Manu National Park

Manu National Park is almost 2 million hectares of pristine rainforest, from cloudforest streams and waterfalls to wide slow moving rivers and dense low-land jungle. It is stunning, and home to vast quantities of flora and fauna, with it's only permant inhabitants it's wildlife and a few virtually uncontacted native groups who have split off from their major tribal units.

It took an age to get to - 6 hours by bus and we reached the edge of the park, having driven through tiny winding mountain roads, with steep drops and a bus which struggled to get into second gear and was incredibly uncomfortable with basically no suspension. Needless to say (for anyone who knows me anyway) I wasn't best pleased. But when we arrived at the park I was blow away. We came into cloud forest - we were at the top of a mountain surrounded by picturesque clouds and dense woodland. The roads got significantly worse, still with deep mountain-side drops and practically no road surface, often it became just mud and we drove through some waterfalls. I began to realise that we really were off the traditional tourist trail and began to get excited. At 7pm we arrived at our overnight lodge (having walked some of the way in the dark - which was better than being in the bus!), had dinner, went to bed and slept like babies to the noise of nature of the crickets, river and jungle by night.

The following day, Monday, was one of the best days of my life. We woke up in the middle of the jungle and went for a walk through beautiful scenary - a backdrop of mountains far off in the distance and vegetation at the sides of the road in more shades of green than I knew existed. After an hour of walking we got back into the bus and drove until we reached a little village which was impassable, because there was a parade going on. Children dressed in all sorts of different outfits were marching through their main road, blocking our way. It was lovely though - an enjoyable undocumented feature. The next village was our get-on for some river rafting. This was much more sedate than we'd done earlier in the week but the views were more magnificent. Behind us were huge mountains looming, partially covered by more picturesque clouds and on either side and in front of us was more lush vegetation. We reached a small town (a main port for Manu) where we traded in our raft for a motorised canoe and were taken down river to our lodge. This lodge is completely inaccessible by road, and overlooks the river.

Then we trekked deep into the jungle, shortly before dusk, and saw all manner of insects and interesting trees - my favourite was the tree which has its trunk 10 feet into the air, below which slim straight roots spread out to the floor, giving it the name 'the walking tree'. Blissful. After dinner, and after the electricity went out, Rhys and I looked at the stars. It was partially cloudy but where there were stars, there were millions. It was beautiful.

On Tuesday we awoke to the roar of the river at 5am to go parrot spotting. We saw many flocks of parakeets, and three toucans. On the way back to the lodge the boatsman spotted giant guinea pigs (cuy) at the side of the river - the biggest rodents in the world. After breakfast we trekked for an hour deep into the jungle in immense heat and humidity to reach the beginning of the canopy zip line tour. I overcame my fear of heights and took 4 zip lines through the tree tops. It was beautiful. In the afternoon we took the boat to an oxbow lake. On the walk from the river to the lake we saw streams of ants clearing the woods and a small group of little monkeys as well as more birds of prey. When we reached the lake we took wooden rafts we saw many types of birds and then more giant cuy. The sun was setting as we made our way back through the jungle. After dinner Rhys and I chatted with an American guy and a couple of the guides and then I went to bed.

The following morning I woke up early and took photographs of the sunrise over the river. It was stunning. We spent the whole of Wednesday getting back to Cusco - although fortunately in a bus which was in a signifncalty better condition. There weren't any undocumented features and after dinner we fell, exhausted into bed. It was a fabulous, gorgeous, couple of days and we'd love to go back, or to have spent longer.