Kia ora friends and whanau,

This is Gemma here for what is sure to be a long Amazon recount, so get comfy : )

We arrived in Cusco on the 23rd of Sept and set about the next day visiting many of the many tour companies offering Amazon trips to the area we wanted to go, Manu National Park. People we´d talked to and our guide books had recommended Manu as one of the best protected and most biodiverse areas on earth. The company we went with is called Pantiacolla and was set up by a bubbly Dutch biologist, Marianne, who came to Manu to do primate research and stayed on. She had us convinced with her straight to the point description of the tour and her obvious passion for the area and the ecology. She´s even involved in a law suit that an Indigenous tribe are bringing against a large oil company who have decided to set up shop on the tribes land adjacent to the National Park.

We booked on a Friday for the 9-day tour leaving on Sunday and met our travel companions at a briefing the next day. There was a good mix of young and old and different nationalities so it looked promising. We were picked up at 5am on Sunday morning (after sleepily wishing Mike a happy 25th birthday and giving him a wildlife watching book) and met our guides, Darwin, who was taking the 5- and 7-day people, and Nicholas who was our guide. We had long bus ride that was pretty hairy at times on a road where the driver (laughing maniacally half the time) often had to scoot around rock falls and could only toot the horn and pray as we rounded blind corners on the wrong side of the road. We even had to get out and walk at one point as the bus picked its way over the rock debris from the dynamite used by the road workers. Nothing like the slight fear of death to bond with your companions though!

Eventually reached the top of the mountain and the landscape gave way from dry grass and eucalypts (a successful import to south america useful for preventing erosion) to short (elfin) shrubby forest shrouded in clouds with a stunning view down the mountainous valley to the cloud forest below - it could have almost been NZ. We breathed in the clean air and relished the lack of human habitation as we took a quick walk to the sign announcing the beginning of the national park. Manu is about 1.8 million ha and is divided into three zones, a Cultural zone which straddles the Alto Madre de Dios river and includes several villages occupied by indigenous people who are now living in modern society. The second area is the restricted zone set aside for tourism and without permanent residents except for the lodges. You need to be with a guide to enter and they limit numbers to 3000 per year to preserve the ecosytem. The third zone is most of the park and is everything to the west of the other zones. It is restricted to all except permitted researchers and there are two tribes of non-contacted people living there, who have only been seen by others once or twice. Our guide Nicholas was doing research in that area when he was shot at with arrows from the tribespeople who were laying in wait, luckily they got stuck in the side of his boat.

We wound down through cloud forest and stopped to look for animals. We were amazed at the brillant colours on the hundreds of butterflies collecting minerals from the clay and already started seeing birds and even came upon a troupe of wooly monkeys. Spent the first night in the cloud forest arriving soaked through to the lodge as we got caught in a huge downpour - the size of the raindrops is incredible! The next morning we were warned that the road was probably blocked as no cars had driven past and sure enough, an hour down the road we came upon a huge rock slip across the road so we scrambled over and left the bus to wait for rescue. Set off hiking down the road and 3 hrs later we reached a small village where we gratefully bought cold drinks because it was starting to become stifling hot - something we would get very used to over the next few days! The bus picked us up and we set off to the shores of the river where we changed transport onto our boats, long wooden sided, steel hulled river boats powered by outboards. We quickly found it is one of the most comfortable ways to travel as we were ensconsed in cushioned seats with a very welcome breeze and a great view of the riverbanks.

The lodges we stayed in over our time were all very comfortable with cute cabin rooms, comfortable beds with the essential mozzie nets and cold showers which we jumped into at least twice a day, often more, to try to cool down. They had large communal dining rooms and we were fed ridiculously well by the chef who travelled with us and even managed to serve up hot lunches on the boat if we were travelling at that time. We did get a laugh out of having piping hot soup as a starter every dinner time. Even more hilarious was being asked to play football with the staff, I don´t know how we survived that game but it did help being on the winning side with the boat captain and his helper, a boy of maybe 15yrs (not sure why he wasn´t in school but we get used to kids running the show at shops and restaurants throughout Bolivia and Peru so it´s not unusual to see kids with jobs).

Ok, onto the animals. We hiked basically every day, usually twice, sometimes three times and went out onto lakes on rafts about 4 times so there were plenty of wildlife watching opportunities which suited us perfectly. Nicolas, the guide was great and could id a bird in seconds. I guess that what comes from 15 years working in the jungle. We saw over 90 bird species over the 9 days and some highlights included the bright orange and black c*** of the rock which is Peru´s national bird, huge wading birds such as egrets. herons, jabiru´s, and storks (which, confusingly, didn´t appear to have babies wrapped in sheets with them - they must have just made a drop off I guess), the noisy and funny looking hoatzins and horned screamers, many birds of prey such as kites, hawks and ospreys as well as the scavenger vultures. We also saw the long-tailed potoo although it took a while to spot as is looks just like a branch stump as it sits still as a statue sleeping all day.
Another bird highlight was getting up early and sitting in a hide in front of a clay bank, munching on hot pancakes watching flocks of parakeets and macaws getting up the courage to fly down and start eating the clay in a daily ritual.

The insects and other invertebrates were amazing because of their size, colours and sheer diversity - you hardly ever saw the same thing twice. There were moths as large as birds, about 20 cm across, huge spiders with bright colours, culminating in the hand-sized tarantula we found nesting in the bathroom at one lodge (we saw about 20 one night on a walk after dark), and all manners of beetles, crickets, cicada´s and various creepy crawlies. You never showered alone! There were many ant species such as the nasty bullet ants and scavenging army ants who are always on the move, but my favourites were the leaf-cutter ants. You could see them hurrying alone their well kept, 15cm wide trails throughout the forest carrying impossible large sections of leaves back to huge underground nests where they store the plant matter and let it decompose then feed their young on the fungus which grows on the leaves, pretty darn smart ants!
Obviously the bugs weren´t all welcome and we all ended up with bites from mozzies, sandflies and worst of all, ticks (only one for me thankfully) despite wearing long pants and shirts (a big ask in that heat) and plenty of insect repellent the whole time.

We saw some big animals too. A shy 50kg capybara, the world´s largest rodent, was half submerged near the riverbank. We saw plenty of frogs, sometimes in the shower, and lots on night walks most of which were well camouflaged to look like leaves. We saw two snakes of a common, very small variety. Side-necked turtles were common sunbathing on driftwood in the river. The very rare giant river otters put on a great show for us and we spent a good hour or so on a raft watching them catch fish, eat them lying on their backs and them scurry up the banks to roll around in the leaves. At one point Nicholas took us up a 22m observation tower and who should greet us when we reach the top but red howler monkeys eating berries no more than 3 metres from our faces! It was pretty special to watch them, especially the babies as they went about their lives. They were curious about us and watched as we watched them but seemed very unconcerned, scratching, yawning and contiuing to eat as we watched. We saw other monkeys such as capuchins and spider monkeys at other points on the trip too. After the observation tower we were each able to walk back to the boat by ourselves, waiting a few minutes between each person. I really enjoyed this but there were a couple of slightly heartracing moments at other points such as having big branches hurled at us by a troupe of wooly monkeys whom Nicholas had purposely annoyed by shaking their trees! At another point he heard white-lipped peccaries (basically pigs) in the distance and called them to attack by imitating the call of their enemy, the jaguar. Before doing so he told us that if they attack we needed to climb a tree which is all well and good except all the trees have no low branches and are smooth barked. When he called them we could hear them starting to run which sounded like thunder as they travel in herds of 200-500. We ran.
The presence of jaguars was more exciting than frightening but the closest we came to one was seeing foot print and hearing one call. Nicholas did say though that a local boy was taken and killed by one a few months earlier and he told a story of an alcoholic guy from the Andes who came to Manu to work and was detoxing when he went for a walk by himself never to return. Three days later some tourists spotted a jaguar eating something and as they approached they saw it was a human being eaten, the guy from the Andes.
The one truly scary moment was on the 3rd to last day when the rain began as we were hiking. Pretty soon there was thunder and lightening every few seconds and the wind had whipped up. I heard a huge crack from a tree 10 metres away and saw it bending our way so I yelled and we all ran for it! We had a good laugh at dinner that night because apparently in my panic I yelled, rather dramatically, ¨Run! Don´t look back!¨

Seeing a jaguar is obviously a good excuse to come back and there were some other animals I would have loved to look for given more time such as armadillo´s (we saw a fresh nest), tapirs, sloths and the ananconda. All good reasons to return one day!

We had contact with locals on the second day when we were given a performance of dance, story telling and a guy who could imitate the animals perfectly by the same indigenous tribe that are fighting the oil company. They do the tourism to try earn money for their legal fees so a lot of us bought jewellry they´d made to help the cause.

Local elections were on while we were there for the president of the whole region and the local area, and every village was festooned with the banners of the various candidates who each have a symbol such as a heart shaped tree, loaf of bread and, bizarrely, a bear wearing a hard-hat pushing a wheelbarrow. Despite his bribe of a huge stack of beer the owner of the main shop in the village of Boca Manu didn´t win! Elections also meant we saw overloaded boats of people heading to Boca Manu to vote because you get fined if you don´t vote. The boats would ofter run aground in the river because the river is the lowest it´s been in many years. Our boat scraped along the bottom on plenty of occasions too.

The area received some much needed rain which started during our afternoon walk on the third to last day and didn´t stop until midday the next day. I enjoyed the thunder and lightening as well as the rain on the iron roof that night. The winds changed completely to a southerly they occasionally get in Manu which comes from Patagonia and drops the temp by around 15 degrees. We actually wore pants and jumpers and slept under blankets that night (and actually looked forward to the soup that night!). The next day became games day as the rain continued we had an epic game of frog which involves tossing heavy metal coins at a wooden box with holes in the top and a metal, open mouthed frog in the middle which is worth 5000pts for getting it in the frog and between 100-2000 pts for the different holes. Winner was first to 15,000 and Nicholas and Mike were neck and neck most of the time but I´m pleased to report that I came through on late surge to win with 17,600 (but who´s counting? : )). We also played speed charades with famous people which is funny esp when there are four differents nationalities in the group; kiwis, Peruvian Nicholas, a British couple in their late thirties who are travelling for a year and heading to NZ soon, and a young Swiss couple in their early 20´s. That afternoon we visited the hot springs up the river, which we were luckily able to enjoy thanks to the change in weather. We returned all relaxed and shared the bottle of wine that was my prize for winning frog as well as a bottle of rum the chef had bought for us. Needless to say we slept well that night and woke at 4.30am to get ready to leave. A huge trip back to Cusco that day on the boat then the bus, starting at 6am and not arriving home til 9pm that night!

We were all sad to leave (although getting our laundry back dry and clean the next day was nice!) and I think we would all love to return someday just as someone who had written in the visitors book at one of the lodges had said, ¨Back after 13 years and not much has changed¨. We can only hope that will be the case.

Ciao! xoxo
Gemma