made at Ninamarca to look at the pre-Inca settlement, which has been recently excavated and contains the tower-like tombs known as ‘Chulpas’.

The pre-Inca ruins at Ninamarca, showing the foundations of a building in the foreground with the cylindrical Chupla tombs behind. The site is located on a hilltop, overlooking several valleys.

People board the local bus on the road below Ninamarca. These trucks carry goods, with people perched on top of them, between villages.

A second stop about an hour later in the colonial village of Paucartambo provided

breakfast at a small cafø©, after which we were able to stretch our legs for half an hour while the minibus took on more fuel.

The colonial village of Paucartambo, showing the cobbled streets, whitewashed walls and tiled roofs that typify the area.

The bus then proceeded on to the Acjanacu pass, which marks the beginning of the Cultural Zone of Manu Biosphere Reserve. From here, the bus headed downwards, along cloud-clad slopes and through increasingly dense vegetation, pausing for a lunch stop beside the road, overlooking a deep, steep-sided valley that plunged hundreds of metres down to a tumbling stream in the distant valley below.

The road through the eastern Andean cloud forest is narrow and unsealed. It descends through approximately 3,000 metres of altitude to the Rio Alto Madre de Dios at Atalaya.

Late in the afternoon we were scheduled to stop for the night at the Posada San Pedro lodge, which is located about 500 metres below a roadside hide, which was set up to allow visitors to view the displays of Peru’s national bird, the Andean Cock of the Rock. The conspicuous males of this species are approximately 32 cm long, with brilliant scarlet heads and chests, black wings and bellies and dark grey backs. The display in communal ‘leks’ deep in the dimly-lit forest.

With our cameras and tele lenses attached, we were unloaded from the bus at the hide and crept in as quietly as possible finding, to our delight, three birds displaying in the lek. I was able to obtain one usable shot by setting the camera’s sensitivity to ISO 1600 and shooting with a focal length equivalent to 480mm. But even then I had to crop the shot to produce the picture below. This was our first experience of the difficulties of photographing wildlife in the Amazonian forests.

The only usable shot I obtained of the Andean Cock of the Rock, showing the bird’s characteristic disk-like crest and white-rimmed eye. A hand-held shot, taken with the lens barrel resting on the railing of the hide for extra stability.

An early start was on the agenda for the remaining part of our bust trip, which took up most of the morning and passed through several villages and farmlands before the final plunge down to the river at Atalaya. One of the key crops of this area is coca, which is best known as the source of cocaine but plays an important role in the diet and culture of Andean peoples. Many of the village houses had coca leaves drying in their gardens, with women carefully turning the leaves to ensure even drying.

A young woman turns coca leaves in front of her home. This shot was taken from the minibus as we slowed down while passing through the village.

Dried coca leaves ““ or leaves made into a tea – are widely used to alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness. Most hotels in high altitude areas provide baskets of leaves, thermoses of hot water and cups in their lobbies so visitors can make coca tea at any time. Commercially-produced tea bags are also available. Coca tea has little in the way of taste but is quite refershing and we found it helpful in high altitude areas. But, outside such environments, you wouldn’t go out of your way to drink it.