Sunday, August 10

Location: Amaz⌠nia Lodge, Manu Reserve, Peru

Today's weather: 21░C.

I struggled out of bed at 3am, getting my things together and hauling them downstairs to the entrance of the hostel where I expected to be met by Expeditiones Manu at 3:30am. The front door to the hostel was locked, so I had to wake up the attendant to let me out.

I waited outside the hostel for 40 minutes. I had been told that I would be picked up at 3:30am, but Tino didn't finally appear until after 4am. In the meantime I felt very nervous – I was standing outside on a dark street by myself, and there were lots of strange and suspicious-looking people wandering past. Taxis kept driving past me and tooting their horns to see if I wanted a ride, but I just shook my head each time to let them know I wasn't interested.

Tino finally showed up at 4:10am. At first I mistook him for just another suspicious character in the darkness, until he spoke and I realised who he was. He picked up my pack (I picked up all the other items), and we walked over to the truck which was parked around the corner. The truck was a big Volvo, with beefed-up suspension to handle the rough Andean roads, and comfortable reclining seats in a special compartment at the back. There were big windows so that we could have a good view of the scenery outside as we passed by (though it was still very dark at the moment). Here I met the other people that I'd be travelling with – there was Rob (from England), Paula (from Argentina), and Rick (from Australia). Our group were all quite young, Rob was the oldest (34 years), while Paula and Rick were both 26 (and I'm 28). Rob and Paula were both very interested in birdwatching – and, considering that Tino (our guide) was a biologist specialising in birds, it seemed that most of our activities for the next few days would be centred around birdwatching. I'd never been birdwatching before, so it was a new experience for me.

Despite the big Volvo truck's beefed-up suspension, driving along the Andean roads was very rough. The ride was a real "boneshaker". Tino had suggested that we could catch up on our sleep in the back of the truck, but I just took this as another Peruvian joke like the allocation of seat numbers on their train tickets (see diary entry for August 6). We drove along rough and narrow dirt roads. In the pre-dawn light I could see the shadows of the Andes mountains, and the perilous drops of deep canyons next to the roadside. I hoped the driver knew what he was doing – I kept remembering the words of the author, Peter Mathiesson, describing Andean bus drivers as "innocent of fear and common sense". But I think our driver was pretty good, he seemed cautious, and tooted his horn at each bend just in case there were other vehicles coming in the opposite direction (the road was only wide enough for one vehicle).

Shortly after dawn we arrived at some old Inca tombs. These tombs dated from early in the Inca period, and the construction wasn't nearly as good as that around Cuzco or at Machu Picchu. Tino also gave us a quick lesson about the ecology of the area. The hills and mountains around Cuzco were once covered by forests. Some areas were cleared by the Incas for agricultural land – but most of the hills were cleared by the Spaniards who burned the forests to search for valuable minerals such as gold and silver and to use the land for farmland. Unfortunately, the soil was mostly poor and not very good for farming. In the 1930s, the government established a programme to reforest large areas with Australian Eucalyptus which was very fast growing. But no-one realised that Eucalyptus drinks a lot of water, and in some places it has caused the water tables to drop and is even drying up some small rivers and streams – slowly turning the land into desert. Recently there have been programmes to get rid of the Eucalyptus trees, but they are very difficult to kill. Even if you chop the trees down to their roots, the trees can recover and start growing again. This story is a familiar one – about how disturbing the natural balance and introducing new species can create new problems that no-one ever thought of. Ironically, some of the new agricultural programmes have reverted back to techniques used by the Incas – such as the building of terraces on the hillsides to provide flat agricultural land and to prevent the loss of good topsoil through erosion.

Breakfast was in a small town where all of the buildings were painted creamy-white with a light-blue trim – in old Spanish colonial town. Tino said that the town was proud of its colonial heritage, and that the mayor had ordered all the buildings in the town to be painted this way. The town had many fountains and an ancient colonial-style bridge which was about 400 years old. Tino said that this was one of the few remaining bridges in the area since many of them had been blown up by the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) during their long war against the Peruvian government. But the town's most famous monument was their statue of the Virgin Mary which normally resided in the town church. The townspeople had had it for many years, and recently carried it across the Andes so that it could be blessed by the Pope during one of his visits to Peru. Peruvians seem to be a very religious people, and worshipping of religious icons is a big part of the local culture.

We returned to the truck and continued our journey. Soon we were passing through the Cloud Forest, with its many plants, colourful flowers, butterflies, and diverse bird life. Along the sides of the road there were many small waterfalls carrying rainwater and water from glaciers down into the rivers below. The Cloud Forest was very beautiful and we stopped several times to look at the plants and birds. In some spots on the road there were hundreds of butterflies gathered together – covering the ground like a very beautiful carpet. We saw eagles, vultures, flycatchers, hummingbirds, and one very spectacular bird called a Cock-of-the-Rock. This was the real prize for the birdwatchers – the Cock-of-the-Rock is bright red, with a funny shaped head, and is famous for the little mating dance that it does on the rocks near rivers (hence its name). We even saw a small tree snake curled up in one of the trees.

Trees in the Cloud Forest are much smaller than in the rainforest. And because the forest at this altitude generates a lot of mist (or cloud) there are lots of ferns and other water-loving plants. Our walks were accompanied by the sounds of birds, frogs, and insects chirping from within the forest.

The truck continued further. By late in the afternoon, all the bouncing around was making us all feel a little uncomfortable and sore. The truck passed through an Indian village – very different from what I expected. The towns were littered with the rusting hulks of abandoned trucks, and we passed many other trucks on the road where the backs were crowded with people (I guess this is the local equivalent to a bus ride). There were cattle grazing on the sides of the road and in the nearby forest. In some places we could see plantations of bananas and coca leaves (commonly used for chewing and making teas).

Just after 5pm we finally reached the Alto Madre de Dios river. We had descended almost the entire height of the Andes, and were now at the beginning of the Amazon Basin (500 meters above sea level). We were all happy that the uncomfortable truck ride was over, and gladly climbed into a motorised canoe which would take us to the other side of the river (and across a small rapid). Once on the other side, there was an ancient Landrover to drive us along the short trail to Amaz⌠nia Lodge (driven by "Senor Santiago"). By now it was dark, and we only managed to catch brief glimpses of the forest in the beams from the Landrover's headlights. The jungle track was rough and very narrow – we had to drive straight through a small stream and there was a very loud bang as we lost the Landrover's roof-rack to some low overhanging trees. We caught fleeting glimpse of a nighthawk caught in the Landrover's headlights, and fireflies flittering through the surrounding rainforest. A few minutes later we arrived at the lodge.

"Welcome to Fantasy Island!", said Rick with reference to an old American TV show. This comment perfectly described the look and feel of the place, and it wasn't long before a nameless New Zealander pointed out that Tino looked a lot like Tattoo (one of the main characters from the show). The lodge was an old Spanish hacienda, formerly used by a rich landowner until the property was given to its tenants in the land reforms of 1968. Since there was no electricity, we wandered around by torchlight and used candles to light up our rooms.

We dumped our bags on the veranda next to our rooms, and gratefully accepted the complementary fruit juices followed by Pisco Sours (a local cocktail which tastes a lot like sweetened kerosene). We sat out on the veranda and (by torchlight) discussed our plans for the next few days. The remote lodge, the candles and torchlight, and the surrounding jungle made us all feel like characters in a Wilbur Smith novel.

The early start and long journey made us all feel very tired. There was little else to do after dinner (there was no electricity and very poor lighting), so we all went to bed early (9:15pm) in preparation for yet another early start the next morning.